A few drinks in : Northampton

A couple of years ago when I first met my beer friend Peter in the Euston Tap, I convinced him to come up to Runcorn, assuring him of its fine beers and even finer people. In the event many of the pubs he came up to visit were in fact, closed, and he had a…

Chester Beer and Wine Festival 2018

During the last beer festival I attended in Chester I had my arm strapped up due to my broken wrist, so blogging about it was a long and drawn out process which I didn’t attempt. However the photos are annoyingly sitting on my Google drive so here’s a quick run down before we launch into…

A few drinks on : the Isle of Man, part two

Startlingly halfway through my entire 2018 Summer Holiday, it was time to board an actual steam train and head for Port Erin. The original plan had been to go shark spotting but first the inclement weather meant that the trips were cancelled, then they were uncancelled and sold out immediately. But I went to Port…

A Few Drinks on : the Isle of Man, part one

A week or so ago, when I was angrily tweeting about the change in the weather threatening my shark spotting trip on the Isle of Man, Matthew Lawrenson suggested that there might be a post on ‘the OTHER hobbies of beer bloggers’. My trip to the Isle of Man was part pub exploring, part shark spotting,…

California Love In with Craft Beer Residency

Believe it or not, there wasn’t much of a flourishing craft scene in Runcorn in the 2000s. Now of course we have our wonderful Society Taproom, four breweries, and a beer festival to look forward to, but my introduction to Craft came a bit further from home, in California. Beer flights, brewpubs, tasting sessions, meet…

Drinking Outside in Liverpool

Bank Holidays! We need more of them, St George’s Day should be one, we have the fewest in Western Europe you know etc etc. This early May Bank Holiday crept up on me seeing as I have been mostly off work for the past two months in what was a string of bank holidays one…

5 Beers To Drink Watching the Royal Wedding

  Five pints of Draught Bass

Golden Pints Golden Pubs 2017

Golden Pubs Nellie’s (The White Horse Inn), Beverley, West Yorkshire A pub you will never forget once you’ve experienced it. A warren of older rooms lit only by candles, but with additional more modern facilities making it commercially viable as well as a quirky olde worlde destination. The Old Coffee House, Soho, London Pleasingly odd…

IMBC 2017 : Bingo!

This post on the Indyman beer con 2017, which took place almost two weeks ago, is so late as to be irrelevant but let this be confirmation if any were needed that this blog does not make me any money. (I’ll give you a moment to recover….OK). That means that sometimes it has to be…

A Few Drinks in … Sheffield

Sheffield! Home of the Arctic Monkeys, Jessica Ennis, and Pulp. Home of two football teams, two universities, and no one sensible way of navigating the city centre. Anyone who has been unfortunate enough to spend time travelling with me will know I will avoid taxis as if they have live, hungry, cheetahs in the back…

A Few Drinks in Australia : Part 1 : Sydney

Greetings readers, I apologise for no posts in a while but I have been on my travels on the other side of the world to bring you tales of Australian beers, pub culture, how much champagne you can drink in Business Class, and how hard it is to find a bottle opener which doesn’t feature…

Meet the Brewer : Runcorn’s Buccaneer Brewery

A few months ago I was in one of my Runcorn haunts, The Grapes, and spotted a pump clip with a menacing skull on it. The beer was Startled Octopus, a grapefruity session pale ale which was utterly delightful. When I asked the landlord which brewery this was, he pointed vaguely to his right and…