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Colston Crawford's
Beer Column
For 21 years I wrote a beer and pubs column for the Derby Telegraph. After retiring in October 2025, I am continuing it as a blog, and this is it. Feel free to read, subscribe, comment or whatever.
Posts
A beer in Beer? Don't mind if I do... a box ticked on my travels
The bar at the Dolphin, the highlight of the pubs in Beer, owned by the historic Hall & Woodhouse brewery. A bit of a travelogue for my latest piece, as I fulfilled a long-held whimsical idea to have a beer in Beer. Beer is an absolutely delightful village on the south Devon coast, a seaside village without amusement arcades but with beach huts, deckchairs for hire, clifftop walks and the opportunity to buy the day’s catch from the fishing boats hauled up on the beach – a lis
Colston Crawford
4 days ago4 min read
A beer in Beer? Don't mind if I do... a box ticked on my travels
The bar at the Dolphin, the highlight of the pubs in Beer, owned by the historic Hall & Woodhouse brewery. A bit of a travelogue for my latest piece, as I fulfilled a long-held whimsical idea to have a beer in Beer. Beer is an absolutely delightful village on the south Devon coast, a seaside village without amusement arcades but with beach huts, deckchairs for hire, clifftop walks and the opportunity to buy the day’s catch from the fishing boats hauled up on the beach – a lis
Colston Crawford
4 days ago
A homage to The Chequers at Ticknall, a classic country village pub
Tony Matthews has been the licensee at the Chequers for eight years after arriving almost by accident from Mablethorpe. The ancient, classic handpumps at the Chequers Inn, Ticknall, creak as if in protest or pain as they serve pints of Bass. They are the sort of black, stumpy pumps us older drinkers used to see a lot of. They have all but disappeared by now. However, things have a habit of not changing in the Chequers, which is a large part of its enduring appeal, and those p
Colston Crawford
Apr 30
Why the tied house system and pubcos are failing our pubs
It's a theme I've been mulling over for an article for a while Easy as it is – and often justified – to blame rising costs, taxation and beer duty for the problems besetting pubs, the stark truth is that, for many licensees, the tied house system, for the last 40 years, has been a major contributor to the failure of pubs and licensees. The current situation came about through the Beer Orders legislation of 1989, designed to stop brewers having a monopoly by owning too many pu
Colston Crawford
Apr 16
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