Winter Newsletter 2025
The next FoHB social will be held at The Walsall Arms, Bank St. Walsall on Monday 8th December. It will be our Christmas Social in the Skittle Alley so we will have a Christmas Quiz, a Grand Raffle and a game of skittles at the end. The January social will be held at the ‘Bellwether’ in Wednesbury on Monday 12th Jan. 2026
A trip to Hydes Brewery has been organised for Saturday 10th January 2026. It’s expected to be a popular trip so we will offer places to members first, & only full payment of £18 will reserve the seat.
Newcastle Brown Ale in the USA is being imported from England again following closure of the ‘Lagunitas’ Chicago plant by those genial Dutch folken ‘Heineken’. The old Federation site in Gateshead’ where Newkie Brown was brewed after the Tyne plant closed, is to be transformed into a £40m multi-
Using Government data, research from Best New Bingo Sites ranked over 300 local areas by the number of pubs per 100,000 residents. Great Yarmouth was top of the list with 242 pubs; the city of Westminster was second with 166 followed by Whitehaven in Cumbria with 143. Other high ranking spots include Ripley 137, Failsworth 135, and Brierley Hill 133. The rest of the top 10 includes Aberdare, Llanelli, Aston-
Wye Valley Brewery has announced it will start building a new a new brewhouse which will be the biggest capital investment it has ever made. The Herefordshire based business with its seven pubs is operating close to capacity, so with the new installation on the same site it will be tricky to maintain production and may take up to five years to complete. There will be a new visitor centre and offices as well. (Butty Bach and HPA are everywhere now aren’t they? Ed.)
Boddingtons Cask is back ! Budweiser Brewing Group has come up with a 4%ABV recipe to reintroduce the famous ‘Cream of Manchester’, brewed by JW Lees at least with a Manchester postcode. One remembers the Strangeways Brewery of yore, where the beer was fermented right out long before the accolade of low carb beer was thought of.
Crisps Maltings supply bees to Adnams; a building dating from 1903 at Great Ryburgh Maltings was being refurbished when scaffolders found a swarm of bees in a cavity in the walls. Beekeeper Steve Barrett was called to relocate the colony to one of his 80 hives along the Suffolk coast, providing a useful pollination service with the added bonus of sales of honey. The pastel hued hives are modelled on the brightly painted beach huts in Southwold, and the honey goes to the Adnams hotels and is now being sold in their shop in town. They have no plans to brew with the honey they say.