Win a copy of Britain’s Lost Breweries and Beers

Good lord a competition, the chance to win a copy of Chris Arnot’s superb Britain’s Lost Breweries and Beers. I got sent one and thought it might be nice to get the publishers to give away a couple — I did it for Home Brew a couple of years ago. It’s a lovely book, nostalgic in its recollection of breweries and their beers long gone, but on the other hand it’s not dewy-eyed and the author makes the point that currently we’ve never had it so good in our choice of both British and global beers. It is also a social history, a recollection of memories, a compendium of both black-and-white and colour photos (then and now) and the beers that made the likes of Simpkiss, Fremlin’s and Vaux such favourites with the home crowd. These were breweries at the centre of their communities, employing hundreds of locals and sending out beers up and down the county (and in some cases further afield) to their own pubs. There are 30 breweries remembered and I have tried beers from 11 of them (this includes Tolly, Morrell’s and Hardy & Hanson’s) and even managed to visit two of them (Young’s and Gale’s), though I once turned up in Oxford several years before Morrell’s closed in the hope of getting in but the gates were shut. With such a vibrant brewing industry whizzing up and down the land, it’s important to remember those that went before — and this book is a crucial aid in not forgetting.

So if you would like to win a copy, just email me at tierneyjonesATbtinternet.com with the answer to this question: where did Tamplin’s brew? First two to email me win.