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Balance Brewing & Blending, Manchester
Following a visit to Sureshot Taproom, we headed a few doors down to Balance Brewing & Blending where they specialise in mixed culture, barrel-fermented beer.
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Sureshot Taproom, Manchester
After popping over to Manchester for a Friday night gig, we spent the Saturday afternoon visiting a couple of taprooms. First on our list was Sureshot.
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Theakston
We love a good beer, especially when it’s brewed in Yorkshire. And Theakston is a well-known and well-regarded Yorkshire brewery (and for good reason). We’ve tried Old Peculiar a few times and it’s a good, solid-scoring beer. So we decided to try a couple more beers from the Theakston…
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Monthly Round-Up December 2024
We kicked off December with a belated St. Andrew’s celebration where we battled five Scottish brews. We also added a Tripel battle to our 2024 Belgian Beer Battle. In mid-December, we headed over to Munich for a weekend of Christmas markets, sightseeing and beer-related activities. And of course, we’ve…
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3 Things Beer Lovers Should Do In Munich (That Aren’t Oktoberfest)
Outside of Oktoberfest, Munich is still a great city to visit. In December 2024, we spent a weekend in Munich. In between browsing the Christmas markets and visiting the main attractions in the old town, we squeezed in some excellent beer-related activities that can be done any time…
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The 2024 Belgian Beer Battle
A year on from our original battle, we’ve learnt a lot more about beer (and have tried plenty more along the way). And we finally got around to visiting Belgium. But we knew we wouldn’t be able to try all the beers while we were there so we…
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A Wee Selection from Scotland
In celebration of St. Andrew’s Day (although a slightly delayed celebration), we sampled these five brews from five different Scottish Breweries which one was our beer of the night?
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Monthly Round-Up November 2024
This month we’ve had some amazing beers at home, including a fantastic selection from Harviestoun and eight collabs brewed for the Love & Beer Festival. We also found an exclusive Trappist beer on tap and tried an interesting Belgian Blue. But which beers came out on top?
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Love & Beer Collab Beers
Back in September, we headed down to London for the Love & Beer Festival. With so many beers on offer, we couldn’t try them all in one day, so we grabbed a selection of collab beers to take home, but which one was our favourite?
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The Draughtsman Alehouse, Doncaster Railway Station
The Draughtsman Alehouse is located in Doncaster Train Station. For such a small venue, they have a surprisingly great range of beers on keg and cask and in bottles and cans. Worth popping in for a pint if you have a delay or grabbing a couple of cans…
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Harviestoun
Harviestoun is a Scottish brewery, located at the foot of the Ochil Hills in Alva. Their beers have won various awards over the years, and four from our selection feature in a book called 1001 Beers to Try Before You Die.
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Monthly Round-Up October 2024
October started with a trip to North’s Springwell for their Oktoberfest event before heading to Cape Verde for a lovely beach break and some Cape Verdean brews. We also battled five Chimay beers, revised an official Oktoberfest beer and tried our first green-hopped beer.
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Craft Beer in Sal, Cape Verde
During our visit to Sal in October, we were able to find a lovely little craft beer bar and a range of Cape Verdean craft beers including a porter, a NEIPA, a Saison, a wheat beer and a cream ale.
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Monthly Round-Up September 2024
September included another trip up to Newcastle (this time for the Great North Run) another trip to Sheffield (for the 10k run) and some new brews at home. But the beer highlight of the month was a trip down to London for the Love & Beer Festival.
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Love & Beer Festival 2024
We’re big fans of The Craft Beer Channel so we jumped at the chance to attend Love & Beer 2 at Hackney Brewery in London.
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Monthly Round-Up August 2024
We started with a Yorkshire Day beer battle, a visit to the Middleton Railway food and beer festival and a trip over to Manchester to check out the Track and Cloudwater taprooms. The middle of the month saw us stop off in Sheffield for a couple of cask…
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The Orkney Brewery
The Orkney brewery is located on the Orkney Islands. They use traditional methods and brew with British barley and Orcadian water.
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3 Top Real Ale Bars in Alnwick
There’s no shortage of bars and pubs in Alnwick, so we decided to track down some of the independent venues that served cask ales and found three lovely bars.
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Firebrick Taproom, Grainger Market, Newcastle Upon Tyne
We love Newcastle (and NUFC), so when we were invited to a wedding in Alnwick, we couldn’t resist a quick lunch and beer stop in one of our favourite cities. We’d headed to Grainger Market for food (a delicious Gyros if you’re interested) and we stumbled across this…
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The Sheffield Tap, Sheffield
As non-drivers, we spend a fair amount of time in train stations so it’s always good when there’s a great bar nearby. And one of our favourite station bars is The Sheffield Tap. Not only can you access it without leaving the station, but it also has its…
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Cloudwater Brewery & Taproom, Manchester
After an event we had booked was cancelled, we decided to take the day off anyway and stick to our plan of heading over to Manchester. We took the opportunity to visit two fantastic taprooms. Our second stop was Cloudwater, the perfect place to round off our afternoon.
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Track Brewing Co Brewery & Taproom, Manchester
This brilliant brewery and taproom is located a short walk from Manchester Piccadilly station and is well worth a visit. Plenty of beer styles to choose from, loads of seating indoor and out, and you can watch the beer being made while enjoying fresh brew.
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Yorkshire Day Battle
It’s not very often New Brew Thursday falls on Yorkshire Day and it IPA day as well. So what better way to celebrate than with four Yorkshire-brewed beers, including two IPAs.
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Monthly Round-Up July 2024
This month, we were lucky enough to spend a week in Belgium, undoubtedly one of the best beer-producing countries in the world. We spent three nights in Bruges, four nights in Brussels, and snuck in a day trip across the border to Lille. And with two brewery tours…
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Best Beer Bars in Bruges
There’s certainly no shortage of great bars in Bruges, but if you’re looking for the biggest and best selections of Belgian beers, here are some places you should add to your list.
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Brussels Beer Project, Brussels
We tried a lot of exceptional traditional beers on our trip to Belgium, but it was refreshing to find a modern brewery offering more contemporary styles. Brussels Beer Project has tap rooms around Belgium and in France, but we were lucky enough to find one about ten minutes…
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Cantillon Brewery Tour, Brussels
What’s interesting about Cantillon is that, because it is a museum, the beer it brews is brewed using the same equipment it was using 100 years ago. Beers, tools and brewing process are still the same as they were in 1900 when it was founded.
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De Halve Maan Brewery Tour, Bruges
The history of De Halve Maan Brewery dates back to 1856 when it was founded by Henri Maes. While other breweries gradually moved outside the old town for more space, De Halve Maan remains in the centre of Bruges. In 2016, they got around their space issue by…
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The Tetley, Leeds
We love The Tetley and have visited for food and drinks with various friends and family members over the years. So we were sad to hear it was closing. Fortunately, a few weeks later, it was announced that Kirkstall Brewery would be taking on the lease with plans…
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Monthly Round-Up June 2024
We started June in Porto, Portugal – an absolutely beautiful city. As you can imagine, Port Wine (and wine) is everywhere in Porto, so our focus was on grape not grain. That said, we managed to seek out a couple of locally brewed beers, including one that made…
