Pubs, pies, past and present
When I expounded the principle in the pages of The Publican that the minimum requirement for a pie was that it be entirely encased in pastry, it had a real-world impact.
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When The Chips Are Down
How many chips constitutes a portion? It’s a question that helped to revive the art of conversation between my wife and I when we visited a managed pub operated by one of the UK’s biggest pub groups, on a recent visit to the West End of London.
Tackling The Costs of Care
As economic headwinds continue, all caterers face the uphill task of managing costs while maintaining high standards. For care home operators, the challenge is even more intense.
Return of the Beerstash Chronicles: Hold that thought – Fuller’s Vintage Ale 2020
There’s no denying that beers designed to be put away for drinking down the line often bring out the best in their brewers. Fullers Vintage Ale is a case in point. The 2020 edition marks the 24th year since the Griffin Brewery began producing this limited edition beer.
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Guest Blog: Conor Shaw, CEO of workforce management experts Bizimply
GMs must be front of house to reassure customers and staff post-lockdown The best hospitality operators definitely took a ‘glass half full’ approach when lockdown was imposed and looked for the opportunities in a situation that was beyond their control, rather than railing against it. Enforced closure allowed for the reflection and review that are
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Time to get back to the pub
There aren’t many silver linings for operators in the cloud that is trying to run a pub or restaurant in a post-COVID world, but here are a few that I think are worth latching onto.
The BeerStash Chronicles 2: Fresh thinking
A blog by John Porter from www.apieandapint.com Beer is best drunk when it’s freshly brewed*. There, I’ve said it. It may not be the most sensible contention to make at the outset of an article which sets out to assess the merits of a beer that’s been knocking around for years, but it’s probably worth
Pinxtos and pre-history: a ‘restless’ trip with San Miguel
Swapping the grey skies of a London winter for two days of Spanish sunshine would have been an offer too good to pass up even without the added attraction of visits to San Sebastian, the Atapuerca archaeological site, and Michelin starred restaurant Cobo Vintage. So when San Miguel invited me to join a trip as
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It’s a Trappist!
As someone very clever once remarked, just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. They were almost certainly talking about something even more important than beer, such as building an atomic bomb or holding a referendum, but there are also plenty of breweries who would be well advised to have the saying inscribed
The Treasure of the Sierra Nevada
There is much talk of consolidation in beer circles at the moment. It seems to received wisdom on both sides of the Atlantic seems to be that the craft beer boom has left us overbreweried, which will inevitably lead to the big global players snapping up bargains by buying out the biggest craft players, while
Spice up your life! The art (and science) of whisky blending.
In my defence, I wasn’t the only invitee who read “blind tasting” on the email and briefly thought “blindfold tasting”. It wasn’t, however, a 50 Shades of Grey style sensory encounter that bought us to Islington on a wet Wednesday evening, but rather an event organised by the Grant’s Family Reserve whisky brand. As regular
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Sauce for the Goose – the Vintage Ale House opens in Balham
If John Lee Hooker ordered his usual ‘One Scotch, One Bourbon and One Beer’ at the Goose Island Vintage Ale House in Balham, the beer on offer would be from the Goose Island range back in Chicago in his adopted city.
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