A selection of articles I’ve written for other publications.
Over the last couple of years I’ve written quite a bit in this column about beer festivals and events happening in London. Sorry if that gets repetitive – if you read this column, and you live in London, I figure you’d be interested to know about beer events happening in this great city, and they’re
Find out moreIt all started with Barack Obama. In 2009, white police Sergeant James Crowley arrested a black man for apparently breaking into a house in a prosperous part of Cambridge, Massachussetts. It turned out the black man was Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr: a writer, TV presenter, editor, literary critic, filmmaker and essayist, and the first African
Find out moreThere’s a war going on for your soul. On one side, we have the drive to conformity that is seeing every street jammed into the same rigidly branded template. On the other, we have freedom, individuality and humanity. OK, so I’m a teensy bit biased in my war reporting, but hear me out.
Find out moreOne of the best things about being a beer writer now people actually want to read about beer is that we’re starting to escape our little ghetto. It used to feel like beer bloggers, writers and enthusiasts were just talking to each other in a bubble that was entirely separate from any flavour of mainstream
Find out moreSo the media have finally cottoned on to the fact that binge drinking is declining, not increasing as they have been telling us for years. The strangest part of the coverage of new research by Cardiff University linking a drop in violent crime to declining binge drinking is that the press reporting the story treat
Find out moreA few years ago – perhaps even less than that – craft beer was something for the hobbyist beer geek. Then, quickly, more people started getting interested – and not just the East London hipsters we love to mock. A recent Mintel report shows that 13 million people – a quarter of all British adults
Find out moreNever has a gift been so compromised by the manner of its giving. There was delight in beer circles the other day when George Osborne announced not only the end of the hated alcohol duty escalator, but also a further penny cut in the duty of beer. And then Grant Shapps put out that tweet.
Find out moreIn my last column I talked about cider: a drink that most people think is made of apples, and showed often, it isn’t. It’s a familiar story in food and drink: if you want to make sure what you’re putting in your mouth is what you think it is, you’re better off going for smaller producers
Find out moreThere’s no easy way to humblebrag this so let me get it out of the way and move on: I just got back from Chicago, where I was flown and accommodated for a week mainly so I could drink cider. Well, it was one way to celebrate the end of Dry January.
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