March 2026. Cologne. Germany. Cologne wouldn’t quite be in my Top 5 German cities*, yet, but I’ve enjoyed getting to grips with the wider city on two recent trips. And our hotel (Inception, £67 a night) is just far enough out of the Old Town to give a glimpse of a real city beyond the schnitzel and Japanese tour...

March 2026. Cologne. Germany. Our first of 3 nights in Cologne; I knew I had to visit Gaststätte Lommerzheim (“Lommi’s“) at some point, why not now ? “It’s like the Hare and Hounds” I tell Matt. Frankly, you queue for opening, either for lunch (11) or teatime (4.30), or you miss out. James and Matthew weren’t...

March 2026. Cologne. Germany. Our first day in Cologne, six Kolsch down and no plan. Let’s just admire the Old Town, and let Mrs RM take photos she’ll wonder why she took a week later. Wandering down through Salzgasse, towards Martinswinkel, perhaps the architectural highlight after the Dom. At that moment the Noddy...

March 2026. Cologne. Germany. I thought long and hard about blog titles for Cologne. “Day 1, Hour 3” ? “A Sion of the Times” ? “No, STOP bringing the Kolsch !” ? It’s so much easier when the only possible answer is “Gone for a Burton“. I ought to score these Cologne pubs; I score Chinese takeaways and churches...

March 2026. Cologne. Germany. A short family holiday in Cologne, the first since New York in 2019, a year before Donald J Trump was unceremoniously booted out of office. And a year before the pandemic briefly made pubs insignificant. In 2022 we met up with a former Pub Man of the Year and her husband in Cologne,...

March 2026. Stansted Airport. Essex. Dave (not that one) from Chicago was mildly astonished at the beer and breakfast trade at my local Spoons the other week. Goodness know what he’d make of the drinking at Stansted Airport at 7am this Monday. I’ve resisted the lure of a pre-flight pint since 2018, but what else is...

Some folk told me it was too far to walk out to the Elms from central Burton; lads, it took 16 minutes to get back to Coopers, admiring the ducks, and the bridge over the Trent. Just time to catch up with the hipster vinyl chart at the record shop, and be unwisely diverted under the arches to a new micro tap, a GBG...

March 2026. Burton-on-Trent. A third Bass in rapid succession, perhaps too rapid, but breaking up pints with espressos leads to madness. The “We Bass” Facebook page had suggested the Roebuck and the Devvie for the best in Burton, but I was heading east of town, over the actual Burton Bridge, past Stapenhill...

March 2026. Burton-on-Trent. A Friday afternoon in search of Burton Bass, and a couple of votes on the Bass fan page for the Burton Bridge, another GBG regular that has had it’s share of turmoil of late. But nothing like the turmoil of the Hangar, aka Crossing; Caliente; Brewers Bar; Cosmo; InnStitute; Cosmopolitan;...

March 2026. Burton-on-Trent. Never blog after six twelve glasses of Kolsch. Never mind, it’s nearly all pictures from the home of Bass, I’ll leave the prosaic descriptions and history to others. I guess Bass in the Coopers is as iconic as Paffgen in Lommies, but I hadn’t been for nearly a decade till Friday. Less...

March 2026. Burton on Trent. Last week seemed like mental torture, another weekend without making it to that Guisborough brewery tap that only opens 3:30 to 4 on Saturdays. But in fact I did manage East Grinstead (whoopy doo) and Burton on Trent (whoop), the latter scratching a major itch. Despite living a mere 42...

March 2026. East Grinstead. West Sussex. Our weekly trip from Sheffield to Waterbeach was followed by the monthly mercy mission to Kent, where we took father-in-law over Sussex border to the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead for essential maintenance. The Vic is a world-renowned centre for facial surgery,...