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We're proud to have featured again with This Morning, showcasing with the best advent calendars you can buy for Advent this year!
This week we launch the range of Salt Beer Factory beers on the site and what better way to introduce a new brewery to our beer hunters than to have a good 'ole fashioned interview with Nadir Zairi, Director of the Yorkshire based brewery in Saltaire.
There are signs that Non-Alcoholic beer is hitting the mainstream and is poised to hit the big time, but just how popular will it become? In this article I’ll look at some of the signs that show ‘NOLO’ (non or low alcoholic) beer is becoming a serious player in our industry, and how its development might progress in the UK.
After trying out our very own World Beers mixed case for a beer tasting party, Christie Day, Brand Expert at money-saving website Savoo shares her tips for hosting a top beer tasting night on a budget.
Ask someone down the pub for the reasons behind Britain’s recent Beer revival, and you’re guaranteed all sorts of different explanations. In 2017 the number of UK breweries passed the 2000 mark, which puts us well ahead of European neighbours. Most will have a reasonable argument for why, but you can bet your double-dry hopped DIPA that very few of them would mention Gordon Brown, ex-PM and former Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The Christmas beers like never before Should Christmas beers be relegated into Room 101? Not if they taste like this... The Christmas ale. The jolly, warming, merrymaking Christmas ale. Is that the sound of Silent Night being sung by a choir outside?Or perhaps Christmas beers are just another regular beer with some cinnamon flavouring thrown in as a not-so-subtle marketing ploy, and a vaguely smart pun for a name. Pumpkin ales are divisive, and so can the Christmas ale. But should this seasonal beer also be thrown into Room 101 along with plastic mistletoe and the Furby (sorry, I mean, Hatchimal). Perhaps first we should look at the ghosts of Christmas past to see what they were drinking… [wavy editing affect here].According to the Oxford Companion to Beer, lambswool was one of the first Christmas ales, a frankly lovely
Should Christmas beers be relegated into Room 101? Not if they taste like this...
The Christmas ale. The jolly, warming, merrymaking Christmas ale. Is that the sound of Silent Night being sung by a choir outside?Or perhaps Christmas beers are just another regular beer with some cinnamon flavouring thrown in as a not-so-subtle marketing ploy, and a vaguely smart pun for a name. Pumpkin ales are divisive, and so can the Christmas ale. But should this seasonal beer also be thrown into Room 101 along with plastic mistletoe and the Furby (sorry, I mean, Hatchimal).
Perhaps first we should look at the ghosts of Christmas past to see what they were drinking… [wavy editing affect here].According to the Oxford Companion to Beer, lambswool was one of the first Christmas ales, a frankly lovely
Perhaps first we should look at the ghosts of Christmas past to see what they were drinking… [wavy editing affect here].According to the Oxford Companion to Beer, lambswool was one of the first Christmas ales, a frankly lovely sounding blend of roasted apples, nutmeg, ginger and honey all warmed with an ale. The name may come from the frothy head or a corruption of ‘lamasool’ – the Day of the Apple Fruit. Robert Herrick wrote in Twelfth Night, a Christmas poem from 1648:Next crown a bowl fullWith gentle lamb’s wool :Add sugar, nutmeg, and ginger,With store of ale too ;And thus ye must doTo make the wassail a swinger. Swinger, we presume, had a different meaning today. Maybe. Anyhoo, this special seasonal spicing of ale probably dates back much further. In fact, it’s the addition of spices that perhaps is one of the only attributes that ties together a vast variety of Christmas beer.That said, Christmas ales tend to be strong ales, barley wines and old ales that are generally stronger. Common ingredients include those associated with Christmas such as cinnamon, orange, cloves and honey. Also notable is that they are available in all the major beer drinking cultures. Britain, Germany and, of course, Belgium all have a tradition of making Christmas beers.
So on that festive note... we wish you all a very, merry Christmas.