Goatee Phil's Beer Blog

The pubs they are a-changin' South Street, showing the former Portslade Brewery, complete with chimney I live in Portslade, a small town about five miles west of Brighton. I have been here for fifteen years but had, until recently, only drunk in three of its many pubs. I was inspired to check out the others by the writings of beer bloggers Boak and Bailey . Not only have they recently published a fascinating history of the English public house 20th Century Pub they post frequently about the various hostelries in their adopted city of Bristol. These reviews, and their aim of presenting each venue in as positive a light as possible, set me thinking. I should probably begin by attempting to explain exactly what it is that I look for in a pub. The first thing is decent beer. Preferably this should include at least a selection of ales on cask although the quality of many keg-delivered beers these days means that this isn’t always a deal-breaker. Another is the absence...

A new craft beer in a new town City Hotel, Kurf ü rstendamm Last week I flew to Berlin for my second visit in three years. The previous trip, with my wife Charita, got off to a bad start. We had just come from four nights in Prague, a beautiful city that we both loved. We travelled by train, a long, disappointingly dull journey and arrived, tired, on the Saturday evening. After a meal in a nearby steak house, that was us done for the night. We got up the next day ready to experience the city and ....  Nada! We hadn't realised that virtually nothing would be open on the Sunday. As a consequence we managed one museum, a large flea market and a hop-on, hop-off bus tour. I did squeeze in a couple of pub visits in the next couple of days, to the Hops and Barley in Friedrichshain and the Vagabund Brauerei  in Wedding, but it was clear that we  didn't have enough time to do justice to such a large and fascinating city. T here was more, much more to see so, wi...

What's shakin', Phil? What a year it's been for beer! I started the year as something of a craft beer sceptic. Now, twelve months later, I’ve changed my mind almost completely.  I used to have reservations about the temperature of keg beer. Now I feel that it’s often an advantage. I admit too that I did go through a period of thinking that strong beers, ie anything 6% or above, were the only ones with enough flavour to withstand the drop in temperature. These days I’m finding that even session beers taste fine on keg as long as they have a distinctive enough flavour.  It also helps to have bars like the newly opened Bison Craft House in Hove, where the staff are passionate about what they sell. They stock no cask ale but have a rapidly changing selection of excellent keg brews, from the likes of Cloudwater, Buxton, Verdant, Vibrant Forest and more.  So, I shall ask myself again: which is better, cask or keg? Answer: neither. They're just different. Before...