Review Posts

Fuller's & Friends: New England IPA

Forgive me for saying so, but Cloudwater have always felt a bit.... cult-y to me. Their beers seem to attain legendary status before the yeast has settled, and that (combined, to be fair, with their usually substantial ABV) drives the price into "you have got to be joking" territory. Their DIPAs are the pinnacle of ...

Fuller's & Friends: Galleon

Although the brewer in me knows that 'lager' is, ultimately, nothing more than a technical term I'm also aware that, in mainstream UK terms, 'lager' is a fairly specific thing - it's light and crisp and generally fairly subtly-hopped. It's somewhere that's usually safe to go when a non-beery friend says "oh just ...

Fuller's & Friends: Peat Souper

I've been quite a fan of Fuller's for some years, ever since I worked out that my initial lack of enthusiasm was caused not by the beer itself, but by the lacklustre cellarmanship of our local Fuller's pub which had made me think that Pride was this bland and slightly funky tasting pint. After visiting ...

Hackney Coffee Kingsland

The Hackney Coffee Company has only been in business for a couple of years, housed in a family-owned premises that has over the years seen service as a garage, depot and even brewery before entering the world of coffee. Their coffee blends are all named for local landmarks or history, which certainly helps root them ...

Greenall's London Dry Gin

Greenall's is produced by G&J Distillers, who claim to be the oldest distiller in Britain - although if I had a bottle from every distillery that said that, I could open a bar. The original recipe - still in use today - was created in 1761 by Thomas Dakin, which certainly predates any distillery ...

CaféDirect Tarrazu Reserve

CaféDirect have had a bit of a rebrand recently; the packaging certainly looks crisper and more modern, and they've dropped the rather curious "made the small way" slogan that bemused me so much when I reviewed their Colombia coffee a few years ago. Then again, they've replaced it with "Ridiculously Good Coffee" which is, ...

Liverpool Gin

Liverpool Gin started life as a small independent gin distillery in 2013, set up by John O'Dowd and Mark Hensby (of the Liverpool Organic Brewery). By 2016, it had become part of the Halewood International empire; a large drinks producer and distributor that already had a number of gins in its portfolio, along with vodkas, ...

Empress Ale

I have to admit to being nervous whenever I hear that a beer has been designed for a specific market or niche. Experience has taught me that the resulting drink often bears all the hallmarks of being created by a committee composed of the Marketing Department and the Finance Department resulting in, well, ...

Bridgehead Bytown Boom

One of the great pleasures of travelling is exploring local food and drink; for obvious reasons my focus tends to be more on the drink than the food! Local beer is always top on my list, but often there will be local wines, spirits and - increasingly - coffee to be explored too. ...

Magic Spells Brewery Tour At Home

Magic Spells Brewery are a new East London brewery, very firmly at the 'craft' end of the beery spectrum. They have a familiar enough backstory, starting with (a rather substantial 1/2 barrel) homebrewing background 3 years ago and finally going commercial at the start of this year. At the moment they're still 'gypsy brewing' ...