In this episode, Matthew looks back at the year that’s been, taking time out to share a few thoughts on his favourite articles and podcast episodes. He also talks through what were his beer and pub experiences of the year, after his favourites were published by our good friends at Craft Beer & Brewing a few weeks ago. It’s good wholesome fun, best enjoyed with something delicious pulled from your stash.

In this episode of The Pellicle Podcast host Matthew Curtis is joined by the owners of three different UK bottleshops: Krishan Rajput of Stirchley Wines in Birmingham, Sam Parker of Keg Cask and Bottle in Prestwich, Manchester, plus Rosie and Greg Start, who run R&G’s Beer Vault in both Macclesfield and Congleton. Together we chew through the last few years in beer, and discuss the importance of bottle shops. This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the 2025 Salford Beer Festival. Huge thanks to organiser Jim Cullen for inviting us down to host this chat.

Two of the best young Scottish breweries—Edinburgh's Closet Brewing and Glasgow's Dookit—talk to host Matthew Curtis about what they do, while perhaps one of the finest contemporary breweries to exist north of the border, Fyne Ales provides balance and context to this fascinating conversation.

In this episode Matthew catches up with Nick Scarffe and Elizabeth Townsend of Kerroo Brewing, on the Isle of Man.

As part of Siren Craft Brew’s Time Hops event at their taproom in the village of Finchampstead, Pellicle headed down to host a panel-led discussion all about the project and the four beers that have resulted from it. In this episode I’m joined by Darron Anley, plus head brewer Sean Knight, and Martin Rake from The Malt Miller, who delivers some fantastic insight into hop procurement. It’s a long conversation, and a fascinating one to boot, especially if you’re interested in all things hop-related. Thanks again for Siren for inviting us to collaborate on this fascinating project with them.

At FyneFest we recruited a panel from three independent breweries who are doing incredibly exciting things with their dark beers. At Lost Cause, Colin Stronge is continuing the great work he built his reputation on at breweries like Buxton and Salt, but now completely under his own steam. In Northumberland, Rigg and Furrow is focused on producing beers with a sense of place, and this feeds into some truly unique stouts and porters. Marketing manager Harriet Edgar is here to fill us in on those. And at Barney’s Beer in Edinburgh, career brewer Andrew ‘Barney’ Barnett is getting really experimental with his post mortem series. Here about all of this, and plenty more chat about delicious dark beer in this episode of the Pellicle Podcast.

Manchester Union is the city’s only dedicated lager brewery, and the fact they're concentrating on Czech style lagers is an important point of difference. How do you stand out when lager is still the most visible product on any given bar? The answer is quite Mancunian in nature, as it happens: to do things differently. In this episode of the Pellicle Podcast Matthew catches up with brewery co-founder Will Evans and get to the nub of what makes Manchester’s only dedicated lager brewery tick.

One of the best things about making a yearly trip to Fyne Ales for FyneFest is that I get to check in on the brewery’s Origins side project, the vehicle for its wild beers, typically produced using mixed or spontaneously fermented and then barrel-matured beer, and often showing locally grown fruit, or forage herbs. In this episode Matthew catches up with Origin's head brewer Dan Wye, and learns about how he's trying to channel a certain 'sense of place' into these untamed beers.

In the latest episode of the Pellicle Podcast—and as part of a wider, more concerted effort to focus on what’s happening within the Manchester Beer Scene—I chat to founder Mark Welsby about the origins, and first decade of The Runaway Brewery, before discussing what it means to have relocated, after embedding itself within the Stockport community.

Should we scrap the pint measure? Or is the very notion of doing so rooted in prejudices like classism? We decided to kick off the first of our FyneFest 2025 panel discussions with this very topic of conversation. We're pleased to welcome back two previous Pellicle podcast guests, in the form of Rooster’s Ol Fozard and Lost Cause Brewing’s Vik Kastenbauer Stronge. It was also a pleasure to welcome Chris Shepherd from Cambridge-based Pastore brewing, for what we hope won’t be his only appearance on this podcast.

It’s fair to say I’ve developed something of an obsession with Theakston’s Old Peculier. Ever since deputy ed. Katie Mather and I sat down and had a couple of pints in Manchester’s The Salisbury a year or so ago, it’s become a cornerstone of my drinking habits. In this episode I make a pilgrimage to Theakston Brewery in Masham, North Yorkshire and chat to chair Simon Theakston, and managing director Richard Bradbury.

In this episode of The Pellicle Podcast I’m lucky enough to sit down, in person, with Christine Clair and Nolan Russll of Crosby Hops, a generational family-owned hop farm in Oregon, USA. It was a great opportunity to chat about both the challenges faced by, and the opportunities available to modern-day hop farmers, and there’s a good mix of chat that veers from the scientific and technical, to the romantic. Hops are an ingredient that gets a lot of people fired up about beer, so if you love hops, then this is an episode for you.

Heaton Hops is a pub in an old shop front in Heaton Chapel, Stockport. It also happens to be our hosts local, and so he decided to head down and record a conversation with its co-founder and landlord Damian O'Shea. We chat about what its like to run an independent pub in 2025, indulge in a bit of nostalgia for the early craft beer days, and find out what sort of beer gets Damian out of bed in the morning.

Perhaps there are more similarities between modern beer and coffee than I care to admit. This is why I was thrilled to get a chance to sit down and chat with two of Dark Woods Coffee's founding partners, Paul Meikle-Janney and Damian Blackburn. I was curious to see where their perception of coffee culture is, and how what their industry is experiencing relates to what’s currently happening in beer.

For this discussion we decided to focus on the biggest beers pouring at FyneFest in 2024: stouts, barleywines, strong saisons and biere de garde—the kind of beers a situation like FyneFest is the perfect place to treat yourself too. On the panel I’m joined by Gareth Young from Glasgow’s Epochal Barrel Fermented Ales, Lally Morrison from Polly’s Brew Co in Mold, North Wales, and Sean Knight from Siren Craft Brew in Berkshire.

French & Jupps produces everything from crystal malts – designed to add sweetness and body – to patent malts that can imbue beer with everything from notes of chocolate and coffee, to bitterness and astringency. You might not have heard of them as a maltster before, but you have almost certainly tasted their malt in beers such as Harvey’s Mild, or Shepherd Neame Christmas Ale. In this episode Matthew chats to its MD, and beer industry luminary, Paul King.

There’s a lot of work to do to unpack the excitement occurring in British Wild Beer, and that’s a project I have assigned myself this year. This podcast, recorded in June 2024 at FyneFest, was pretty much the starting point for that thinking. It features an all-star cast, including The Kernel’s Evin O’Riordain, Burning Sky’s Mark Tranter, Will Harris from Balance Brewing and Blending, plus Dan Wye, who spearheads Fyne Ales own wild beer project: Origins.

Can breweries actually afford to invest in sustainability at a meaningful level? Tune in to hear about the efforts of Sam McMeekin and and South London's Gipsy Hill, as they continue to make efforts in reducing this brewery’s carbon footprint.

In what feels like a breakout year for Pellicle, join our editor-in-chief Matthew Curtis and deputy editor Katie Mather as they chew through the year that was. There’s plenty of reflection on the magazine itself, as well as space for discussing some of the bigger topics in beer and cider for 2024. This includes some healthy conversation about the rise of Guinness and the trad pub ‘revival’, plus a nod to Thornbridge and Epochal Brewery taking on Burton Union Sets from Carlsberg. The pair also discuss the pressing issue of DEI in beer, before looking ahead to the new year.

IPAs. We love to hate them. We love to love them. It’s fair to say that the darling of modern beer has, over the past 10 or 20 years, been discussed to death. But we felt there was life in the old dog yet. That’s why at FyneFest earlier this year we hosted a panel discussion to talk about the present and future of the IPA with two breweries who are pushing the envelope as far as this category is concerned.