The Pub Curmudgeon

Hydes Brewery have recently carried out a major refurbishment of one of their pubs, the Old Star on Cheadle High Street (the Cheshire one, n...

Wow, apparently I’ve been awarded the title of The Worst Person on Beer Twitter. I’m so flattered my head will scarcely fit through the door...

Boak & Bailey recently asked on Twitter if people had had any daydreams about setting up and running a pub that, presumably, fitted in w...

In my last post about Robinson’s reminiscences , I speculated that Robinson’s Unicorn, formerly Best Bitter, was possibly the beer I’d drunk...

There were obviously some things I left out from my recent blogpost about Robinson’s Brewery, otherwise it would have fallen into the categ...

When I first moved into this area in 1985, I was struck by how dominant Robinson’s brewery were in and around Stockport. In the town itself ...

The British system of alcohol duty is a confusing dog’s dinner. There are four completely different tax regimes for beer, cider, wine and sp...

One of the proposals included in CAMRA’s Revitalisation Report is that “CAMRA should permit the stocking of British beers that do not meet ...

You may not be feeling it much yourself, but things aren’t too bad at the moment. The economy’s growing steadily, unemployment is at a ten-y...

Last year, we lost a Hydes’ estate pub, the High Grove in Gatley, to residential development. This year, it looks as though we are going to ...

Britain’s best-selling beer, Carling, had recently received a design refresh which I praised on Twitter for its clean, contemporary look an...

One of the improvements over last year at the recent Manchester Beer Festival was replacing official catering with independent food stalls. ...

On his Oh Good Ale blog, Phil describes the stock of bottles left over after pre-Christmas over-buying. It’s very noticeable how they divid...

One of the enduring themes of this blog has been that the smoking ban was not only objectionable in its own right, but that it was also like...

Last November, I welcomed CAMRA stalwart, fellow curmudgeon and sort-of namesake Paul Mudge to Stockport for a wander round some of our exce...