A visit to Gothenburg, Sweden

Gothenburg, Sweden’s second city, has become known for the number of great breweries that have popped up there in recent years. We snagged ourselves some decent-priced flights and booked ourselves in for a little jaunt to brush off the January blues.

This is nowhere near an extensive guide to the bars and breweries of Gothenburg. In just over three and a half days, we managed to visit a fair few places but we also were there in January when some of the taprooms weren’t open.

One thing to flag is that Sweden is quite close to becoming cashless and many places do not take cash, so make sure you have a bank card which isn’t too expensive to use overseas if you’re visiting.

Here’s a look at where we visited.

The new Marble Brewery taproom, Salford

One of Manchester’s most iconic breweries has a new home – and it’s not within the city of Manchester. Marble, established more than 20 years ago in the back room of the Marble Arch pub on Rochdale Road have moved their brewery from a railway arch down the hill from the pub over to neighbouring city Salford and, with a new bigger home comes the opportunity for a taproom within the brewery.

Heritage and hops: craft beer in Riga, Latvia

The Latvian capital Riga has been somewhere on my wishlist for a couple of years.  I was enamored with the images of its beautiful Old Town online and really wanted to see it for myself. Finally, we managed to get a chance to book a short trip there and it was one of those rare occasions where beer wasn’t a deciding factor in our visit.

However, Riga surprised me. The beer was, on the whole, fantastic and so full of the country’s heritage that I feel it’s a place that needs to be more on the beer lovers’ radar (unlike neighbours Lithuania and Estonia, the country doesn’t have its own Untappd badge, for example). In a short space of time, I tried multiple beers that were like nothing I’d ever tasted and featuring unique and distinctly Latvian ingredients.

Here’s a look at some of the places we visited, and I hope that, as beer has become so much more global, that more people will get the chance to try Latvian beer – especially from the fantastic Labietis brewery – in the future.

Beer in Japan: Tokyo

Japan: known for its bustling cities, stunning scenery, excellent food, efficient trains and wonderful culture but is it a place for good beer?

It’s been somewhere I’d wanted to visit for a long time and after plenty of saving up we were finally able to afford to do so in October 2018. It exceeded all of my expectations and it truly felt like the trip of a lifetime. Sampling beer and experiencing the bar scene were on my list of things to do, but, unlike other places I’ve travelled to, not the main driver for the visit. However, while researching for our trip we did come across a variety of bars we were keen to check out.

This is the first in a series of blog posts about some of the places we visited in Japan – this one focused on the capital, Tokyo. With only limited time in the city, this is nowhere near a comprehensive guide, but we did manage to visit a fair few interesting places and here’s a run down of them.

A warm weekend in Bamberg, Germany

Bamberg was one of those places I’d fancied visiting for a while – with a historic old town and numerous breweries what’s not to love? – so for Ross’ birthday I booked us a weekend away.

However, my flight booking skills weren’t the best and we ended up arriving Friday night and leaving Sunday morning. As we didn’t end up with that much time in the town, we were determined to make the most of it.

And despite having less than 48 hours in Bamberg, we managed to clock up visits to quite a few of the beer gardens and pubs so here’s a little look at the ones we spent time in.

First event announced for Manchester Beer Week 2018

A five city beer battle is the first event announced for this year’s Manchester Beer Week.

Mikkeller and more: Craft beer bars in Copenhagen

The Danish capital of Copenhagen is one of my favourite cities, mostly down to its fantastic craft beer scene. I’ve visited the city a fair few times now and managed to explore quite a few of its bars and found some firm favourites.

So here’s a full guide to beer in Copenhagen – without a Carlsberg in sight.

I don’t like their beer, but the entry to their brewery is pretty impressive

The beer bars and bottle shops of Aarhus, Denmark

Aarhus is Denmark’s second city and its good selection of bars and relatively small size (especially in comparison to Copenhagen) makes it a great place for a beery city break. Most of the craft beer bars in Aarhus are easy to walk between so you can visit quite a few in a short space of time, so here’s a look at some of them – including one that does a happy hour!

A tour of the breweries and craft beer bars of Amsterdam

Amsterdam; the city of canals and coffee shops, but is it also a city for craft beer? Well, yes. Before visiting, I was aware of a few of the Netherlands’ most well-known breweries such as Het Uiltje, Jopen and Brouwerij ‘t IJ but I didn’t know just how many brilliant bars we’d find.

We arrived on King’s Day which is the Netherlands’ major bank holiday, so the streets were rammed with people drinking, dancing and generally enjoying themselves. As a result, our first evening was a bit different than the usual experience particularly as many of the bars closed early but it wasn’t this way all through our stay as the next day everything had returned to normal – as if the street drinking and party boats never happened at all.

Here’s a little run-down of all the places we visited during our three-night stay.

A guide to Manchester’s brew taps

Manchester is home to a growing number of breweries, and more and more are choosing to open their doors to allow punters to drink beer right from the source. If I find myself in Manchester city centre on a Saturday, I generally end up in a brewery. As a regular brew tap visitor, I thought I’d pull together a small guide to what you can expect from each Manchester brewery tap, their locations and their opening hours. (Published June 2017, updated July 2019)