JournalLive - Taste Columnists - Alastair Gilmour

Beer list? In restaurants? It's the future!

JournalLive — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

SITTING down at your restaurant table, you take in the resplendent surroundings. This is a high- class venue but then, you’re celebrating a special occasion and it’s nothing but the best tonight.

Non-drinker just loves a pub

JournalLive — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 23:00:00 GMT

PUBS and music go hand-in-hand. Beer, wine and spirits provide the backing, although it’s a few years since a fog of cigarette smoke helped create an atmosphere.

Newcastle real ale festival matures with age

JournalLive — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 23:00:00 GMT

ACCORDING to a study, the average Briton believes that youth ends at 35 and old age begins at 58. Oh, dear. In between – all 23 years – is your middle age.

Warmly satisfying after a cold, wet beginning

JournalLive — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 23:00:00 GMT

DRINKING beer can warm the cockles of the hardest heart. It’s one of life’s great pleasures. But there’s no getting away from it, brewing beer is usually a cold business; it’s invariably wet around the feet and it’s not exactly a spectator activity.

Hawkshead Brewery has come a long way

JournalLive — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

THEY say that giving a journalist a brewery to run is like handing Dracula a blood bank.

Daffodils and real ales in the Lake District

JournalLive — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

TAKE the worthy words of Wordsworth and wander lonely as a cloud. This is the time of year to head for the Lake District – the early days of spring when the poet’s oft-quoted daffodils are “fluttering and dancing in the breeze”, the fells are tourist-light and the pubs are as welcoming as ever.

A real excuse to party for Camra's 40th birthday

JournalLive — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

IT ISN’T true that Nobody Loves a Fairy When She’s 40. It may be an old music hall favourite (do I hear “Two-Ton” Tessie O’Shea?) but we beg to differ about the sentiment. “Fairies” at 40 are all too easy to dismiss.

Soaps in the dock over alcohol use in storys

JournalLive — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

WHAT we watch on television is the latest area to come under the watchful eye of the drinks industry.

Brandling Villa festival goes with a banger

JournalLive — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 11:00:00 GMT

A SIGN in a Newcastle cafe window offers: “Jumbo sosige and chips £2”. A bargain, if only for its glimpse into the elasticity of language. They know what they mean, we know what they mean, and passers-by get to smile a little on a grey February day, so everybody wins.

Insight into collecting beer memorabilia

JournalLive — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

ELBOW meets vintage beer bottle, vintage beer bottle meets concrete floor, vintage beer bottle demonstrates how many pieces of glass went into its composition.

Back to basics to create the very best real ales

JournalLive — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

A SIDE-effect of being a thrifty, prudent Scot is that it lends an insight into the world of diversification. We get adept at recycling, regenerating and restoring, even salvaging “re-” words from the dictionary to dust off and to find another use for. Nothing is wasted.

Stouts set out to sea

JournalLive — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

AVAST ye landlubbers, shiver your timbers and splice the mainbrace. Batten down the hatches, cut and run, – the most arduous journey a brewery drayman has made for 200 years is about to begin.

Pubs bemoan ‘price betrayal’

JournalLive — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

SIXTY years ago, a young cartoonist scribbled in pencil on a cigarette packet. David Law’s sketch on the box of 10 Player’s Navy Cut – “made from the finest tobacco found rich and cool in smoking” – was of a tousle-haired teenager.

Town Wall pub meats all our expectations...

JournalLive — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

WE ALL live by guidelines, laws and codes of conduct. We take advice, follow convention and develop criteria.

Fancy a schooner?

JournalLive — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

THERE are few words in the English language more pleasing to the ear than the four-letter “pint”.

Things are hotting up already for our region

JournalLive — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

CALL it challenging, demanding or formidable, the year ahead is going to be tough. The 2011 that’s unfolding will certainly have its troughs, but for many North East pubs, microbrewers and producers it’s simply another gauntlet to be picked up.

Takeover helped Jennings avoid being sunk by floods

JournalLive — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

WHEN Midlands-based Marston’s bought Jennings Brewery five years ago, there were protests in the streets of Cockermouth.

Tis the season to make the most of our winter warmers

JournalLive — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

IT’S back. Snow might threaten to bring the region to a standstill once more, but one North East brewer is banking on a mild start to 2011.

British beers score a hit with Russians

JournalLive — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

THEY may have secured the World Cup in 2018, but what will visitors to Russia find to drink when they get there? A friend of ours came back from Moscow armed with some interesting observations.

Matching the beers with your food taste

JournalLive — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

IT’S a bit of a tradition in the Gilmour household that all talk of the nine-letter C-word is banned before December dawns. Call it mean, call it miserable, call it ... Christmas, but it’s a cast-iron rule.