The Chronicle
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20 results across all types
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Jaipur in the Sheffield Tap
My mum’s partner, George Marsh, died in August after a short battle with pancreatic cancer. Born on Bassingham Fen, 11 miles southwest of Lincoln, he owned a small farm in Bassingham village on which he worked for almost his entire life. He was 83. To say it’s been tough on mum would be an understatement. She’s already had to say goodbye to her own mum, and to her twin sister, Michelle, who died of a rare form of dementia a few years ago. “I’ve had enough grief for one lifetime,” she tells me. Because of this, over the past couple of months I’ve spent a significant amount of time in Scothern, the village I grew up in, and in Lincoln itself, which is about six miles away as the crow flies. I’m on my way there now, in fact. I don’t drive, but it’s not a difficult journey. I walk to Stockport station, which takes about 20 minutes, and then catch the express train to Sheffield where I connect with the service to Lincoln. Usually, I have about 30 minutes between trains, but today my train i
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A Vital Shot in the Arm — The Highland Laddie, Leeds
Set in the shadows of several blocks of student accommodation, The Highland Laddie is hidden from view as I approach from the adjacent Kirkstall Road. A twenty minute walk from Leeds station, it feels like I’ve left the creature comforts of the city centre well behind me, as painfully overused phrases like “tucked away” and “hidden gem” begin to fill my head. The thing is, this pub is distinctly lacking in obscurity. Everyone has been talking about The Highland Laddie. Even someone with even a semblance of interest in the goings-on within the Leeds hospitality scene has no doubt seen the flurry of activity the pub has generated on Instagram. Writing for the Observer , restaurant critic Jimi Famurewa described it as a place of “thrilling finesse” with food that is “spectacularly enjoyable.” And it’s only been open in its revamped form since April. In its previous incarnation, the pub—called The Highland, but known affectionately by regulars as “The Laddie”—was forced to close after four
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The Smell of Yeast at Timothy Taylor’s Brewery
Have you ever experienced something felt so deep within your bones you consider it to be life-changing? On Thursday night I attended a performance of Hamlet at Aviva Studios in Manchester, which featured orchestration by Radiohead's Thom Yorke using music from the band’s 2003 album Hail to the Thief . Honestly? I feel changed by it. Such was the intensity and physicality of the performance as a whole that I can’t stop thinking about it. Samuel Blenkin, playing the titular role, was gripping. The way music and dance was weaved throughout meant I couldn’t look away for the whole 90 minutes. It was dark and visceral and unrelenting and sad and funny. Of course, I had to go for a pint and sit down afterwards, to help myself come down. But as I did so I realised in witnessing such a brilliant act of creativity my very soul itself felt nourished. I was full to the brim. There are moments in life, sometimes major, sometimes fleeting, but they leave a permanent mark on you. My first sip of IPA
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Duration Crisps and the Emergence of the Savoury IPA
What does it take to start a beer trend? When Brut IPA emerged from San Francisco’s now shuttered Social Kitchen and Brewery back in 2018, the idea was quickly picked up and copied the world over. The style fast-became a simulacrum of itself; based on an idea of a beer, rather than any tasting experiences or proper, boots-on-the ground research. It didn’t matter that the idea of using enzymes to ferment dry was an already years-old brewing technique used, for example, since 2012 by Cornwall’s St. Austell Brewery in its Big Job IPA. What mattered most was that there was a bandwagon to be leapt upon, and countless new SKUs to be sold. Every new version seemed like a less-good example of the one that came before it. I wasn’t surprised when the trend petered out to a whimper just months later. When Cold IPA arrived on the scene in 2022, its existence was met with a similar ‘creative’ fervour. I was lucky enough to interview its originator, Kevin Davey of Oregon’s Wayfinder Beer, around the
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Rounding Up Contributions To The Session #145 — Critique Not Criticism
A little later than planned (due to a malaise brought upon by a rather jovial stag weekend in Dublin celebrating the imminent nuptials of my pal Gareth) I’ve finally got around to collating entries to this month's session. Positing that there’s not enough proper critique in beer writing compared, say, to restaurant or wine writing, I asked writers to deliver a critique of their own, and received nine different responses. I also published my own critique, with interesting results, and I’ll share a bit more insight on that after the roundup. If you contributed to Session #145 and don’t see your post in this list please share the link with me and I’ll update this post accordingly. *** To start, over at A Good Beer Blog Alan McLeod —who has been liberally applying critique to beer writing for as long as I’ve been reading it— considers the act of critique within beer writing at large . He references the late Michael Jackson, who famously said if he didn’t like a beer he simply wouldn’t writ
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Food To Make You Smile, Beer Service to Forget — The Trading Route, Manchester
Lately, I’ve become obsessed with the concept of what I like to call ‘beer service’. Taking place at the point of a beer being served, it goes beyond what happens in a brewery, or even in a pub cellar. Beer service is when the utmost care is taken by a server when pouring your beer so that it looks as good as it tastes, thus enhancing your overall beer experience to its maximum. There are a few key facets to good beer service. The first is that the glass being used must be sparkling clean, so that no dirt or oils cause bubbles to cling to its side. And so that the server can build a healthy, stable head of foam at the top of the beer. A good head of foam, for me, is an indicator of a beer that is both well made and well poured, and when a beer is served with proper care this foam should cling to the side of the glass as you sip, remaining stable for the duration you spend sipping it. Through good cellar management, staff training, plus regular glass and tap maintenance, excellent beer
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AI is a Crisis Point for Writers, Artists and Photographers
The original title for this post was “Your AI Can Art Looks Like Shit” and I will tell you, with absolute sincerity, that it really does. The same point was made by writers Jessica Boak and Ray Bailey in one of their recent newsletters , so it felt pertinent to give this topic a fresher angle. I’ll reiterate their point though: it really does look like shit. Your customers most probably think that too. What does it say about the beer you sell when you’ve demonstrated you’re willing to put next to zero effort into how it's presented? On reflection, I felt that it might be more productive to take a more pragmatic approach. Instead of wagging a finger, it’s better I offer an explanation, and potentially even a solution to the encroachment of generative AI (or to call it what it really is, scrapeware) within the creative sector. Put simply: it’s fucking us, hard. Every time you see a beer brand or hospitality business use a scrapeware generated image to advertise what they’re selling, that
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The Session #145 — Critique not Criticism
For the March 2025 edition of The Session I’m asking participants to produce a piece of critical writing about beer or pubs. This could be a review of a beer you’ve enjoyed, or perhaps one you haven’t. A pub you’re fond of, or maybe one that has room for improvement. You could write about a beer experience (or lack of) in a setting such as a restaurant, or even produce a critique that focuses on a particular aspect of beer or pub culture. The aim is not to be judgemental, subjective or to showcase any particular bias; this is not some finger-wagging exercise. Whereas criticism involves building an argument about why you think something is simply good or bad, critique involves taking a more holistic approach, using carefully researched and considered analysis to build a reasoned, objective, and possibly even entertaining take that benefits readers by giving them good quality information to consider. Last year I wrote about how there is a general lack of criticism in beer writing , and c
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Augustiner at Home
Living where I do in Stockport I’m very fortunate to have some really good locals like the Magnet, Heaton Hops and Runaway Brewery. In half an hour I can be in central Manchester and from there it’s a choose-your-own-adventure scenario depending on what I’m in the mood for. I’m in my forties, I don’t have kids, and I have enough disposable income to service a few pints every week. Because of this I rarely drink at home, which is also where I happen to work from. Heading out for a beer when I’m in the mood is a full stop on the day. It’s where my brain goes to reset. I also don’t find myself clamouring for the latest IPAs or anything like that these days. Draught beer is the best beer I can drink, especially cask, so that’s what I go and get. Sometimes though, I intentionally drink at home. Most of the beer I have most of the time is samples sent to me by breweries, so more often than not I don’t really want to drink them, even if they’re beers I really like. This is because those beers
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I’m Glad Beer Is Boring Again
I used to be the worst kind of beer drinker. The one who thought he was right about everything but actually knew very little. I don’t feel regretful or embarrassed about this. Who wouldn’t have got caught up in the excitement propagated by the emergence of thousands of quirky, independent breweries across America? I needed something like that, honestly. Something that was my own and not that of my father. American beer culture rapidly proliferated within the United Kingdom in the early 2010s, manifesting itself in the form of hundreds of copycat breweries attempting to channel the creativity being demonstrated by their American peers (with varying results.) I let it wash over me like a tidal wave. As my own fandom reached fever pitch, I did the most obnoxious thing possible: I started a beer blog. One of the earliest mistakes I made as I began my endeavour to catalog British beer culture was to judge breweries by how visible they were, and how fast they were growing. If they were able
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Thank You, Cow — Burgers and Liberty at Humbug, Manchester
Maraschino was a 31 month-old native breed Red Poll cow reared by Helan Arthan in Malpas, Cheshire. After landing on the block of Marcus Wilson at Littlewoods Butchers in Heaton Chapel, Stockport, her final destiny is to become approximately 1200 burgers that will be served at Humbug, a month long burger pop-up at Kampus in central Manchester. The project is the brainchild of Sam Buckley, chef-patron at Where The Light Gets In (WTLGI), a fine dining restaurant in Stockport town centre that was awarded a Michelin green star for its sustainability efforts in 2021. I have dined there once, and the meal and service I received was, honestly, transcendent. I am constantly puzzled why a full star still eludes it – not that it really matters, as its reputation precedes it. Don’t try and book yourself in right at this moment, however, as the restaurant is closed for refurbishments until April. Hence why it has taken up residence in the Bungalow at Kampus, juxtaposed alongside the Rochdale
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No Strava, No Problem
Two years ago, after encouragement from my partner, I joined a running club. As a freelancer, and someone who spends most of my time alone, getting to run with a few others and make friends was a lot of fun. But sometime in the early summer last year, I stopped going because I wasn’t enjoying it any longer. I was finding it harder and harder to identify with the other runners, which made it difficult to make friends. I realised I had also started to spend every club meet masking, which exhausted me before I’d even ran five yards. Things came to a head when, when socialising with a few members, conversation turned to what races we were all entering. When I said I wasn’t planning on entering any, and might never do so again, instead of accepting my decision, I found myself suddenly placed under peer pressure, constantly being egged on to sign up for a race. This didn’t go on for five or ten minutes, it happened repeatedly, until closing time, and I found the very nature of the incident l
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A Really Good Year
2024 has been my most successful and my most prolific year as a freelancer. In fact it’s the most I’ve earned since 2018, when I was still on the editorial staff at Good Beer Hunting . Coincidentally, I’ve also turned in more work this year than in those previous—96 commissions and counting, beating my previous best of 83. Don’t get me wrong it’s not big money, but I’ve worked hard for that extra cheddar this year. More importantly than anything it's a living I cherish. I’ve also broken what I consider to be the awards hoodoo that caused me so much unnecessary stress in the past. My book, Manchester’s Best Beer Pubs and Bars picked up three awards—two silvers from the British Guild of Beer Writers and a gold from the North American Guild of Beer writers. I also picked up a further three nominations for my feature writing, and Pellicle , the crown jewel in my professional life, attained several more. Most significantly among these was a nomination for magazine of the year from the Briti
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A Poem About Unsubscribing From Your Newsletter
I’m sorry to tell you I unsubscribed from your newsletter It’s not you It’s me My inbox overburdened More chaos than I can ever possibly embrace. I swear I once had more time With which to idle and read Threads of consciousness that need to be As that’s the point Isn’t it Writing out of necessity. So sad to hear You’re closing your newsletter down I was thinking about signing up again But I probably wouldn’t have I’ll just keep on doomscrolling Reading threads and threads that never needed to be.
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On Criticism in Beer Writing
Last week I published a critical review of a whisky from Irish distillery Waterford Whisky. Admittedly I don’t have much skin in the game when it comes to whisky, but enough so that they saw fit to send me a bottle. One that made me think, and thus stimulated what was, for me, a useful exercise in critical writing. Other than a couple of DMs, the review didn’t prompt much of a reaction. That’s likely because in whisky writing—as much as you’d expect in restaurant or wine writing—a certain level of fair criticism is expected. In fact I’d go as far as to say it’s encouraged. When people read the work of, for example, Grace Dent, Jay Rayner or Jonathan Nunn, they anticipate and appreciate fair critique. In part this is because seeing a restaurant get panned by a top writer can be very enjoyable. But it’s also because there’s a certain level of trust between the reader and the writer, and well placed criticism adds weight when a writer of such standing does decide to give praise to somethi
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Waterford Cuvée Koffi — A Dram That Does Too Much
Recently, I was kindly sent a bottle of Cuvée Koffi, a single malt whisky from Waterford Whisky , a distillery based in the Irish town of the same name. I don’t write a lot about whisky, but it’s something I enjoy immensely, and would like to write about a bit more. I particularly enjoy American bourbon and rye, but love Islay and Speyside whiskies, as much as I do Irish whisky. Or whiskey, depending on whether the distillery in question uses the ‘e’. Waterford do not. When it comes to Irish whisk(e)y, at the moment I am particularly fond of booth Teeling, and Redbreast 12. Both are what I would call ‘every day sippers’ because neither are particularly pricy, with the Redbreast 12 being slightly more expensive at just over £50 a bottle. But both are inherently mellow and smooth, with the Teeling showcasing delicate notes of citrus amid pockets of honeyed sweetness, while the Redbreast has a touch more sherried complexity: figs, dates, apricots, and marzipan. I want it to bake me a cake
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The Golden Path
I had intended this piece to be a nostalgic, romantic look back at how running has changed and shaped my life since I took up the hobby 10 years ago. Life, however, always seems to have different intentions. Yesterday, about a kilometre into a planned 10km route around a gloriously sunny Stockport, I stacked it. It’s not the first time I’ve fallen over while running, and it won’t be the last, but this was perhaps my bloodiest to date. Maybe I shouldn’t have been out running at all; a couple of hours earlier I was locked in a ferocious internal debate about whether or not I was too tired or not to complete the distance. This is pretty standard procedure for me before every run. I can’t be arsed to pull all the gear on, fill my water bottle, and select some sweets and snacks for when I inevitably stop to stare at a river, or some nice trees for a few minutes. Like with pretty much everything in my life it takes me a while to find the motivation, but once I’ve finally managed to convince
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The Inherent Value in Self Publishing
I have been a writer for well over a decade now, and I’ve been paid to do it for most of that. For the past five and a bit years I’ve also been working as editor-in-chief for a magazine I established, raised investment for, and continue to run as managing director. Through this I work with several writers, many of whom have gone on to win awards for the work they’ve produced for us. A thrill, honestly. It’s ridiculous when you think about it. A magazine about pints and pubs and nice things I like, and people pay for it, so it keeps on going. Through Pellicle I have learned more about writing than I ever thought possible. It’s made me a better writer in the sense that I understand, intimately, what editors mean when they say they want clean copy. Having a good idea is one thing, making sense of it is another. I am a much better editor, too, than I was five years ago. I think (and hope) I’m a bit more compassionate in my methods. I have in my head a very clear vision of how I want
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In Order to Build A Strong Proposition for Independence, the UK Beer Industry Needs to Stop Comparing Itself to the USA
I enjoyed Sam McMeekin’s presentation on the importance of independence at this weeks Brewer’s Congress, organised by trade publication The Brewers Journal , and held at the Institute of Civil Engineers. Along with a few others—including Paul Jones at Cloudwater—The Gipsy Hill Brewing Co. founder has for a long time been vocal about the value of independence to the small scale brewing industry. It is a strong line, and one I largely agree with. His presentation included the damning statistic that since 2015 the production volume of what you would ostensibly define as “craft beer” within London has gone from 100% independent to being just 27%. This is due to the sale, in full or in part, of Meantime, Camden Town, London Fields, Brixton, Beavertown, Fourpure, Fuller’s and Hop Stuff to Asahi, AB-InBev, Carlsberg, Heineken, Lion and Molson Coors, respectively. It is the third time I have seen him present this data, and I have used these statistics at least once myself earlier this ye
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Being Fierce — How Fierce Beer is Crafting a Legacy in Aberdeen and Beyond
A Note from the Author Few breweries have impressed me with their progress over the past three years so much as Fierce Beer. I remember well the first time I tasted their beers; co-founder Dave Grant had kindly sent me some samples of some of their first ever commercial brews. Although it may surprise you to hear it, at the time, those beers didn’t leave a lasting impression, especially compared to how fond of their beers I am now. They were by no means bad, but the unusual nature of them—habanero spiced pale ales and a very early iteration of Cranachan Killer, a raspberry infused pale—was hard to ignore. Despite them not quite clicking with me back then, what they did achieve was to pique my curiosity enough for me to contact Dave and offer him some feedback. The result of that conversation ended with me agreeing to meet Dave and Louise Grant at a tap takeover Fierce was hosting at The Rake in South London a few weeks later. Not only did I get to try some of the revised—an