The curtain has fallen on the first Derby Heritage Beer Festival to be held in the Market Hall and it will be seen as a success in some respects, less so in others. Here are my thoughts. It was, for sure, a different experience strolling straight into the Market Hall, compared to queuing to pay to get into almost any other beer festival. The serving area was squeezed into the centre of the Market Hall. The venue itself is magnificent. The advertising referred to tickets on th

THERE cannot be too many hammer blows left for the beleaguered brewing industry in Burton to take but the announcement by Carlsberg-Britvic that they are to close the former Marston’s brewery in the town is as big as any in recent times. It is a sad truth that the town for centuries known as the brewing capital of Britain is now, in beer terms, a shell of its former self. A classic picture of the former Marston's Brewery by former Burton Mail photographer Simon Deacon. Owners

I KILLED two birds with one stone one night last week and, hopefully, with this column too. I went and bought a copy of the new Good Beer Guide and made a point of getting to the Exeter Arms and the Smithfield Ale House (both pubs are of course in it). A bit of my custom is a drop in the ocean for these two brilliant Derby pubs, of course. I also get that I’m a bit late to the party in publicising their current plight. But every little helps, according to the well-known adver

PLENTY has been written about Draught Bass in the last couple of years and here is some more, because a remarkable story continues to evolve. What has happened with Bass is one of the more unlikely tales in the last few years of Britain’s brewing history because, at a time when many beer enthusiasts favour the work of independent breweries, here is a revered brand which is owned and marketed by one unloved international conglomerate (Ab-InBev) and brewed for them under contra

It was 2014 when the monks at Mount St Bernard’s Abbey in Leicestershire took the decision to stop dairy farming, which had been the principal source of revenue to keep their monastery sustainable for over 160 years. The proliferation of similar farms around their 200-acre estate and plunging commercial prices for milk were just too much and the monks had to work out what they might do next. Peter Grady, brewery and operations manager for Tynt Meadow, holds court with St Arno

BARELY a week goes by without the news that a new micropub is being proposed or is opening. They have become an important part of the hospitality scene, originally offering an alternative to the “traditional” pub – they set out as quiet rooms, almost always serving traditional cask beer, with no fruit machines, no music, and with conversation encouraged above all else. So, I thought I’d revisit the history of them, nationally and locally, and pick out a few local success stor

It’s not as if I haven’t called in a few times but what an absolute pleasure it was to be back at the Old Dog at Thorpe at the weekend. A big part of the pleasure was to be there with friends from my regular walking group – and relatives, since both daughters, Sharon and Molly, and one of my granddaughters, Sadie, were among the 10 of us, 11 with Lois the springer spaniel. The 10-strong Elvaston Crew walking group pictured by landlady Gemm Pollock outside The Old Dog at Thorp

Stand & Deliver, a delicious beer of 3.2%, features strongly in this article. A great deal has been written and debated of late about large brewing companies reducing the strength of their core beers so that they will pay less tax on them. The latest example is Molson Coors reducing the strength of Carling to 3.4% from 4.0%. It will save the conglomerate millions in tax and is likely to make little difference to the already falling sales of the product – it’s beer for people

A good selection of beers, enthusiastically served, at the Commercial Inn, in Dunfermline. I love Scotland and, rather obviously, I love beer. Unfortunately, away from the main centres of population, the two do not always go together. That makes it all the more enjoyable seeking out something unusual and good when I am up there and, being retired now, I’ve made a couple of trips in the last few weeks. Here’s what happened beer-wise. I usually go to the Northern Isles, Orkney

It was with a little trepidation that my wife Pamela and I set out to meet friends for lunch this week – not because we didn’t want to see them but because it was just so hot that to have a hot dinner seemed like an uncomfortable prospect. Happily, we need not have worried. We’d booked at the Coopers Arms at Weston on Trent, a longstanding favourite, and the main bar and restaurant sit below ground level in the former Weston Hall, a17th century manor house. It was suitably co

A brewery tour at Thornbridge, in Bakewell, is not like a typical brewery tour but perhaps that’s befitting, because Thornbridge are no ordinary brewers and no ordinary company. It is a tour worth doing, though, and more on what was my third tour at the new brewery in a bit. Attending the tour, from left, myself, Glynn Brearley, Yvonne Bower, Rob Bower, Sandy Dyson and Dave Fawcett. Thornbridge are, as most people interested in beer are aware, one of the biggest business succ

It’s a bold move opening a brand new taproom in the centre of Derby in these tricky times but the resurgent Ashover Brewery have done just that. The Tannery opened at the weekend on Sadler Gate in the former Carnivore restaurant premises – and it looks a treat. The Tannery staff all ready for last week's opening, from left, Harvey Maddox, Chris Sherratt and Tom Wardle. It’s also another bold move from the group of friends who bought Ashover out of administration barely a year

BY HER own description, Becky Carr has been on something on a one-woman campaign to make gluten-free beers more widespread in Derby, and further afield. Becky is coeliac, so it matters to her, of course. As she says, “I don’t want to be a gluten bore but it makes or breaks a pub for me, determining whether I can eat or drink there.” Happily, there is much more awareness now than there used to be and many more breweries either producing gluten-free beers or only producing glut

The Malt Shovel at twilight, by the canal at Shardlow. It’s long been a fascination of mine that the village of Shardlow supports no less than seven pubs in these most difficult times for the hospitality industry. It’s a freakishly large number for a village with, give or take, 1,000 voters (I know this, since I used to help out as a poll clerk during elections as a sideline). Compare that to Findern, which has no pubs for almost 5,000 inhabitants, or Borrowash, which has one

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

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

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

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