The Pellicle Podcast

Manchester in the mid-2010s was an electric period in the city’s brewing history, with several modern brewing trailblazers—including Track and Cloudwater —exploding onto the scene. Before either of them existed, however, there was Blackjack, which has been quietly plugging away with its wonderful beer since 2012.  Over the years they’ve established themselves not simply as a well-respected brewery...

In January 2024, co-founder of Thornbridge Brewery, Simon Webster received an email from Garrett Oliver. He’d heard a rumour that Carlsberg Britvic, the now owners of Marston’s Brewery in Burton-upon-Trent, were “laying the union to rest.” The Brooklyn brewmaster continued to ask Simon if he’d be interested in taking a set, in turn saving it from being permanently erased from British brewing histo...

Hops have dominated the beer conversation for decades. Modern beer culture has been built on the back of their vast trellises, the majority of which today stand in Yakima, in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.  Many North American hops, including Cascade, Centennial and Simcoe, could arguably be called legacy varieties, such has been the length and size of their impact on the beer industr...

This has been quite a year for Pellicle. Not only has it seen us set new records in terms of our readership, but we also released our first piece of print media in Katie Mather’s A PLACE TO BE and recruited the talented Claire Bullen onto our editorial team. Between us and our contributors we also picked up no less than 17 awards, including being named as the Beer Publication of the Year in 2025 ....

As a beer enthusiast, bottle shops have always played an important role in my life.  They were there when I first got into beer in a big way, supplying me with hard to find bottles imported from the United States, or new releases from some of the most exciting new breweries in the UK. It was through them that I also met some of my most valued friends and peers, including Jen Ferguson and Glenn Wil...

When I wrote my 2021 book, Modern British Beer , I made the very intentional decision to put Fyne Ales irreplaceable Blonde Ale, Jarl, right at the beginning.  For me, it’s a beer that merges two schools of thought: that it is a modern beer, hopped with Citra imported from the Pacific Northwest, showcasing a bold, citrus fruit character, but one that is also a 3.8% cask beer, and at the same time...

A few months ago I met a couple who had recently opened their own brewery on the Isle of Man. I was really compelled by their story, that one of them had lived on the island for most of his life, and how the other had returned from a life in London. Together they were trying to bring modern beer styles to a British dependency with a population of just 85,000 people, surrounded by the Irish Sea. Th...

Established in 2013, Berkshire’s Siren Craft Brew has rightfully grown to become one of the most well-respected modern breweries in the United Kingdom. We at Pellicle have been lucky to have followed Siren’s journey since pretty much the beginning—I even hosted a tasting with founder Darron Anley at the Duke’s Head Pub in Highgate all the way back in 2015. They’re also one of our dedicated pro-Pat...

If you’re anything like me, you might have noticed that a certain dark beer has slowly but surely become the most ubiquitous beer in the UK. I am of course talking about Guinness. Now the most popular beer in the country (by value) it feels almost impossible to escape the gravity created by The Black Stuff.  Many of the smaller breweries I speak to—particularly those in Ireland—malign the ubiquity...

Let’s begin the description of this episode with a mea culpa.  In February 2025 I visited the Trading Route, a new venue from the people behind Manchester Union Brewery, and Manchester restaurants Trof, and Stow. One of the main reasons I was excited to go was because Manchester Union co-founder Will Evans had appeared in an Instagram video advertising slow poured versions of their lager, complete...

One of the best things about making a yearly trip to Fyne Ales for FyneFest is that I get to check in on the brewery’s Origins side project.  It’s the vehicle for its wild beers, typically produced using mixed or spontaneously fermented and then barrel-matured beer, and often showing locally grown fruit, or forage herbs. These beers are a long way from cherished Fyne Ale classics like Jarl or High...

About 10 years ago I was roaming along Red Bank in a part of Manchester city centre I was hopelessly unfamiliar with. On either side of me were tall stone walls topped with railway bridges, boxing me in and hiding the sun from view. Not another soul was to be seen. I sincerely hoped I was in the right place.  Thankfully, a few moments later, I was met by a smiling face that had emerged from a red...

Should we scrap the pint measure? Or is the very notion of doing so rooted in prejudices like classism? These were the questions I asked following the September 2024 publication of a study led by researchers at the University of Cambridge. Back then my focus was singular: why indeed did such a study focus specifically not just on beer, but on pubs? Its focus was to look at alcohol consumption rate...

It’s fair to say I’ve developed something of an obsession with Theakston’s Old Peculier. Ever since deputy ed. Katie Mather and I sat down and had a couple of pints in Manchester’s The Salisbury a year or so ago, it’s become a cornerstone of my drinking habits. Katie went on to write a very fine profile of this majestic beer , and following that the brewery reached out and invited me to the brewer...

Those of you with good enough memories will remember I have some thoughts on terroir in beer. Basically, I think the concept is a scam, and that a product which is so influenced by not just a confluence of ingredients, but so much human intervention can’t possibly express the t-word. However, I remain open-minded, and I try to let those opinions remain somewhat malleable. While beer as a finished...

If you’re a regular user of pubs I’m probably someone you’d refer to as a ‘transient’ pubgoer. I enjoy variety—the spice of life, as it were. Stimulation, for me, comes from visiting lots of different pubs, and here in Manchester I am spoiled for choice. It’s easy enough for me to hop from Café Beermoth, to The City Arms, to Bundobust, to head over to The Salisbury for yet another Old Peculier . A...

Coffee and beer are, when you think about it, strange bedfellows. One gets you out of bed in the morning, provides stimulation and impetus, while the other (hopefully) tells you that it’s time to slow down and kick back. Perhaps it's the inherent balance this creates which is why I can’t do without either. I first got into coffee about 10 years ago, and for all wants and purposes in this podcast w...

Although it’s still a few months away I’m already getting excited about this year's FyneFest . It’s one of the most important dates in my calendar, not just because we head up there to host our Meet the Brewer panel discussions, but because it’s simply one of the best beer-focussed events that the UK has to offer. While I tend to get misty-eyed over glorious pints of Jarl from the source, I also r...

Until the start of 2024 I had never heard of French & Jupps, the UK’s oldest continuously operating maltster, established in 1689. When I was offered to visit by my friend Jonathan Mitchell, who distributes their malt via his Northern Ireland-based company Get ‘Er Brewed, I just had to tag along.  Malt has always been central to both my enjoyment and fascination with beer, and is my favourite ingr...

For the past few months I have been considering a very specific subgenre of British beer, its place in the wider culture of British beer, and my own enjoyment of it. You might call the beverages within this category by the name saison, sour, barrel-aged, or even mixed-fermentation. None of these terms, however, feel like they do this category, how exciting it is, or what it actually means to peopl...

Will brewing ever truly manage to become ‘sustainable’? Acknowledged by the UK government as a highly energy intensive sector of the economy, the industrial act of making beer has a far larger drain on our natural resources than those simply caused by heating liquid up and cooling it down again. Brewing uses a massive amount of water for a start, whether that’s for cleaning, packaging, or making t...

It’s that time of the year once again, and you can bet we’re making our lists and checking them twice.  In what feels like a breakout year for Pellicle, join our editor-in-chief Matthew Curtis and deputy editor Katie Mather as they chew through the year that was. There’s plenty of reflection on the magazine itself, as well as space for discussing some of the bigger topics in beer and cider for 202...

IPAs. We love to hate them. We love to love them. It’s fair to say that the darling of modern beer has, over the past 10 or 20 years, been discussed to death. But we felt there was life in the old dog yet. That’s why at FyneFest earlier this year we hosted a panel discussion to talk about the present and future of the IPA with two breweries who are pushing the envelope as far as this category is c...

What do you think of when you think about a pint of Timothy Taylor’s Landlord? Is it a seamless marriage of hop, malt, yeast and water? Or is it perhaps the pristine vistas offered by the hills and dales of Yorkshire? God’s Own Country they call it, modestly. Maybe it’s about that duff pint you had in a random Soho pub that tasted of idleness and regret? All three perspectives are valid. There is...

It always brings me great joy to publish the recordings of the panel discussions we have at FyneFest each year. This year’s were our best and busiest yet, with our new Origins Tent making our small portion of the festival feel more accessible and welcoming than ever before. Thanks to everyone that came down, and if you enjoy the sound of this, then head to fynefest.com this week to secure your tic...