After 10 great years, the Taylors didn't want to leave their village pub, but they didn't really have an option. Here's what they had to say... Kevin and Lesley Taylor departed the Admiral Rodney pub in Hartshorne last weekend after 10 successful years as licensees, during which time they ensured the pub was at the centre of the village community and raised many thousands of pounds for charity along the way. Lesley and Kevin Taylor behind the bar at the Admiral Rodney last su

I took a drive down memory lane this week. It was a very long, narrow lane, bumpy and muddy in parts, but when I got to the end, it was brilliant to see that it was virtually unchanged from the last time I had driven down it, all the way back in 2013. It is reassuring, sometimes, to find that some things are unchanged and thriving just as they are and that is what the good folk at Whim Ales are doing, 33 years after the brewery was founded just outside Hartington. The Whim Al

Staying in Burton for the latest article – and a chat with Cheryl Gibson, the new licensee of the town’s traditionally most historic pub, the Coopers Tavern. Cheryl Gibson in the kitchen which is the main bar for the Coopers Tavern. If you know Burton at all, you know the significance of the Coopers and you’ll know that taking it on is not quite like taking on any other pub. It is the one picked out as the “must visit” by folks coming to Burton and the town’s brewing heritage

There are some very good pubs in Burton, a town I regard as my second home, but I don’t think it can be denied that the biggest success story among them over the last few years is the Devonshire Arms, in Station Street, where Carl and Nicki Stout have just racked up their latest milestone, owning the pub outright for seven years. Carl and Nicki Stout behind the bat at the Devonshire Arms . Thanks their son, Jack, for the picture. If you go back 40 years, as I do – and then a

I made my second visit of the year to Tollgate Brewery’s brilliant Milking Parlour on the Calke Abbey Estate near Ticknall at the weekend and – small milestone – it was for my first outdoor drink of the year. It was perhaps a bit touch and go. A sunny day was beginning to fade and turn chilly by the time the family sat down but no matter. Smoke rises from the fire pit on a cool but bright winter's afternoon at the Milking Parlour. The Milking Parlour is a brilliantly realised

The view from my favourite seat at the Harrington, where you can see most everything going on. If we ‘re lucky, us pub-going folk, we’ll all have at least one pub that’s been a feature for all of our days since being old enough to drink. It will have endured and evolved but, ideally, it will still have the same qualities that drew us to it in the first place. It will equally be true that some pubs which might have qualified as lifelong favourites will have closed – for me, th

You would hope not but recent signs are not good as it disappears from some pubs and is harder to get for others It would once have been unthinkable not to see Pedigree on the bar in a Marston’s pub. Are we seeing the slow death of Marston’s Pedigree at the hands of Carlsberg-Britvic? I posted this on a Facebook forum a couple of weeks ago. It might seem over-dramatic but the once classic beer is disappearing from some Marston’s pubs in favour of one of the Wainwright derivat

A little shorter (hurrah, you say) and lighter from me this week. Hands up if you know what these are? I say that in the full knowledge that a lot of beer drinkers, certainly those over 40, will know that they are carrykegs, used for taking home beer from the pub. I still use them a fair bit and I was prompted to write this piece after strolling into one of my locals with a carrykeg to grab a takeaway. A woman in a group eating at one of the tables was staring in my direction

The Royal Oak is at the heart of the village and its community in Ockbrook. Retired though I am, I’ve recently penned a few words for the Derby Telegraph to use as they wish about one of my all-time favourite pubs, the Royal Oak at Ockbrook, as the longstanding owners still seek to sell it and take a well-earned retirement. First, here’s what I’ve sent the paper (and website). Then I’ll add a few personal thoughts… The price of the historic Royal Oak pub at Ockbrook has been

Sisters Lydia (left) and Hayley Rowlinson took on The Crispin three years ago. When I retired from the Derby Telegraph in October 2025, I knew I’d miss writing the regular beer and pubs column that I’d done for 21 years. It was a part of me. Vaguely, I thought I might relaunch it as a blog, free of time constraints, free of the need to write a certain amount of words. It was a lunch at The Crispin in Great Longstone, in the Peak District, a week after I finished which firmed