The Pub Curmudgeon

To listen to a lot of people, you would imagine that, before 1 July 2007, the interior of English pubs was a wall-to-wall fug of tobacco fum...

Well, I reached the milestone the other day of achieving 3,500 followers on Twitter. Now, I know it doesn’t really mean very much, as a g...

Discussions about the recent sale of Charles Wells’ beer brands to Marston’s rather exposed the lack of knowledge about the wider beer marke...

Regular readers of this blog will have gathered that I strongly favour multi-roomed pubs with intimate spaces and cosy snugs over echoing, o...

Twitter correspondent Michael Harris has recently reported that Sam Smith’s have removed cask Old Brewery Bitter from the Swan in Holmes Cha...

I recently linked to an article entitled Ten Commandments for the Public House , which was a list of things that well-run pubs would do well...

Many industry watchers were taken by surprise at yesterday’s news that Marston’s were to acquire the brewing interests of Charles Wells for ...

Amongst the proposals leaked this week in Labour’s election manifesto was one to carry out an enquiry into the reasons behind the “large-sca...

The makers of Lucozade have recently come under a barrage of criticism for changing the formula of the drink to reduce the sugar content, to...

It’s not very often that I come across an article in the media that has me nodding vigorously in agreement throughout, but this one in Spect...

If you see a product on special offer, it will usually be a good buying opportunity if it’s something you actually want. However, for perish...

A distinctive feature of Sam Smith’s pubs is a variety of peremptory notices saying things such as: “The Brewery require all customers to l...

From time to time, the authorities have a go at trying to single out categories of alcoholic drinks that they think are consumed disproporti...

A point about this blog that some people seem to struggle with is that the fact I don’t show much enthusiasm for something doesn’t mean I ac...

Last week, there was an interesting interview on the Morning Advertiser website with Richard Westwood, the MD of Marston’s, in which he ma...