It comes as no surprise that on an island that is more known for its grapes and wine production that beer is slightly tougher to come by in Santorini. The island is home to many wine producers but is home to only one brewery, the Santorini Brewing Co. Travelling through the winding roads of Santorini , dodging some very suspect driving from the locals, quad bikes and people hiking on foot roadside, you won’t go 10 minutes without seeing a vineyard, growing grapes in their uni

Temple Brew House is just a short couple minutes walking from the Thames, with lots of local tube stations to pick from including my short 9-minute walk back to Chancery Lane for the central line (there is even a handy wall poster in the pub with all the last tube times). Take a turn onto Essex Street and you will see the front doors of The Temple Brew House, inviting you down to the basement bar. Lots of wooden tables and chairs surround the bar space all sitting under the d

Best UK Cask Beer I’ve found this category a tough one this year, I’ve not drank less cask beer, if anything I think I have had more but I can’t think of many that has really blown me away. Well apart from one right near the end of the year a couple weeks ago at the Pigs Ear beer festival. It is no secret how much I love Five Points Railway Porter, its pretty much been in all my Golden Pints Awards from the start but this year I feature a slightly different version of it. Der

I don’t know about you but by the time it is Christmas, most years, I am sick of Christmas dinner! I’m not the biggest of turkey fans if I am to be honest (I’m more than happy for gammon>turkey), unless it comes in the Christmas sandwich format, then I am all for the full Christmas line up. While looking at different sandwiches and what certain supermarkets are offering up this year I had the idea to create my own Christmas burger, a Christmas dinner for those who are bored o

Before there was beer there was Hip Hop, a time when I wasn’t spending all my cash on bottles and cans to take home but instead it was vinyl. I wasn’t reading about different beers and the best places to drink them, I was reading EP reviews and looking out for the latest gigs. During my college years there was even a period of time that I dabbled in a bit of music creation myself, somewhere I could vent my passion just like I do now with beer blogging. I don’t know what it wa

After a week of blistering heat, the midweek July evening had taken a turn to the muggy side and you could sense a storm was brewing. The storm didn’t bother me, neither did being on the other side of London for a change as I was on my way to my first visit to The Prince for a Magic Rock Beer Party & BBQ, hosted by Matthew Curtis with special guest Rich Burhouse, founder of Magic Rock Brewing. I walked into The Prince N22 and was instantly greeted with the rare sight of a ful

The past couple of years has been crazy! When I first started this blog all I wanted to achieve was providing information to help others in either finding somewhere they could enjoy good beer on their travels or help to give recommendations for newbies in the world of beer. Sharing the love for good beer and giving my mates ears a rest from me badgering them into trying stuff was my number one goal. I could have never envisioned that writing this blog would result in being in

Last year MC Motors in Dalston held, in my eyes, the best beer event of the year in Brooklyn Brewery Beer Mansion. Nobody really knew what they were in for as they stepped through the doors of MC Motors, so to walk into a maze of rooms pouring top beers from both Brooklyn and other breweries, all for a £10 entry, blew our minds. The whole of MC Motors was decked out head to toe in Brooklyn branding, we drank some of the best beers I had all year long, there was loads of fun a

Throughout growing up there was a few beers that stayed with me over the years, among such beers was the likes of Dark Star Hophead, Hop Back Summer Lightning, Oakham Citra, Duvel, bottles of Adnams Broadside and St Austell Tribute. There are many more that hold many memories for me and recently I have been revisiting some of those classics and finding that even after years of hop abuse I am still enjoying these beers. St Austells have just launched the breweries biggest ever

In 1952 Pat “Pop” Newland was cutting up copies of the Daily Mirror newspaper so they could be used to hold East Londoners dinner at the fish and chip shop he worked in as a 11-year-old. After many years’ experience, he finally opened his own fish and chip shop Poppies in Spitafields Market, covering the walls with old 50s and beyond memorabilia, painting a picture of growing up in the East End of London. Filleting fresh fish daily from third generation Billingsgate fish mong

WARNING!!! This dish is pretty spicy, you might need some sour cream if you are not a fan of heat! Also, this recipe makes LOTS of Jerk curry, you will need a big pot or casserole dish, or if you want to make less then just half all the ingredients, if not then this will keep up to two days in the fridge or you can freeze it for another day. I recommend you chop and dice all the veg before cooking, as much as I love eating butternut squash I have to say it’s a real nightmare

Beers like Proper Job and Tribute brewed by Cornwall based family owned brewery St Austell are beers that guided me through my early years of exploring different beers. Many a college pub session would have involved pints of Tribute, the classic Cornish pale ale which can be found all across the UK. As the years passed by the selection of beers grew larger, so beers like Tribute and Proper Job started to become less common during my trips to the pub. When the cask beer is loo

As mentioned in my previous post featuring some beers from the Badger Ale, which also included a recipe for Fursty Ferret Easter Lamb, I had a recipe idea for my favourite Badger Ale sent to me. Poachers Choice is a 5.7%, sweet, dark, rich, full bodied, fruity ruby ale. With flavours of dark fruits, especially plum, and a warm finish this beer works very well with food. I got thinking about what food would work well with those plum flavours, duck came to mind. So, I thought I

I was lucky enough to attend both Thursday and Friday sessions of Craft Beer Rising via a press ticket. There was so much to take in but here are a few of my highlights of the festival. Twisted Barrel Ales One of the breweries that impressed me the most was one that I hadn’t experienced before, situated at the Fargo Village in Coventry Twisted Barrel Ales brought some exciting and experimental beers along with them. After embarrassingly not realising I was talking to The Bear

For the last couple of years, I have said that London needs a CAMRA beer festival which should feature a beer list completely made up of London cask beer, I had wrote it in a half finished blog post after last year’s London Drinker festival which never saw the light of day. I wrote how that I thought the London Drinker would be the perfect festival bring the best of cask beer in London. Finally, this year I got my wish and not only that, there was a key keg bar thrown into th

Pistonhead Kustom Lager has been around for a while, it has been on the shelves of our supermarkets for a couple of years and if I am to be honest I kind of just passed over it not knowing anything about it. Maybe I was partly being snobbish and ignoring it, assuming that because it was on supermarket shelves it wasn’t worth me spending my craft beer geek pennies. This isn’t a positive attitude to have, on the same shelves was bottles of Brewdog Elvis Juice, Sierra Nevada and

Creating a fun, enjoyable and special atmosphere when putting on a beer festival can be difficult job to get right, its more than just putting on the best beers you can find or having the most beers available. Large beer festivals can sometimes miss that magic edge but small beer festivals can feel more personal and intimate, Stokey Beer Festival in Stoke Newington had just this. With a maximum capacity of 200 people with a brewery list of 8 of the newest up and coming brewer

Slowly but surely beer is starting to feature more regularly on the menus of British restaurants, we are getting there slowly. Wine and food has such a long popular history that I find it hard to even entertain the idea of drinking beer alongside dinner with someone who likes wine with their food, let alone convince them that beer is more versatile. Dedicated beer focused restaurants are a rare find, unlike in America and in Europe where I read of how advanced they are compar

The humble roast potato, no roast dinner is complete without them. It can be tough to get those pesky spuds to go as crispy as you want them to, there is a fine line between roasting them till crispy and burning them. This recipe should help, the outcome was lovely, slightly crispy, fluffy roast potatoes. I have used Brutal Brewing Pistonhead Kustom Lager but you could use any pale ale, lager or even amber ale for this recipe. Pistonhead Roast Potatoes Maris Piper Potatoes (

Outside my garden is covered in a thin layer of bright white snow and I am freezing my bits off after waiting for a delayed bus, I need some hearty, rich, warm dinner to get me back to life again and nothing says “Lovingly Warm” like good gravy on your dinner plate! Goose Island released their Winter Ale this year at their Bourbon County 2016 release party, to be honest on the night the beer was completely overshadowed by the Bourbon County 2016, which is why I was interested