It was toward the end of September 2006, and a 64-year-old Englishman was making his way through the Denver airport. He was rotund, with an ample belly and shaggy grayish hair spilling in curls from every part of his scalp save the balding front. He sported a similarly grayish beard that seemed in need of... View Article
With a bit of luck, you and I will be clinking glasses round about now. Usual time, same place? You remember it, of course? They have 1,200 beers, in 50 or 60 styles, from 300 breweries, under one roof? If we miss each other in the crowd, I shall be sorry, but it is understandably... View Article
In an hotel room in the Czech Republic, I roll out of bed, make myself some coffee, and check my e-mail. It is there again: that question. It is a question of style. Every day, I am asked questions about beer: by email about 25 each morning; by other journalists, radio and television hosts, and... View Article
Can you imagine a world in which all bread was white, sliced; all wine white, “dry” (and all people white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant?)? A monotonous place it would be.
A friend calls: “Fancy going to hear some music tonight?” I ask: “What do you have in mind?” He tells me the name of an artist, or a band. I have never heard of them. “It’s not medieval chamber music is it? Like that last gig, where each set was about a year long?” He... View Article
Which is the best beer? What do you think of the beer in this city/state/country? Where in the world are the best beers? How do ours compare?” These questions haunt my dreams, and I wake up answering them on breakfast television, in Tokyo, Toronto or heaven knows where.
The man who would have been my grandfather on my mother’s side died of drink before I was born. My mother was therefore nervous of alcohol, and rarely consumed it except at times of celebration, and then in unfestively small quantities. She pursued no religious observances, but was culturally a Christian and a Protestant in... View Article
The man who would have been my grandfather on my mother’s side died of drink before I was born. My mother was therefore nervous of alcohol, and rarely consumed it except at times of celebration, and then in unfestively small quantities. She pursued no religious observances, but was culturally a Christian and a Protestant in... View Article
Yet again, I have been rumpled. Quoting me in an article about the serving temperatures of ales, the Wall Street Journal described me as being “rumpled.” It is true that I have a remorseless inability to be tidy in dress (or desk), but what had this to do with my qualifications to pronounce upon cold... View Article
