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Category Archives: Beer & Food
Beer World (part nine): Bhutanese brews
Bhutan is an odd place. It’s tiny, not even twice the size of Wales and with about as many people as Leeds, which makes its position, squeezed between the behemoths of India and China, all the more precarious. And yet … Continue reading
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The tastes of Istanbul
It starts like hay fever. Except neither of us suffers from hay fever. Even if we did, this would be a strange place for it: we emerge from the station at the top of the dinky underground funicular railway into … Continue reading
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Beer World (part eight): Welcome to Hackney’s Hoppy Valley
I’ll confess, I’d forgotten about Wandle. There was a time, not so long ago, when the simple presence of Sambrook’s best on a bar was reason to relax. But unlike Deuchars or Timothy Taylor’s Landlord, it was brewed in London … Continue reading
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Beer World (part seven) – Lambic adventures in Brugge
Belgium. It is a daunting place, for someone who likes to think that he likes beer. The menus run to hundreds of brews, but it might as well be thousands, millions. And all (with the possible exception of some of … Continue reading
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Beer World (part six) – Yorkshire
The Reliance in Leeds is a fine place to enjoy a Sunday lunch before heading home. Veggie sausages and mash, some odd mushy peas on the side, and all washed down with the house beer. Reliance Best, brewed for the … Continue reading
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Beer World (part five) – Iceland
When I planned this year’s trip to Iceland, I did not anticipate that it would produce a Beer World post: my previous visits have not been marked by great experiences on that front. In fact, as a vegetarian who likes … Continue reading
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Beer World (part four) – Literary beer
This is an odd addition to the Beer World series, both because there is no photograph of a foaming pint (I kind of forgot, for reasons that will become clear) and because its subject is very close to home. About … Continue reading
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Beer World (part three) – Tromso and the frozen North
A trip to the frozen north! Of course there were huskies and the aurora borealis and all sorts of arctic adventures. We spent a very chilly, but very lovely, night in a Sami lavvu at Camp Tamok, where there was … Continue reading
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Of oats and darkness
It’s getting cold. It’s already got dark: the week started with the drabbest day I can remember in London. Mind you, each year I am surprised by the rapid descent of the days into perma-dusk and the somehow unexpected annual … Continue reading
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Beer World (part two) – Andalucia
A short trip to Andalucia, one of my favourite corners of the world, to try to rediscover the sun after the British ‘summer’. Back to the Ronda hills, and the cute town/village of Gaucin, nestled in the saddle of a … Continue reading
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Maps and Legends 