As far as I know, there’s no person more virtuous than the designated driver. A selfless individual who puts others’ pleasures ahead of their own, they and they alone ensure the safe homeward journey of their inebriated friends and colleagues. They take drunken conversations in their stride and never roll their eyes at the suggestion […]
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 […]
Kirkby Lonsdale’s got a tap room!
Kirkby Lonsdale Brewery has a tap room. Did you know that? I didn’t. I go to Kirkby Lonsdale pretty often – maybe twice or three times a year, maybe more if it’s a good summer and we want to look at the bikes – and I had no idea. Kirkby Lonsdale is a place I […]
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 […]
Another Excellent Edinburgh
We’ve been visiting Edinburgh surprisingly often over the past few years. Without warning its sooty bricks and cobbled streets spooling down into the valley of its great craggy hills got into us, like a second home. I get cravings to see the castle lit at night from Grassmarket and sandstone shining with rain underfoot. I […]
When an afternoon turns into a weekend
One sunny Friday both Tom and I took the afternoon off work and rattled our way to Manchester on the straight-through train. Tom’s my fella, if you didn’t know. The straight-through train to Manchester is one of the reasons we decided to live in Clitheroe, but we hardly ever use it. This was our chance […]
Beer Talk with Steve from Beer Nouveau
In our small corner of Lancashire we don’t often get to see the faces behind some of our favourite brews. Manchester isn’t far away, neither is Leeds, but you have to get the train if you want to drink, and a train journey is sometimes all it takes to convince your group that you might […]
Beer Nemesis
Boak & Bailey wrote a piece on their beer nemesis last week and I wanted them to do a series on the types of nemesis you meet in pubs, beer festivals, bottle shops and online. They graciously declined. I kept thinking about it though, wondering who mine might be, and the answer came to me […]
The Clitheroe Beer Festival
For the first time, Clitheroe Beer Festival has moved locations to Holmes Mill, or what’s locally known as “The Mill”, a huge renovated space on the edge of town, directly downstream from my house via the Mearley Brook. If I had a dinghy, I could float there. As it happened, I don’t, so I walked. […]
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 […]