The Pub Curmudgeon

Someone recently posted a picture on a local Facebook group of the Nip Inn in the shadow of the Lancashire Hill flats in Stockport. This f...

Today marks the 15th anniversary of this blog. Rather fittingly, the very first post was one about Bansturbation , which has remained a cons...

Last weekend there was a Channel 4 programme in the “Inside the Superbrands” series looking at Guinness. I can’t say I was expecting too muc...

Yesterday, it was reported that the government were considering a temporary cut in the standard rate of VAT from 20% to 17½% to provide som...

I live on my own, and from time to time find myself eating alone in restaurants. Over the years, I’ve experienced quite a number of examples...

The first five months of this year have seen a spate of closures of small independent breweries, many long-established and well-respected. T...

As a counterpoint to yesterday’s post , here are a few things in pubs that for me are an instant turn-off. The name of the pub displayed on...

Recently there was some discussion on Twitter about the signifiers of both rough pubs and snobby pubs. So I thought I would ask a related qu...

Given all the problems currently besetting the country, you might have thought that the government had enough on their plate at present. But...

To coincide with National Bass Day last month, Amberley Publishing released The Story of Bass – The Rise and Demise of a Brewing Great by H...

In the early 1970s, whether or not a pub sold real ale was largely due to the policies of the owning brewery, and many busy, high-profile ...

The first National Bass Day was planned for Easter Saturday 2020, 11 April, but, as we all know, the Covid lockdown intervened and it ne...

I recently spotted a tap for keg Wainwright on the bar of a pub. I suppose I knew this existed (I have certainly seen keg Pedigree) but I ca...

Earlier this week, it became a legal requirement in England for all restaurants, pubs and takeaways employing over 250 people to display cal...

Earlier this month, a study published by Public Health Scotland claimed that the amount of cross-border alcohol purchasing following the ...