HB&B Blog — Newcastle

I awoke on New Year’s Day this year with a strange, slightly unfamiliar sensation in the pit of my stomach, one that took me a few moments to put my finger on. It wasn’t my hangover, I was fully aware of the distress that was bringing me, having decided to venture out the previous evening despite the chaos of the pandemic still swirling. (The right call, as it turned out, the company of close friends and excellent beer proving a real tonic after a miserable few months.) No, this was a positive feeling: optimism. Somehow, despite the relentless news cycle, it’s...

I thought I was bored of New England IPAs. There was a time, like many of you reading this I’m sure, when I found myself in constant pursuit of The Juice. I was lucky in 2016 when I decided to head to Philadelphia to the Craft Brewers Conference, the brewing industry’s largest convergence within a typical calendar year. Once the conference was over, I found myself with a spare day, so – after picking up a box of doughnuts from Reading Terminal Market – I figured out which train would take me to the suburb of Ardmore, and to Tired...