Will Hawkes
I'm a journalist.
Drink, food and travel writer. Contributes to the Guardian, FT, Washington Post, Imbibe and Good Food Australia (The Age, SMH). British beer writer of the year 2013.
PROJECTS
The Telegraph
The greatest places in the world to drink beer
The front door at Gaststätte Lommerzheim, Cologne’s most charismatic pub, has barely shut before it swings open again. A middle-aged couple hurry in, share a joke with the blue-shirted bartender and weave their way between tightly packed tables in search of seats. They’ll be lucky. It’s just gone 6pm on a Wednesday but the place is full of customers contemplating fist-thick pork chops and slim, cylindrical glasses of Kölsch, the pale, delicately floral beer that is native to this Rhineland ci...
goodfood.com.au
Dark charms: The return of stouts, porters and other dark beers
One of Stu McKinley's most cherished moments as a brewer came on a dark night at a Wellington pub. "It was the second time we'd made Pot Kettle Black, our porter, and we were releasing it alongside another dark beer [that had been] made by the New Zealand homebrew champion," the co-owner of Yeastie Boys says. "At one point I looked around and everyone in the place was drinking porter, and I thought: 'I'll probably never see this again'."
He's almost certainly right. Walk into a modern beer ba...
imbibe.com
New brewing apprenticeship scheme to improve beer quality nationally
Self-taught brewers have transformed British beer over the past decade, but times are changing again. A new industry-wide apprenticeship scheme is expected to get the final sign-off from the Institute for Apprenticeships next month. Will Hawkes reports
goodfood.com.au
Boomerang beer: Australians' British-brewed craft lager heads home
Alex Troncoso got an email from home last month. "I'm drinking your Pilsner in the Welcome Hotel in Sydney, and it's right up there with the finest I've ever tasted – and, believe me, I've tasted a sh–tload of them," it read. "It's coming to the end of the keg and I don't know what I'm going to do when it's gone. Please send more!"
It's a sentiment many British drinkers will understand. Troncoso and partner Annie Clements are the team behind Lost and Grounded, a brewery that stands out in an ...
The Guardian
Brewing on the vine: four beer/wine hybrids to seek out
“Grape or grain, but never the twain,” goes the old saying, but brewers no longer seem to care. In a craft-beer world where no ingredient is off the menu – even really disgusting ones such as beard yeast or peanut butter – grapes have become an increasingly common addition to the brewing process.
It’s not new – Cantillon, a Belgian producer of lambic ales, has been using grapes since the 1970s – but it is more popular than ever. And it is not just grapes: brewers use wine barrels, too. Andrew...
goodfood.com.au
One brew, two Melbourne obsessions: Brewers and roasters team up to produce coffee beers
What sort of beer is most likely to impress Melburnians? For Dennis De Boer, head brewer at Modus Operandi Brewing in Sydney's Northern Beaches, the answer is obvious: one with coffee in it. "You'd be pretty hard-pressed to find a city more obsessed and innovative with coffee than Melbourne," he says, which is why he's brewed a Vanilla Mocha Stout for this week's Good Beer Week Gala Showcase.
imbibe.com
European Capital: How London’s brewing scene is bucking Brexit
‘This location is unbeatable,’ says Felix Bollen, gesturing around him at Mercato Metropolitano, a huge street-food market based in a former paper factory in Elephant and Castle, south London.
You can see his point: the places buzzes with gluttonous possibility. There are 40 stalls selling food from around the world (the emphasis is Italian, but it’s not just pasta and pizza) and plenty to drink too, from Italian craft beer to the inevitable prosecco stand.
And now there’s German Kraft.
The Washington Post
You ate what?! A fearless foodie’s foray into the bouchons of Lyon
Andrew picks up his beer and leans back against the red banquette seating at Le Romarin, a tiny bistro-bar in the heart of Lyon. Over the next 48 hours, we’re planning to eat our way across this famously gastronomic city, but something is worrying him. “I’m looking forward to the wine,” he says. “I’m looking forward to the cheese. I’m just not sure about the innards."
imbibe.com
The next beer revolution: Quality on tap
Gipsy Hill’s new taproom offers plenty for daydreaming drinkers to ogle. There’s a tiny brew-kit, a long wooden bar with a lowered section for customers in wheelchairs, unique steel and wood fittings produced by designer Mike Doveton, and the cellar, which will be on full public display behind a glass wall when the bar officially opens in early March.
This is no accident. For Gipsy Hill co-founder and director Sam McMeekin, the cellar – and particularly its keg dispense system – is the room’s...
The Guardian
Draught includers: how craft beer found its mission
Stung by a reputation as gentrification’s outriders, craft breweries are trying to bring in more women, working-class people and people with disabilities to both drink beers – and make them
The Washington Post
To Strasbourg, in search of a tale from the crypt
The crypt at Strasbourg Cathedral isn’t how I’d imagined it. I’d expected something richly atmospheric, sepulchral, a space stuffed with the accumulated religious ephemera of more than eight centuries.
It’s actually quite tidy; almost cozy, in fact. There are simple wooden chairs in neat rows, a humble altar with a beautiful, blue-and-green, stained-glass window above it, an elegant wooden statue of the Virgin of Strasbourg (Mary, arms stretched, with Jesus, clutching a fleur-de-lis, on her l...
imbibe.com
EXCLUSIVE: ‘There’s A Beer For That’ to be replaced by beer duty campaign
There’s a Beer For That, an industry-wide campaign to promote beer in all its forms, is to be replaced by an initiative designed to combat ‘the devastating impact of high beer duty’ on beer and pubs.
‘We assessed the key issues identified when the campaign began and found they are no longer the major barriers to beer and pub growth,’ TABFT director David Cunningham, who will be in charge of the new campaign, said.
‘This is a collective decision, taken by me along with all our major partners. ...
imbibe.com
Malt + Pepper duo on pub-hopping and honing their beer food offering
Beer and food matching is pretty established in the UK now – but, beyond beef and ale pie, few use beer as an ingredient. Enter the duo behind pop-up powerhouse Malt + Pepper, fresh off their mini-tour of London pubs and cafes. Will Hawkes asks how good an ingredient beer is, how customers react to the food, and what the team has planned next
The Guardian
‘So British it even tastes great warm’ – the breweries inspired by Brexit
Off on holiday to escape Brexit? Don’t go to the bar. In the months since Britain voted to leave the European Union, dozens of beers have been named after Brexit by breweries around the world.
There’s Brexit Through the Gift Shop, made by Ex Novo Brewing of Portland, Oregon, and Brexiteer, by Paname Brewing in Paris. There’s Brexit Solution, by Gæðingur Öl Brugghús in Iceland, Big Mistake Brexit IPA, by Two Sides Brewing in Ireland and If Tha Brexit Tha Fixes It, by The Imperial Brewery in Yo...
imbibe.com
Marko Husak: Bundobust’s recipe for success
With its homely street food and terrific beer range, Bundobust is a restaurant concept bang on message, tapping into two of the biggest trends in the modern British on-trade. And its founder, Marko Husak, isn’t finished yet. Will Hawkes reports
Marko Husak is very proud of his Bollywood posters. He got them, he says, from an Indian website, and he wasn’t sure they’d turn up. Now they’re on the walls at Bundobust Manchester. ‘They’re the real deal, from the seventies and eighties,’ he says. ‘T...