The Pub Curmudgeon

Following my predictions for what would happen to the beer and pub industry in the next 20 years, I asked the question “What will happen to...

Cue howls of Righteous indignation at the news that pregnant women have used NHS fruit and vegetable vouchers to buy cigarettes and alcohol ...

A few weeks I reported on the massive decline in on-trade beer sales over the past thirty years. Now, it is my belief that this is overwhel...

Shown to the right are four pictures of the Four Heatons (the former Moss Rose) in its current sorry closed and boarded state. This was the ...

Following my somewhat underwhelming experience of bottle-conditioned ales from local micro-breweries, as a contrast I thought I would sample...

I’ve argued before that bottled ales of sub-5% strength gain nothing in practice from bottle-conditioning, and that the quality control of t...

Following Pete Robinson’s gloomy but all-too-realistic prognostications I thought I would peer into my own crystal ball and see what it rev...

Well, my not entirely serious poll asking what people thought of “craft beer” has come to an end. There were 68 responses, broken down as fo...

As usual, Pete Robinson, writing in The Publican , pulls no punches in a trenchant and sadly all too realistic analysis of the parlous stat...

I was taken aback, although not entirely surprised, to see the Four Heatons pub on Didsbury Road in Heaton Norris boarded up during the cour...

A big local pub, the Ash Hotel on Manchester Road in Heaton Norris, closed its doors for the last time on Sunday 16 January. I’m reliably in...

The BBC reports that there is a growing problem of “fake alcohol” being sold in off-licences. Apparently up to a quarter of licensed premis...

Yesterday, the Manchester football Derby was screened on Sky TV at 12.45 pm. So I avoided going to the pub at all that lunchtime, as I expec...

Well, it seems that most readers don’t very much. I asked the question “Do you drink canned beer?” and the 76 responses broke down as follow...

A feature of the old-style licensing laws was that they gave leeway for towns to permit extended lunchtime opening on market days. Leafing t...