
Review: Filthy Queens: A History of Beer in Ireland
A comprehensive history of beer in Ireland is something I’ve been hearing demand for for as long as I’ve been paying attention to the local industry. It has finally come into being thanks to the specialist Irish food and drink publisher…

Review: CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide: Belgium
Veteran beer writer Tim Webb has been publishing a guide to Belgian beer and pubs since 1992. This and the previous edition in 2014 were co-edited by the Europe-based American writer Joe Stange. A short essay by Webb at the front of the book…

Review: 20th Century Pub
There is no shortage of books on English pub life and pub culture. It is, after all, as essential a part of that nation’s self-image as the café is to Paris or the beerhall is to Bavaria. Popular works on the pub, however, have tended to…

Review: The Pub
English beer writer Pete Brown is probably better known for his matey-blokey beer history and travel books, like Hops & Glory (the definitive story of IPA) and Shakespeare's Local (a history of one not-so-well-known London pub). His latest…

Review: Sláinte – The Complete Guide to Irish Craft Beer and Cider
My review of Iorwerth Griffiths's small 2007 volume, The Complete Guide to Beer and Cider in Ireland, expressed the hope that growth in Ireland's craft beer scene would mean the next edition would be more of a coffee table size. A successor…

Review: Brew Britannia – The Strange Rebirth of British Beer
We all know the story: in 1971 a group of Englishmen on a walking holiday in Kerry created a beer drinkers' protest group to fight the rise of industrialised beer in Britain.
35 years later, a pair of young Scottish home brewers set out…

Review: The Home Brewer’s Guide to Vintage Beer
As an authority on the nuts and bolts of beer history, Ron Pattinson needs no introduction. Through his Shut Up About Barclay Perkins blog over the last seven years he has left no stone unturned in seeking out primary evidence of past beers,…

Brewing Britain: Review
Andy Hamilton is a Bristol-based home brewer, teacher, gardener and forager. His first book, Booze for Free, was a guide to growing and foraging ingredients for making your own beer and wine. Brewing Britain, subtitled The Quest for the Perfect…

For The Love Of Hops
When I first received this book I thought that reviewing it would be a doddle; My wife’s uncle is a horticulturist who specialised in hop growing and processing during the 50s and 60s at the Greenmount Agricultural College. However my plan…

Shakespeare’s Local: Review
The recent surge in craft brewing and specialist pubs in London means that the Borough of Southwark is perhaps not the standalone beer mecca it once was. That said, it remains home to such luminaries as The Rake, Brew Wharf, The Market Porter…