If there’s one thing I love, it’s music that tells a story. As a kid, I always loved songs that put me in a totally different place and made me think about things – things like lust and nightclubs and fit girls and something hiding in the woodshed – I’d never heard of before. This […]
What was the first beer you drank?
It’s a simple question, unless you’re being asked it point blank on live radio. There should be a simple answer – some small glint laying there in the past that points towards the moment you decide, “this is mine.” Well, sometimes you don’t want to share that moment. Maybe it’s private. But then maybe you […]
Thoughts on beer accessibility
“Peroni is aspirational. Cloudwater is something beamed down from another planet.” These words by the Pub Curmudgeon stuck in my brain after reading his piece on working class drinkers, not least because I am one. It made me think about the angle at which I approached beer from, and why I’m finding myself more and […]
A refuge
What’s in a pub that makes it a pub? There are hundreds of odes to the warm, inviting local, a shelter from the tumultuous skies of life, a welcoming place to anchor yourself to in the aftermath of a bad day. There are pubs as worn as your oldest pair of docs and there are […]
Unlikely Pubs I have Known and Loved: The Sunset Lounge, Blackpool
The Irish Sea spreads out into a vanishing horizon, no ships, no land, no pointed fins breaking the surface in an exciting moment of man-meets-beast. Just endless waves rolling quietly to a stop against the flat sand and sloping concrete of Blackpool’s promenade. On a clear day, ridges of wind turbines line the glistening grey […]
Earning it
The Lake District is one of my favourite places in the world. I say that about a lot of places, but the Lake District really is at the top. I spent the first ten years of my life in Morecambe, and if you’ve been to Morecambe, you’ll know that its most redeeming feature is the […]
The greatest pump clip of all time
Stop trying. It’s over. The greatest pump clip of all time has been created. The bells have cracked. The sun: Eclipsed. The birds are hushed and the trees have ceased to sway. In the pursuit of perfection, a masterpiece of our time has been released from its marble monolith of InDesign; chiselled deftly with love […]
Avoiding the promotion of alcoholism
When you’re “into” the alcohol industry, no matter the particular drink you’re selling, there’s a public health line you have to tread carefully. People are responsible for their own choices, of course, but there are ways that brands can try not to fully encourage the misuse of their product. By law in the UK you […]
My 2017 hopes and dreams for beer in North and East Lancashire
I think we’ve all read enough internet news by now to know that in the first waking days of 2017, craft beer is booming/slumping and cask beer is doing well/shite and that people are really starting to love/hate beer in all it’s interesting/unnecessarily complex forms. Where I am however, it’s a little different. Speaking to Boak […]