The end bit of writing a book - the part between pressing 'send' on the completed first draft and finally picking up the finished article in a bookshop - is a weird combination of monotony, anticipation and delicious pleasure. 

The monotony comes from the Groundhog Day-like experience of reading the book from cover to cover, again and again, each time pushing it forward to completion.

By the…

At 5am on Monday, 12th September, I got up early to go to the airport to go on a much-needed fortnight's holiday. Four hours before, I pressed 'send' on the final sections of my first draft of this book! 

It was a hell of a ride getting it finished in time. It's the hardest book I've ever written. I have no scientirifc background, and I absolutely wanted to make sure the book wasn't too technical…

Well, it's not mine and it's about twenty years old, but you get the idea.

Two days ago I was in Norfolk for the harvest of Maris Otter barley. 

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Maris Otter being in commercial production. For many of those years, maltsters and brewers didn't pay much attention to the variety of barley. Barley was barley; it was the process of malting that gave it…

When I started this book, the original idea came from hops. For about thirty seconds, I was going to write an in-depth analysis of and love letter to hops, based on the various visits I'd made to hop farms and festivals, and the impact that hoppy pale ales had had on me (not to mention thousands of others) on the journey of discovery around good beer. After the half-minute-long rush of memories…

Sorry it's been a while. Lots of planning for exciting things in the pipeline, lots of visits lined up, lots of research going on.

This week we had our first big pledge from a brewer who has taken advantage of the offer of a day of my consultancy time on their brand, plus a bunch of books at a discounted rate for sale in the brewery shop. If you work for a brewery and you'd like to take advantage…