Pellicle

19/08/2026

Before there was craft beer, before the hype and the FOMO, there was Stirchley Wines & Spirits.

Quietly, serving the people of Birmingham for almost 50 years, today their fascinating story is brought into focus by current beer writer of the year David Jesudason, and photographed by our editor-in-chief Matthew Curtis.

Read it now on our 100% paywall-free site, supported by our growing number of subscribers. If you enjoy this article why not consider joining them, so we can commission more stories just like it?

Krishan Rajput takes an emerald Budvar bottle from a shelf and tells me how this is where his beer journey began in 1989. He explains how his family shop, Stirchley Wines & Spirits began selling a range of beers a world apart from other off-licences. This was a decade after his father, Amrik

17/08/2026

Have you tried our latest collab with Indie Rabble yet? Let us know what you thought in the comments.

17/08/2026

Indie businesses supporting each other!

Head to www.pelliclemag.com for more info

12/08/2026

What makes a great modern wine list?

Is it a carefully selected list from some of the most exciting winemakers, both traditional and contemporary? Is it one that pays heed to regenerative, sustainable practises? Is it one that realises that it's about more than wine: your beer, cider, cocktails, alcohol free options?

At Edinburgh's Timberyard, it's about all of this and more. In her latest feature, our managing editor Katie Mather meets the beverage team at Timberyard, plus their sister venues, Montrose and Haze, and learns how they're influencing drinks lists across Edinburgh and beyond.

With original photography from Jonathan Hamilton. Read it here:

In a warehouse building on The Shore in Leith there is a natural wine bar called Haze. Its name is appropriate, both for the unfiltered wines it sells and the haar—sea fog—that rumbles inland on warm days. To get to Haze, you have to cross the threshold of an old merchant’s warehouse, now...

05/08/2026

Low and no has a lot of buzz around it these days, with new challenger brands aplenty. Still, respect must be given to the OG's, and in terms of AF there's no O more G than Maisel's Weisse Alkolholfrei. Read the fascinating history of how this beer came to be, influencing an entire category in the process, on the site today. Written by Martin Dixon, and illustrated by Laurel Molley.

Upon arriving at Maisel’s Brauerei in Bayreuth, Franconia, it becomes immediately clear that this is not your typical Bavarian brewery. A huge steel sculpture of Mother Earth, wearing a crown of hops and extending a single hand holding a seedling, stands guard at the entrance. Within, a Pop Art–...

31/07/2026

A favourite beer is a wonderful thing.

Pellicle magazine's resident cartoonist extolls the bitter wonders of Sierra Nevada UK 💚💛

27/07/2026

Our latest wine story takes us to the unlikely location of Hokkaido, Japan, where writer and sommelier Grace Laughlin learns more about this exciting, emerging wine region.

With illustrations by Hannah Lock, read it here:

Five hours north of Tokyo and twenty degrees colder, I climb into a taxi in Hakodate City. My driver furrows his brow as I clumsily explain to him where I need to go. “No,” he says firmly. “There is no winery in Hakodate.”  Panic sets in. My Japanese peaks at restaurant level and

22/07/2026

Today's Pellicle story, from writer William Ham Bevan, is the nostalgic story of a famous pub crawl. Join us as we retread the route of Swansea's Mumbles Mile. With original artwork by Frank Duffy:

Across the road from the White Rose, a pair of neatly dressed women hand us a phone. “Could we be cheeky and get a picture?” It strikes me as an unremarkable request: a quick souvenir of the first pub on the Mumbles Mile, to be followed by messier selfies as the night goes on. But I’ve misread...

08/07/2026

It's in the family.

Our latest feature takes us to the outskirts of Bellaghy, a small town in rural Northern Ireland, the home of The Wood, and of Heaney Brewery. Here, owner/founders Mal and Suzanne McCay have built an impressive, meaningful local brewery — and yet still have to contend with the fact they exist in the most tied beer market in the world.

Read about this fascinating brewery, and how it connects to Suzanne's uncle "Famous Seamus" on the site now. With words by Ewen Friars, and original photography by Hernan Farias.

There’s something magical about reaching for a style of beer you rarely gravitate towards before it blows all expectations completely out of the water. This was my introduction to Heaney Brewery in County Derry.  Malty, and caramel-sweet with a light, peppery note, I instantly declared to

01/07/2026

When it comes to good beer from small, independent breweries, there's often an argument that rural England — its smaller towns and villages — have been left behind, as breweries and bars invest in bigger urban areas.

That's not the case in Glynde, a small village amid the South Downs of East Sussex. Here you'll find a thriving beer community, hopping between The Steamworks and The Trevor Arms, with the later also being home to the fledgeling Fourman Brewery. With other breweries on the doorstep including Abyss, Beak and Burning Sky — not to mention the mighty Harvey's — there's a beer scene here that could go toe to toe with some of the biggest cities in the country.

Read this brand new feature now, from Fred Garratt-Stanley, with photography from Claire Bullen. Like all of our stories its completely free, but if you enjoy it, consider supporting it with a subscription, and sharing it with a friend who might enjoy the read!

On a clear day in Glynde, staff at The Trevor Arms can look to the peak of nearby Mount Caburn—the crowning point of a well-trodden path for South Downs walkers setting off from the town of Lewes—and predict how busy they’ll be that afternoon.  Since the pub reopened in the summer of 2025...