Double Diamond beer is back, and somehow the pint once treated like the enemy of real ale has returned as a surprisingly drinkable summer beer.

In this episode of Beer Together, Elton and Matt open a 440ml can of Double Diamond, the revived 3.8% pale ale that claims to be “brewed as a pale ale, drinks like a lager, tastes bloody wonderful.” What follows is part beer review, part British pub history lesson, and part rambling tribute to the beers your grandad probably drank while you were left outside the pub with a packet of crisps.

We get into the story of Double Diamond, from its Samuel Allsopp roots in Burton-on-Trent to its place in the keg beer revolution, its huge advertising push, and why CAMRA once saw beers like this as everything wrong with British brewing. There is talk of “Double Diamond works wonders,” old pub culture, Watney’s Red Barrel, tankards behind the bar, keg beer, lager-style pale ales, and whether bringing back nostalgic beer brands is a good idea or a warning sign.

On the tasting side, Double Diamond turns out to be lighter, crisper and more modern than expected, with citrus, a little tropical hop character, low bitterness and an easy-drinking finish. The question is whether it should be judged as a pale ale, a lager alternative, or simply a fridge-cold beer garden pint for hot weather.

There are also food pairings, including fish and chips, burgers, bangers and mash, chicken tikka masala, salty pub snacks, scotch eggs, sausage rolls and possibly halloumi that has had its tension released in boiling water. Yes, apparently that works.

Finally, Double Diamond enters Choose Your Fighter against the reigning champion, Seven Giraffes by Williams Bros Brewing. Can revived pub nostalgia beat elderflower, caramel malt and actual memorability?

Spoiler: not quite.

Also featuring: elderflower rocket fuel, Geraldine the goat, Scottish taxi drivers, Madri confusion, the Blue Stoops, Kirkstall Brewery, beer festival danger, and the promise that Elton will one day prepare an intro properly.

Beer reviewed: Double Diamond
Style: Pale ale / lager-style pale ale
ABV: 3.8%
Brewery connection: Samuel Allsopp / Kirkstall Brewery
Previous champion: Seven Giraffes by Williams Bros Brewing

New episodes every Friday. Subscribe, download, and join Elton and Matt for more beer reviews, pub nostalgia, craft beer arguments and occasional useful information.

Northern Monk Faith is in the glass this week as Beer Together takes on one of the UK’s best-known modern craft beers: a 5% hazy pale ale from Leeds with big gateway beer energy, soft tropical fruit, pineapple, citrus, stone fruit and a clean, gently bitter finish.

In this episode, Elton and Matt crack open Faith by Northern Monk and ask whether it still deserves its reputation as one of the beers that helped bring hazy pale ale, NEIPA-style flavours and modern craft beer into the mainstream. Is Faith the perfect first step for someone moving from lager into craft beer? Is it still interesting enough for people who chase double dry-hopped, experimental, limited-release cans? And does being available in supermarkets make a beer less “craft”, or just more successful?

We get into the history of Northern Monk, its Leeds roots, its proudly northern identity, and how Faith became a recognisable name in UK craft beer. The tasting notes lead us through tropical fruit, pineapple, light citrus, stone fruit, oats, wheat, a soft body, low bitterness and that clean finish that makes you reach for another sip without feeling like the beer is shouting at you. We also compare it to other familiar supermarket craft beers, including Beavertown Neck Oil, Camden Pale Ale and BrewDog Hazy Jane, and ask where Faith sits in that everyday craft beer line-up.

There is also a proper craft beer debate: what does “craft beer” actually mean in the UK? Should craft beer have a tighter definition? Does independence matter more than scale? Can a beer still be craft if you can buy it next to dishwasher tablets in Sainsbury’s? We compare the looser UK pub definition with stricter European ideas of craft and artisanal beer, and end up somewhere between admiration, suspicion and mild confusion.

As always, there is food pairing chat. Faith gets matched with barbecue halloumi, buffalo chicken wings, Thai food, Vietnamese food, herbs, spice, citrus and anything fresh enough to work with a soft, fruity pale ale. There is also a warning about katsu curry, a brief halloumi boiling tip, and the usual level of completely unnecessary threat-based storytelling.

Then Choose Your Fighter returns as Northern Monk Faith goes up against Seven Giraffes by Williams Bros. Faith brings smooth, tropical, easy-drinking hazy pale ale energy. Seven Giraffes brings elderflower, biscuit, caramel, hops and a more memorable botanical character. Which beer wins on taste, drinkability and character?

This is a funny, opinionated UK craft beer podcast episode for fans of Northern Monk, Faith hazy pale ale, NEIPA, pale ale, supermarket craft beer, beer tasting, beer history, beer and food pairing, independent breweries and the ongoing argument about what craft beer actually is.

Beer Together is a beer podcast about tasting beer properly, arguing about it badly, and trying to work out why some beers stick in your head while others quietly behave themselves. New episodes drop every Friday.

Featured beer: Northern Monk Faith
Style: Hazy Pale Ale / NEIPA-style Pale Ale
ABV: 5%
Brewery: Northern Monk, Leeds
Key tasting notes: tropical fruit, pineapple, citrus, stone fruit, soft body, gentle bitterness, clean finish
Also discussed: Seven Giraffes by Williams Bros, Beavertown Neck Oil, Camden Pale Ale, BrewDog Hazy Jane, UK craft beer, gateway beers, supermarket craft beer, beer definitions and food pairings

Seven Giraffes IPA from Williams Brothers Brewing is the focus of this Beer Together craft beer review, as we taste a Scottish gluten-free IPA from Alloa and ask whether this unusual beer is really an IPA, an ESB, a golden ale in disguise, or simply one of the most drinkable beers we have tried so far.

This week’s episode explores Williams Brothers Brewing, the Scottish family brewery behind Seven Giraffes, including its origins as a Glasgow home brew shop, the story of a traditional heather ale recipe, early brewing in a railway station, and the move to Alloa, a town with strong beer and malting connections. We also look at the wider Williams Brothers range mentioned in the episode, including heather ale, Scots pine ale, gooseberry wheat ale, seaweed ale and elderberry black ale.

The beer itself gives us plenty to talk about. Seven Giraffes IPA is a 5.1% gluten-free IPA made with seven different malts, including lager malt, wheat, Maris Otter, Vienna, pale rye, pale crystal and Munich. We discuss how those malts shape the flavour, bringing caramel, sweetness and body without becoming too heavy or biscuity. We also talk through the hop profile, including First Gold, Cascade and Styrian Goldings, alongside elderflower and lemon, and how those floral and citrus notes lift the beer into something lighter, brighter and more memorable.

As a beer tasting podcast, we dig into the full drinking experience: colour, aroma, flavour, balance, drinkability, bitterness, carbonation, malt character, elderflower aftertaste, IPA style, and whether Seven Giraffes would work for both experienced IPA drinkers and people who normally avoid IPAs. Matt does not usually like elderflower, which makes his reaction to this beer even more interesting.

There is also plenty of pub chat along the way, from questionable Hawaiian shirts and not Googling “lei” on a work laptop, to foraging in the Lake District, elderflower wine bubbling away at home, old pub beer batter traditions, dial-up internet memories, Father’s Day beer choices, and whether your dad would trust the beer but question the label.

For food pairing, we move away from the obvious burger or fish and chips match and explore why Seven Giraffes IPA feels more like a posh picnic beer. Think pork pie, sausage roll, roast chicken with lemon, garlic and thyme, goat’s cheese tart, herbal salads, lighter fish dishes and food with floral, citrus or savoury notes that work with the elderflower, lemon and caramel malt.

We also test Seven Giraffes against our craft beer definition discussion, including the Italian-style craft beer test around independence, production size, pasteurisation and filtration, before landing on what we call UK pub logic: this is a proper independent craft beer, even if we cannot legally certify it by the Italian definition from the can alone.

Finally, Seven Giraffes enters Choose Your Fighter against the current Scottish champion, Vault City’s You Choose We Brew. We compare flavour, drinkability, character and memorability, and decide whether this balanced, floral, caramel-led Scottish IPA has enough to beat the big mango sour from last week. The result gives us a brand-new Choose Your Fighter champion.

If you enjoy craft beer podcasts, Scottish beer, IPA reviews, beer tasting, independent breweries, gluten-free beer, Williams Brothers Brewing, food pairing, funny pub stories, or discovering beers worth sharing, this episode is for you.

We started with puckered faces and an emphatic “absolutely not”. We finished the can, admitted we’d buy it again and somehow crowned it our new Choose Your Fighter champion.

This week, we’re drinking Vault City’s Hot Honey Apple Mango — a 6.2% smoothie sour combining fresh apple, tropical mango, chilli flakes and Scottish blossom honey. It looks like a defrosted ice lolly, pours like mango juice and eventually leaves Matt wondering whether the heat in his chest is chilli or the beginning of a medical emergency.

Created through Vault City’s You Choose, We Brew competition from more than 2,000 suggestions, this is a beer designed to challenge expectations. But is it genuinely well-crafted, or has modern beer finally disappeared into complete madness?

We explore Vault City’s rise from small-batch Edinburgh brewery to one of Britain’s best-known sour beer producers, why heavily fruited sours divide drinkers and whether this might work better as a shared dessert drink than a traditional pint.

There are food pairings including vanilla cheesecake, coconut panna cotta, fish tacos, Korean fried chicken and strong cheese. Elton also attempts to turn it into a spicy mango margarita or a dangerously drinkable Bellini.

Then Hot Honey Apple Mango faces reigning champion Dead Reckoning West Coast IPA in Choose Your Fighter, judged on flavour, drinkability and character. The result irritates both of us.

Finally, we check Vault City against the Italian legal definition of craft beer: independence, annual production below 200,000 hectolitres and beer that is unpasteurised and unfiltered.

Would you drink a hot honey, apple and mango smoothie sour? Tell us what you think and follow Beer, Together for a new episode every Friday.

Beer, Together — finding what’s worth sharing.

France finally gives us a beer we actually enjoy — and then immediately confuses us by calling it a pils.

This week we’re in Carcassonne, inside a 700-year-old fortress, drinking Ciutat Pils from Les Brasseurs de la Cité, a small artisanal brewery based in Carcassonne. Ciutat is the Occitan word for “the city”, and the brewery describes itself as a family-run artisan beer producer reconnecting with Carcassonne’s brewing history. 

The beer itself is 4.5%, bottom fermented, and described as a pils with pleasant bitterness and Central European-style aromas. But the moment we pour it, things go sideways: it’s hazy, murky, maltier than expected, more floral, more bitter, and not quite what either of us would confidently call a pilsner. 

There’s also chat about French beer culture, why wine dominates the South of France, why supermarket beer shelves feel weirdly sad, why Desperados is everywhere, and why Matt briefly relocates Carcassonne to Wales.

A surprisingly good beer. A questionable pils. A fortress. Some frogs. And two men slowly losing confidence in their French pronunciation.

Beer, Together — finding what’s worth sharing.

Matt tried Leffe Blonde for the first time in 20 years. It did not go well.

This week on Beer, Together, we’re on the Canal du Midi for the second of our France specials, drinking Leffe Blonde from a 750ml bottle and asking whether one of Europe’s most recognisable Belgian beers still deserves its reputation.

There’s abbey history, AB InBev, monks, marketing, banana notes, clove, honey, Belgian beer trauma, questionable pronunciation, and the return of Matt’s long-standing problem with beers that smell even slightly of banana.

We talk about the story of the Abbey of Leffe, how the beer’s historic identity sits alongside modern global ownership, and whether Leffe Blonde can really be considered craft under our working Italian craft beer definition: independent, under 200,000 hectolitres, unpasteurised and unfiltered.

We also get into the important stuff: what food Leffe actually belongs with, whether it works better with pork, chicken, bacon, chips and mayonnaise, or even a roast dinner, and whether a famous beer can still be worth sharing when one of us absolutely detests it.

Expect Belgian beer, boat noise, French canal chaos, monks, marketing, a suspicious amount of banana, and two mates trying to work out whether Leffe is a classic, a gateway beer, or just a very well-made pint that Matt never wants to drink again.

His name is Matt.
He is Elton.
And we are Beer, Together.

Finding what’s worth sharing.

Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Goodpods.
Follow us on Instagram and TikTok: @BeerTogether123 and @Beertasting123

#LeffeBlonde
#Belgianbeer
#Abbeybeer
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#Craftbeer
#ABInBev
#CanalduMidi
#France
#Foodpairing
#Banana
#Belgianblondeale
#Beertasting
#Podcast UK

This week Beer, Together goes international.

Recording from a canal boat on the famous Canal du Midi in southern France, Elton and Matt crack open a bottle of 3 Monts Saison from Brasserie Saint-Sylvestre and explore one of Europe's most traditional beer styles.

What exactly is a Saison? Why were they brewed for farm workers? And how has a humble farmhouse beer evolved into the 6.5% French classic we're drinking today?

Along the way we discuss:

🍺 The history of Saison beer
🇫🇷 The last historic brewery of French Flanders
🧀 The incredible food markets of Narbonne
🦐 Perfect food pairings for a French farmhouse ale
🚤 Life aboard a canal boat on the Canal du Midi
🏆 Whether 3 Monts can dethrone Dead Reckoning in Choose Your Fighter

Expect canal boats, questionable French pronunciation, excellent food recommendations and a beer that surprised us both.

Find us on Instagram & TikTok:
@beertogether123

#BeerTogether #CraftBeer #FrenchBeer #Saison #ThreeMonts #CanalDuMidi #BeerPodcast #DrinkDifferentDrinkTogether

This week on Beer, Together, we crack open a West Coast IPA that might just reset everything we thought we knew about modern craft beer.

We’re drinking Outland Brewery’s West Coast IPA — now renamed Dead Reckoning — a 5% classic that leans hard into caramel malt, citrus hops, and that unmistakable dry bitterness.

But this episode quickly becomes something bigger…

Have we overcomplicated beer?

Somewhere between hazy IPAs, NEIPAs, and fruit-loaded brews, have we forgotten what an IPA is actually meant to taste like?

We dive into:

• What defines a true West Coast IPA
• Why clarity used to matter (and why it doesn’t now)
• The role of malt vs hops in flavour
• Whether “craft beer” even needs a definition
• And whether big brewers can still make “craft” beer

We also get into some proper pub nostalgia — Bass, London Pride, 6X — and how those beers shaped what we expect from a pint today.

🍔 Food pairing?
Think fatty, salty, bold:

• Smash burgers
• Sausages
• BBQ meats
• Mature cheddar
• Fried chicken

This is a beer that doesn’t cuddle your food… it argues with it — and wins.

⚔️ Choose Your Fighter
We put it head-to-head with the reigning champion, Neck Oil, across:

• Flavour
• Drinkability
• Occasion

And for the first time in weeks…

We crown a new winner.

This isn’t just about one beer — it’s about where beer culture is heading.

👉 Are we chasing trends… or rediscovering what made beer great in the first place?

🍺 Join the community:
Instagram: @beertogether123
Spotify: Follow + comment
Download the episode to support the show

#beertogether #craftbeeruk #westcoastipa #ipa #beerpodcast #beertalk #drinkbetterbeer #indiebeer #beerlover #beerstagram #ukcraftbeer #podcastclips #newpodcast #beercommunity #hopheads

This one wasn’t planned… but the best ones never are.

It’s Elton’s birthday 🎂 so we’ve ditched the format, grabbed a couple of Camden Pales, and spent 15 minutes doing what Beer, Together is really about — sharing stories.

From how we met nearly 25 years ago, to a genuinely surreal near-miss story involving a pub, a bomb scare, and a missing phone… this episode is less about the beer, and more about why we started this in the first place.

Because sometimes the best pint isn’t the most complex, rare, or hyped —
it’s the one you already know, shared with people who matter.

🍺 In this episode:

• Why Camden Pale is our “safe pint”
• The idea of a safe, risky, and wildcard beer
• How working in pubs changes how you see everything (yes… even lightbulbs)
• The story of how we met — and nearly didn’t
• Why community matters more than tasting notes

No “Choose Your Fighter” this week.
No overthinking.

Just a quick birthday beer… with you lot.

#BeerTogether #CraftBeerUK #PubTalk #BeerChat #CamdenPale #BeerCommunity #UKPubs #BeerReel #DrinkDifferent #DrinkTogether

This week on Beer, Together, we take on something completely different — Fresh Pulp from Buxton Brewery, a 6% double dry-hopped New England IPA… and let’s just say, it divides opinion.

From the first pour, this one is loud. Hazy, juicy, and packed with tropical fruit flavours — pineapple, mango, citrus — it’s a full-on fruit assault. But does more flavour actually mean a better beer?

We break down:

• What double dry hopping really does to a beer
• Why NEIPAs (New England IPAs) are so hazy and fruit-forward
• The role of hops like Citra, Chinook, Centennial, El Dorado… and the newer British Harlequin hop
• Whether beers like this are built for enthusiasts… or just for trying once

There’s also a proper reality check on drinkability. At 6%, this isn’t your easy-going pint — it’s a first drink of the nightbeer… if that.

We also dive into:

• The story of Buxton Brewery — from a 40L garage setup in 2009 to a full-scale operation
• Our own (failed) home brewing adventures
• Why some beers fight your food instead of complementing it
• And where this actually fits in a real drinking occasion

🍽️ Food Pairings?
Surprisingly, this one leans toward bold, punchy flavours:

• Kimchi fried chicken
• Salty cheeses
• Pickles & relishes

⚖️ Choose Your Fighter
Can anything beat our reigning champion Neck Oil?

We score on:

• Flavour
• Drinkability
• Occasion

…and let’s just say, Fresh Pulp has a fight on its hands.

🍺 This is what Beer, Together is all about — trying beers you might not pick yourself, figuring out where they fit (if they fit at all), and having a proper conversation about it.

👍 Tried Fresh Pulp? Agree or completely disagree with us?

Join the conversation:
📲 Instagram: @BeerTogether123
🎙️ Follow the podcast on Spotify to be part of the community

#BeerTogether
#CraftBeerUK
#NEIPA
#HazyIPA
#BeerPodcast
#BuxtonBrewery
#BeerReview
#DrinkDifferent
#UKBeer
#PodcastUK
#BeerLovers
#IndieBeer
#HopHeads