The great British pint – an integral part of our culture. As summer approaches and our thoughts turn to lazy Sundays in the beer garden what better way to spend an evening than learning about beer. Alex Bell, head brewer at O’Hanlon’s Brewing Company will talk us through the science behind the perfect pint and let us in on some of the secrets of the brewers’ craft. What makes a good beer and why are some regions famous for certain types of beer? Is there a difference between keg, cask and bottled and how does this affect the flavour? Alex will reveal all. The talk will be followed by a tasting session giving you the opportunity to sample some of O’Hanlon’s finest beers and put your newly acquired beer knowledge to the test.

In association with O’Hanlon’s Brewing Company

Alex Bell
An engineering graduate of UCL in 1995, Alex quickly realised an office bound career in the oil industry wasn’t for him and decided to cut his teeth as a brewer at Rebellion Brewery in Marlow. Two busy years later he became head brewer of O’Hanlon’s Brewery, a fledgling operation mainly supplying its own pub. In 1999 he graduated from The Institute of Brewers just as O’Hanlon’s won its first major award at the Wheat Beer Challenge. Since then O’Hanlon’s has won numerous national and international awards, including Supreme Champion at the International Beer Challenge 2006 for its resurrection of the sublime Thomas Hardy’s Ale, and its beer is now available in cask and bottle nationwide and is exported to over a dozen countries.

Adrian Tierney-Jones
Adrian Tierney-Jones is an award-winning British beer writer and journalist. The first beer Adrian drank was Double Diamond at the age of 11 and it put him off for a few years. Thankfully, he fell in love with Adnams and is now a freelance journalist on beer and brewing whose work appears in What’s brewing, the Morning advertise, the Field and Beers of the world amongst others. His current books include West Country ales, Pubs for families and The big book of beer. He is also the editor of SIBA Southwest’s Brewers Herald and an experienced and passionate taster and talker on the world of beer – from corporate events to holding forth in your local pub, he’s your man. His main ambition in beer writing is to communicate the pleasure that great beers and the people who craft them have brought to mankind – and drink them as well. He also writes about cider. His awards include silver in the British guild of Beer Writers award for National Journalism 2006, and the Guild’s Budweiser Budvar John White travel bursary 2007.