Ben Viveur

We're slap bang in the middle of 'Cask Ale Week' which this year runs from 17 to 27 September (I know, ten days, what were they thinking etc.) and as usual I find myself struggling to really see the point of it.

It takes a lot of hard work and strenuous drinking to run this little Pub of the Year contest.

As you may or may not know, one of my many alter egos is The InnQuizitor.

Here's the second batch of contestants in the latest London Pub of the Year survey.

Better late than never?

One of the many things that irritates me these days - as an increasingly irritable middle-aged man who finds lots of stuff irritating as he gets older - is going into a pub and being confronted with lots of beers that are very similar to one another.

Sometimes strange things occur accidentally.

Last week, I drank a cask beer from Downton brewery at the Ealing Beer Festival.

For the best part of 20 years, Thornbridge has been one of my favourite breweries.

I've been toying with the idea of starting a Youtube channel.

The recent news about Brewdog isn't particularly encouraging.

Well, that's another year done and dusted.

I noticed that my last two blog headers have been 'So long's - something that happened purely by accident and/or editorial laziness on my part.

As one of the laziest people on the planet, I frequently find myself thinking of stuff to write about, and then failing to write about it.

Is this the end of the Great British Beer Festival?

I love the Hope in Carshalton.

Go on then, let's have a winner, shall we?!?

My relationship with the Great British Beer Festival goes back a long way - I've been attending it for over 30 years and have never missed one - so it was with a little trepidation that I attended GBBF 2025 last week.

Welcome to the second half of the 2024-25 London Pub of the Year award.

Like the proverbial Renegade Master, we are 'back once again'.

The aroma hit me as soon as the car door was open.

The VE Day celebrations last month, fairly subdued as they were, got me thinking about VE Day 1995, which was much more of 'a thing'.

Has it finally had its day?

Obviously I'm a pretty big fan of cask beer.

The Wetherspoons 'Beer Festival' which is currently running has a lot going for it.

It's that time again, when I cast an over-shouldered glance at all the new beer I got to drink over the past year and tell you which ones were best.