The Epicurean musings of Benjamin Nunn
Better late than never? Some might argue it's actually better not to bother but, hey, I've been doing a London Pub of the Year for 14 years now, and for ten of those years I haven't even been living in London. It'll take a lot to stop me, even though I admit my research is nowhere near as comprehensive as it was when I was younger and more London. (Ooh, look at me using a Proper Noun as an…
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 I'll go for a long session consisting entirely of beers I've technically never had before, but which seem suspiciously familiar. Drinking…
Sometimes strange things occur accidentally. The other night I cooked a meal that was technically vegan - without even realising it! There's no way I'd have done this deliberately, unless it was for some sort of project or challenge, and I only realised while we were eating it, but, hey-ho, I did my little tiny bit for a cause I don't believe in. (This isn't a 'Veganascene Conversion' post about…
Last week, I drank a cask beer from Downton brewery at the Ealing Beer Festival. Secret Sobriety was the name. There's nothing unusual about that in itself. I go to Ealing most years and drink a lot of cask ale when I'm there. Downton are a fairly well-established brewery and I've drunk 63 different cask beers from them. However... It was a good beer. Dry. Hoppy. Easy to drink. What makes this…
For the best part of 20 years, Thornbridge has been one of my favourite breweries. Quite possibly my favourite British brewery of all time. (And, just in case you hadn't heard, I drink a lot of different beers from a lot of different breweries!) One of the things I like about Thornbridge is that they're not afraid to innovate, whether that means experimenting with contemporary ideas, or delving…
I've been toying with the idea of starting a Youtube channel. Specficially one that documents me visiting pubs, drinking new cask ales and steadily adding to my tally of around 13,000 different pints over the past 30 years. Maybe called BV ticks beers . Or something. You'd see me in a pub getting excited because they have a new Red IPA from Siren on. I sup the beer, tell you a bit about it, and…
The recent news about Brewdog isn't particularly encouraging. Even as a pessimist, it feels like an almost unfathomably bleak turn of events. A little story: Brewdog were once, briefly, my favourite brewery. In their very early years, between 2008 and 2010, they put out some excellent beers, were at the forefront of a rise in high quality and experimntal brewing in the UK, and while they weren't…
Well, that's another year done and dusted. How was it for you? Did you drink some good beer? Excellent. Personally, I was sat there all contendedly like, thinking that 2025 was probably fairly decent, ale-wise, but delving a tad more deeply into me records (for the purpose of this post) the past year actually appears far more underwhelming. Certainly less whelming. Quite disappointing, even, which…
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. So I'm now going to 'complete the trilogy', as it were, but this is a farewell I really wish we didn't have to bid. RIP Peter Edwardson, aka The Pub Curmudgeon , who died unexpectedly a few days ago, at just 64. This is a sad loss; To my knowledge, I only…
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. Honestly, the amount of content that existed in my head that never made it onto page, podcast or screen is quite frightening. A prime example is my local South Indian restaurant, which I could've written about when I moved to this town almost ten years ago, or…
Is this the end of the Great British Beer Festival? When I visited GBBF 2025 last month , I had a few concerns about its future. My beloved special place, dislocated and poorly attended. Something not quite right. Talking to staff there, it was felt to be 'quiet', but there was no sense of absolute disaster. We all had a pretty good time, even if it didn't feel the same. Then came the murmerings…
I love the Hope in Carshalton. It just won my London Pub of the Year award for the fourth time, and a few days later CAMRA turned out to be in full agreement with me, naming the Hope as the best pub in Greater London . A big achievement and an entirely deserved one, I think. But this isn't about how absolutely fucking awesome this pub is. I'm going to say something controversial; something I'm not…
Go on then, let's have a winner, shall we?!? It's been a close contest this year, particularly deciding which of the ten pubs make my top five and which will have to sit out next years competition to make way for plucky young upstart newcomers, but thems the breaks... Indeed, last year's winner, the Star & Garter in Bromley has narrowly failed to make the final this year and I do feel a slight…
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. Trepidation, because it was always going to be just that bit different this year; the first GBBF to be held outside London since 1990, and, consequently, my first GBBF not at Olympia…
Welcome to the second half of the 2024-25 London Pub of the Year award. In the first installment we revisited last years top five, and now we're going to check out five brand new entries. (Well, two of them are brand new, the other three are, in Top-of-the-Pops parlance, re-entries, but what the fucky hey.) Let's chuffing well crack on, shall we? Lyric, Soho We begin with a pub that is new to the…
Like the proverbial Renegade Master, we are 'back once again'. It's time to pick a London Pub of the Year, and I feel like a very old hand at this lark nowadays. Will there be a surprise winner? Has the Greater London pub scene dramatically changed in the last 12 months? Am I still deeply frustrated with the quality and choice of cask ale in the capital? All these questions and more will be…
The aroma hit me as soon as the car door was open. Modest, unassuming... Like a siren's musk, it attracted my senses instantly, wholeheartedly and unreservedly. Chips. Frying - as our Lord, in His infinite wisdom, undoubtedly intended - in beef dripping. I say 'attracted my senses ' because it's really more than just an aroma. It gets into your system on another level, possibly even engaging with…
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'. Perhaps understandably, because 50 years is a 'bigger' anniversary than 80 and, more poignantly, there were many more people alive back then for whom it actually meant something tangibly memorable. Me being me, it got me thinking about Young's Victory Ale , and…
Has it finally had its day? Avocado, I mean. I ask the question with a sort of cautious optimism, because I've noticed over the past year or so that the once ubiquitous menu staple might be finally fading back into deserved demi-obscurity. And not before time. You big stoned bastard Now, let's be honest: It's not that strongly dislike avocados. Certainly not in the way I dislike peas, margarine or…
Obviously I'm a pretty big fan of cask beer. It accounts for about 96-97% of the beer I drink, I spend way too much time seeking out new and interesting pints to tick off, and it wouldn't be an overstatement to say that drinking cask, in pubs, is a huge part of my life. I'm also well aware that I exist in a beer bubble of my own creation, that my drinking habits are far from universal and that…
The Wetherspoons 'Beer Festival' which is currently running has a lot going for it. There's a reasonable mix of beers from all over the country (including the usual 'International' offerings which are all actually what the Yanks call 'domestic' but we'll gloss over that) and a fair range of styles from which to choose. Having sourced both Vienna- and M ä rzen-style lagers on cask would seem…
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. My drinking year was ultimately cut short by a few days due to the worst 'flu' I've ever suffered. Because I don't do hangovers, I'm not really used to having headaches. And it seemed to make the neuropathic pain in my toes many, many times more…
Were the ghost of Marley to visit me in the night to deliver one of his pre-Christmas 'change your ways' diatribes, I think I have a fair idea of what he'd be banging on about. 'Ben, you've given up on life' , he'd say. 'You used to be so productive and creative. You'd come up with delicious recipes and share them with the world. You expressed opinions on food and drink in a pithy and engaging…
TL;DR: Probably. Quite probably.
What takes place once a year and involves me drinking large quantities of beer? Well, OK, it could be practically anything, admittedly, but, more specifically, it's the BV London Pub of the Year award. Yes, it's a painstaking process, visiting and revisiting pubs to determine which one is the best in the capital, but I've been doing it for well over a decade now and you can thank me later. With…