The Pub Curmudgeon

Someone complained to me that he had gone out into the rather limited outdoor drinking area of one particular pub and found it full of smoke...

This is an interesting report on comments by the chief executive of Mitchells & Butlers in which he says we have now reached a tipping ...

Not so long ago, it was axiomatic that beer prices in the South-East tended to be at least 50p a pint more than those around here. But recen...

I see Heineken are now looking at introducing 24 oz glasses so they can serve their beer with a “genuine Continental head”. It would be iro...

I see that Stella Artois is now being advertised with the slogan "Only four ingredients - barley, hops, maize and water". Maize???...

Well, it's only a modest proposal, and falls far short of the complete repeal of the public smoking ban which I would advocate. But anyt...

I can’t help thinking that this article entitled Cask Ale Bouncing Back represents a large dose of special pleading. The overall market for...

On occasions, such as family social gatherings, I have tried canned versions of premium beers such as Abbot Ale. However, compared with bott...

Yum, yet another post about food! In many ways I’m a staunch defender of the traditions of the English public house, but I would not lif...

While we are often told that food has been the saviour of the pub trade, I am more and more coming to believe that it has ruined it. The ori...

Writing in the Daily Mail , Richard Littlejohn pulls no punches in this scathing attack on the government's plans to reduce the drink-d...

So the much-vaunted advance of pub food has ground to a shuddering halt . This is hardly surprising, really, considering the overall recessi...

According to today's Daily Mail , the government are set on reducing the drink-drive limit. This will mean the end of the country pub an...

I was thinking the other day how I drink markedly more at home and less in pubs than I did ten or twenty years ago, something that must be r...

The licensed trade were widely criticised for making overly pessimistic forecasts about the effect of the smoking ban. However, new figures ...