The Pub Curmudgeon

The government have, perhaps rashly, pledged to end smoking in England by 2030 , as part of “a range of measures to tackle the causes of p...

It happens as regular as clockwork at this time of year. A few days of hot, sunny weather bring people out into beer gardens for the first t...

In the early years of my drinking career, one of the most interesting aspects was visiting new pubs and finding so many that seemed to have ...

At the end of June, I spent a few days in Cornwall, and on the way back stayed for a night in Gloucester. While I was there, I called in to ...

I recently made a couple of posts that touched on issues of beer dispense. These spurred me to look at what was going on in pubs more closel...

Three weeks ago, as part of our day out in Uttoxeter , we were very kindly given a lift by Paul Mudge’s wife Jacquie to the outlying Plough....

We pick up our story in the back room of the Vaults in Uttoxeter. The next pub on the itinerary was the Plough on Stafford Road, but this w...

The Staffordshire market town of Uttoxeter is best known for its racecourse and being the home of JCB and Elkes Biscuits. The name will also...

A Bristol licensee has recently complained that her profits were being adversely affected by customers choosing just to drink tap water wit...

In the early days of CAMRA, a substantial proportion of cask beer, especially in the Midlands and North of England, was served via electric ...

The other day, I was in a pub where a guy went up to the bar and very decisively ordered a Heineken Zero. Nothing unusual about that, maybe,...

Earlier this week, the Institute for Public Policy Research published a report proposing that, to combat obesity, the plain packaging curren...

Last Autumn, I argued in a post entitled Something’s Got to Give that the steady decline in cask beer volumes would inevitably lead to redu...

Pete Brown (yes, him again) has recently been complaining in the Morning Advertiser about the poor aesthetic presentation of beer as compa...

This isn’t an overtly political blog beyond the sphere of lifestyle politics. However, for each major national election, out of interest I’v...