It is a sedate summer’s afternoon in the bar of The Globe in Topsham, five miles outside Exeter. Wimbledon is on the big screen, with the sound turned down, and there are five other customers inside. More sit around the outside tables at the back of this former coaching inn owned by St. Austell Brewery. I amble to the bar: “pint of Proper Job please.” “This and Tribute are our two bestsellers,” the young bartender replies. “I drink it myself and think part of its appeal is that it...| Pellicle
*** We’re able to commission David to draw a comic for us every month thanks to the support of our sponsor, Get ‘Er Brewed, and the incredible support of our Patreon subscribers. Help support our contributors, including David by signing up for a subscription here.| Pellicle
“Salmon-Safe Certified” read the cardboard box that had just arrived at now-closed Brick Brewery in south-east London, dropped unceremoniously by a courier. Neither I nor the Brick team could fathom what that meant—I’d later learn that it’s a certification that agricultural products in the Pacific Northwest are grown to standards that help protect wild Pacific salmon—but we knew there was something exciting inside. This was July 2019, and I was brewing a collaboration with Brick a...| Pellicle
New Zealand hops are special. Fragrant and zesty, their unique profiles strangely represent likenesses to the famous Sauvignon Blanc wines made there—grapefruit, kiwi, gooseberry; freshly cut grass. In the 2000s, juicy, wine-like Nelson Sauvin found its place within the American craft brewing scene and became a go-to for West Coast IPAs and pale ales. Now, it’s difficult to imagine the beer world without it, as it becomes ever more embedded within the flavour profiles of modern beer style...| Pellicle
Hops arrived in Australia not long after the first colonisers arrived from Britain. Through the late 18th, and early 19th century, seedlings from the UK and Germany migrated across the world to the “new” continent’s shores, where the struggle of self-determination was stirring a thirst among the growing population. From the early 19th century onwards Australian growers attempted to produce varieties from the UK including Whitebine, Fuggles, and East Kent Goldings. These were cultivated ...| Pellicle
Hops have grown around the town of Žatec for a thousand years. After the US and Germany, no country grows more hops than the Czech Republic, and 80% of Czech hops grow near Žatec in northwest Bohemia. “It’s the best place for producing these hops,” says Josef Patzak, Executive Director of Chmelařský Institut, the hop institute in Žatec. “There are mountains 50km to the west. Clouds go above and it makes a rain shadow,” he says, meaning low rainfall and higher-than-average tempe...| Pellicle
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 Blac| Pellicle
There are 148 bottles of Fat Tire in the chandelier located in the entranceway of New Belgium’s packaging hall. I know this because I’ve done the official tour at the Colorado brewery’s Fort Collins headquarters four times. When you arrive at this stage, the tour guide will ask the small crowd of vi| Pellicle
Ken Grossman remembers the exact field at Roy Farms where he got the Cascade hops for his first batch of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. In 1981, Sierra Nevada Brewing Company had just opened, and he wanted to do a special release of a dry-hopped IPA, a beer almost unheard of at that time. Ken was se| Pellicle
It’s around 11am when we join the line at a standstill outside San Francisco's revered Swan Oyster Depot, as it ascends Polk Street’s gentle incline. It’s also a Monday, and in our galaxy-brained wisdom, my father and I figured this would be an ideal time to visit; minimum wait, maximum seafood. We| Pellicle
We’re a magazine and podcast devoted to exploring beer, wine, cider, food and travel, and the joy we find within these cultures.| Pellicle
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 pr| Pellicle
It pours from an unmarked swing-necked brown bottle, a clear liquid with a light effervescence which disappears quickly in the glass. It smells like gingerbread, but tastes either sweet when young or dry when a week or so old; reminiscent of aniseed and heather, while also not being quite like either. This unassuming homemade drink is gale beer. For centuries, gale beer was a staple product of the dales of the historic county of Cleveland, in what is now the North Yorkshire Moors. Made from m...| Pellicle
Metres from the banks of the River Lea, a flock of ducks is waddling. Scattered on the ground beneath their webbed feet is what they’re here for; malted barley kernels of various shades, from pale gold to deepest black. Behind them, rising tall, is the Rose and Crown Maltings, part of the small campus that makes up the headquarters and production facility of French & Jupps—the UK’s oldest existing producer of malted barley. Slim birds these are not. You may not have heard the name Frenc...| Pellicle
In one corner of the 17th Century barn at Hawkridge Distillers, under a fairy-tale web of timber beams, a young man is making coffee from a bag of beans on a proper barista machine. Espressos. Cup after cup after tiny cup, tipping them one at a time into a large barrel of vodka, clicking a counter…| Pellicle
--- 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 with voluminous creamy heads. Slow poured lager—like that offered at Denver’s Bierstadt...| Pellicle
*** Huge thanks to our pal Dave who’s been our resident cartoonist for two years. We’re able to commission him each month thanks to the support of our Patreon subscribers, and if you’d like to join them you can do so by clicking here.| Pellicle
It’s a Sunday, nearly midnight, and I’m in 8 Ball–a dilapidated yet bustling pool hall above the Scotia, an out-of-the-way folk bar in Glasgow city centre. Occasionally a buzzer sounds, signalling someone at the door—it’s the kind of place where the staff need to keep a handle on exactly who gets in, and when. The Dixie Chicks are on the jukebox for the third time tonight. Depending on how friendly the burly, silver-haired barman is feeling, there might be time to get one more round...| Pellicle
There is a theory I’m working on, born from over a decade of hospitality work, that the things a society pays the least attention to often have the most to say. To be discarded and dismissed, yet to exist and to be negotiated with regardless, can tell us something about the way habits, tastes, and s| Pellicle
After dark, the Woolwich foot tunnel is a chilling prospect. For half a kilometre you hurry through a clinical, white-tiled tube under the Thames with no way of escape before emerging south-of-the-river. That was the night I ate my first curry straight after drinking my first pints of Bass in a nea| Pellicle
On 15 July 2009, Stephen Clinch landed in Salzburg, tired and confused, after jetting from Dublin to Sioux Falls, Minneapolis, back to Dublin, and finally, to Munich. He’d been buying equipment for his new brewery Trouble Brewing, and he’d hightailed it back to Europe because his beloved Bohemian F.C (‘Bohs’) were playing Red Bull Salzburg in a blockbuster Champions League qualifier. “There’s no greater joy than a European football trip with a load of lunatics,” Stephen tells ...| Pellicle
--- 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 foraged herbs. These beers are a long way from cherished Fyne Ale classics like Jarl or Highlander, but they arguably show an even greater ‘sense of place’ than the cask beers...| Pellicle
With its magnificent green tiled exterior blending with the restored ironmongers and sweet shop in the recreated village at St. Fagans Museum in Cardiff, the Vulcan Hotel appears unchanged since 1915.| Pellicle
It’s at least 20 minutes before opening time and a queue has already formed outside The Hope. Although an occasional red London bus zooms past, this isn’t a bustling high street. Here, at the Sutton/Surrey borders, is one of the sleepiest corners of the capital, where daffodils, scorched in the sun, droop lazily as spring turns to summer. I take a walk to avoid waiting around in the queue. On a nearby wall someone has scrawled: ‘No to ULEZ’ despite Carshalton’s traffic congestion en...| Pellicle
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They should be here but they aren't. This is the third place where I’ve tried to find them and failed. The packet of Brets beer and cheddar flavour crisps I’m searching for is nowhere to be found, and I frown at the thought of that cheesy, yet strangely bitter delicacy getting away from me. I surrender to the obvious by grabbing a pack of my favourite flavour, salted butter, instead, all for just €1.29 (£1.00.) Brets isn’t even the prettiest crisp packet on the aisle. The packaging l...| Pellicle
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 rig| Pellicle
St. Petersburg feels like it could have been squeezed out of a soft serve ice cream machine. The Florida-city’s postcard perfect holiday energy is infectious, exuding a soft-focus quality of easy, playful ambiance that has been attracting tourists for generations. The 97-year-old Don CeSar Hotel—its| Pellicle
The River Derwent meets the village of Ambergate at a glide. Coursing down from its source in the peat-covered Howden Moors at the northern end of the Peak District, by the time it reaches this sleepy corner of Derbyshire it feels calm and collected. Almost statesmanlike.| Pellicle
I’ll never forget the first time I had a Velvet Hammer. The Anvil in Dallas, now sadly closed, was a Texas approximation of an “English-style” pub, which in practice meant dark wood interiors and an absence of the American kitsch that usually adorns the walls of dive bars on this side of| Pellicle
Content Warning: This article makes frequent and detailed references to suicide and severe depression, therefore reader discretion is advised. No one should struggle with their mental health alone. If you are in the UK there are several charities you can reach out for support including Mind| Pellicle
When I walk into a near-empty Persevere on a drizzly Leith weekday, its vastness swallows me up like a whale. Moments later, when I gingerly take my pint of Newbarns Pale Ale to the table and sit in one of the half-boothed banquettes, a feeling of tranquility comes over me. My initial fear of being| Pellicle
A Place To Be is a brand new zine and the first work published in print by Pellicle Magazine. Written and designed by Pellicle’s deputy editor Katie Mather, A Place To Be is a collection of found spaces and places-within-places to step inside, escape the real world and enjoy a little drink. “Th| Pellicle
Seamus O’Hara never intended to brew a cult beer, but it doesn’t really work like that. It’s a status achieved organically, through a confluence of circumstance, serendipity, and time. The canny brewer might, with a couple of judicious decisions, nudge things in the right direction. The b| Pellicle
I. “I’m told you serve the best pint of Landlord in Sheffield,” I say to the person behind the bar of The Sportsman on Benty Lane. “Well we definitely serve enough of it,” they reply with a smirk and a shrug as they hand me my copper-hued pint.| Pellicle
“Whatever your normal is—and I don’t give a fuck what your normal is—you don’t have to justify yourself,” James Loveday, one of the five founders of Mash Gang, tells me. “Your morals are for you, and your routines, and your relationship to alcohol, it’s for you,” he says. “If that means you can hav| Pellicle
In Britain, we’re wasteful with our national history. There’s so much of it just lying around, getting in the way, and we persist in thinking of it as boring. It’s old rocks; dead white men in powdered wigs; lists of boring dates and names. Instead, we fetishize the new, always looking to be the fir| Pellicle