Jessica Boak and Ray Bailey

Jessica Boak and Ray Bailey have been blogging at boakandbailey.com since 2007. They were named 2014 beer writers of the year by the British Guild of Beer Writers for Brew Britannia: the Strange Rebirth of British Beer. They live in Cornwall in the far west of the UK.

Decoding the English Pub

(Stock image courtesy Shutterstock) The English pub is much romanticised, even mythologised, which must leave some visitors disappointed when they

The Mystery of Old Chimneys

(Photo by Boak and Bailey) There is only one British beer in RateBeer’s top 50 chart—Old Chimneys Good King Henry

Tracing the History of Beer Geeks

(Photo by Jon Page) People these days take beer too seriously, right? Caring about what you drink, talking about

Stout Decline: Guinness Slides in Popularity, Status

(Photo by Jon Page) Guinness is a mighty global brand but there are signs that it is struggling to maintain

Mild in the 21st Century

Mild ale, a quintessentially British beer style, has been in terminal decline since World War II. Now, despite a long-running

The Emergence of ‘Pale ‘n Hoppy’ Beers in the UK

Some of the best beers being made in Britain today belong to a style that has no name. They are

Recreating a Classic London Pub Crawl

In his 1949 book about the pubs of London, Back to the Local, journalist Maurice Gorham wrote of “that epic

The Campaign for Unreal Ale: An Oral History

The Nov./Dec. 1995 issue of The Grist From the 1970s, the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) dominated the conversation around