Features

Jeffrey John Bell is one of the best-known pub landlords in the country who built his reputation with two London pubs, the Gunmakers and the Finborough Arms. But now he's running the ancient Ypres Castle Inn in Rye on the Romney Marsh in Sussex where he offers a range of beers from local breweries, including Three Legs on a local farm.

Added: Friday, December 7th 2018

Most beers are meant for immediate consumption but there are some strong versions that should be treated with the same respect as vintage wine and which will improve with age. Two such recent additions are the latest Thomas Hardy's Ale and Fuller's Vintage Ale. It's claimed the Thomas Hardy's will improve over 25 years while samplings show the Fuller's beer with deepen its complexities if laid down for a few years

Added: Wednesday, December 5th 2018

A group of four beer lovers called The Completists take on the onerous task every year of visiting every pub listed in the Good Beer Guide.They visited St Albans, a small city with 50 pubs, and joined Roger Protz on a selection of some of the pubs in the 2019 guide. When news leaked out via social media, a few more drinkers came along for a crawl of pubs with not only good beer but also some fascinating history

Added: Tuesday, November 27th 2018

The small market town of Waltham Abbey in Essex once claimed, with 27 inns, to have the most pubs in Europe. The number has declined to 10 but they include the ancient Welsh Harp, with links to the abbey, the 17th century Sun, and the multi-award-winning Woodbine on the edge of Epping Forest that has won 27 awards from CAMRA for beer and cider and now plans its own brewery

Added: Monday, November 19th 2018

Paul Theakston, seen with is sons Jo and Rob, left the family brewery in Masham in the Yorkshire Dales when it was taken over by Scottish & Newcastle. He nursed his wounds for a few years then opened Black Sheep in a former maltings just yards from the rival brewery. He devised a new course for his brewery: he owned no pubs and relied on the free trade. It's been a rocky road but the brewery is flourishing. Paul has now handed over the reins to his sons and can reflect on his tumultuous brewing story

Added: Friday, November 9th 2018

John Keeling has just retired as head brewer at Fuller's but he has a new mission in life -- to boost the fortune's of cask beer. He says Britain's unique contribution to beer is seeing sales fall by 10% a year. His recommendations include greater quality control, with no cask served longer than three days, and a special differential rate of duty when Britain leave the European Union

Added: Tuesday, October 30th 2018

Greece has a vast number of islands and several of them are now home to new craft breweries. They include the Nissos Brewery that concentrates on organic lagers and Mikonu on Mykonos, where founders Angelos Ferous and Janos Bako (pictured) learned the brewing skills at BrewDog in Scotland. Other islands with flourishing breweries include Crete and Santorini

Added: Tuesday, October 23rd 2018

Sofoklis Panagiotu founded Septem Brewery at the height of the Greek financial crisis but he has survived and now runs the biggest craft brewery in the country. He produces both draught and bottled beers and exports to 13 countries. He grows his own hops and used them to make a wet hop beer this autumn with Cascade and Chinook varieties. There are now some 45 small craft breweries in Greece but they face stiff competition from Heineken and Carlsberg who account for around 85% of beer sales

Added: Friday, October 19th 2018

New England IPA is yet another variant of a style that shows no signs of slowing down world wide. Versions from the East Coast of the US are less aggressively hopped than beers from the West Coast that can have as much as 100 units of bitterness. And it was the IPA from the Harpoon Brewery in Boston that helped kick-start the IPA revolution in the 1990s. NEIPAs as they are known are now being brewed with enthusiasm as far away as Australia

Added: Tuesday, October 2nd 2018

So much attention is paid to hops these days that many drinkers ignore the vital role played by barley and other grains in making beer. Hops are the salt and pepper of beer-making but it needs malt, with its essential sugars, that enables beer to be made and to balance the bitterness of hops with rich biscuit notes with chocolate and fruit from darker grain

Added: Thursday, August 30th 2018