I got a taste for real ale in the late 1970s while at university in Cardiff. The only alcohol available in the students’ union was bland, fizzy beer. I sought out a better quality drink in local pubs and quickly grew to love the depth of flavour of all the different styles of cask ales. I like the fact that cask beers continue to ferment in the barrel before they are served, which keg beers don’t. That conditions the beer and improves the flavour.
Back home in Sheffield after university, I started attending beer festivals. By 1985, I was recording the beers I drank by ticking them off in the festival programmes. In those early years, I was going to three or four festivals a year. Then someone I knew got me into this hobby properly, which is called beer ticking or scratching – marking off beers you drink from a list.
