Will Hawkes
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willhawkes.bsky.social
Will Hawkes
@willhawkes.bsky.social
Writes about food, beer, travel. Author of Telegraph’s 500 Best Pubs in England & @LondonBeerCity, monthly missive on pubs & beer. Fortnum and Mason Drink Writer of the Year 2021 & 2023
It's Ashesmas eve - but all through bluesky not a creature is stirring, not even a fucking mouse. So please enjoy these pictures of cricket-related pubs, and a bonus shot of Graham Gooch 👌
November 20, 2025 at 12:25 PM
Reposted by Will Hawkes
Reposted by Will Hawkes
It just got left on the wrong side of the border after all that unpleasantness in the early 1920s...
November 14, 2025 at 5:08 PM
Have I really been so carelessly provocative? 😲 There's only one way to find out. Sign up here: www.willhawkes.net/london-beer-...
November 14, 2025 at 4:22 PM
It's the worst beer vessel. Like drinking out of a vase
One more! @willhawkes.bsky.social offers this aside: “Having ordered…the only cask beer available, it is served in a dimpled handled jug - the worst drinking vessel on earth. The jug of shame!”

1, counterpoint, it’s the *best* vessel, and 2, this is the hottest hip mug in the U.S. culture is weird!
There is, incredibly, a new @londonbeercity.bsky.social tomorrow. It features Guinness' belated arrival in Covent Garden, London pubs owned by London breweries, the new venue for LCBF, The Lady magazine and lots more. Sign up here: www.willhawkes.net/london-beer-...
November 14, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Reposted by Will Hawkes
There is, incredibly, a new @londonbeercity.bsky.social tomorrow. It features Guinness' belated arrival in Covent Garden, London pubs owned by London breweries, the new venue for LCBF, The Lady magazine and lots more. Sign up here: www.willhawkes.net/london-beer-...
November 13, 2025 at 2:25 PM
This is being sent out right now! Thrilling when you think about it
There is, incredibly, a new @londonbeercity.bsky.social tomorrow. It features Guinness' belated arrival in Covent Garden, London pubs owned by London breweries, the new venue for LCBF, The Lady magazine and lots more. Sign up here: www.willhawkes.net/london-beer-...
November 14, 2025 at 8:03 AM
There is, incredibly, a new @londonbeercity.bsky.social tomorrow. It features Guinness' belated arrival in Covent Garden, London pubs owned by London breweries, the new venue for LCBF, The Lady magazine and lots more. Sign up here: www.willhawkes.net/london-beer-...
November 13, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Reposted by Will Hawkes
News!

We have plans for a print Pellicle in 2026 but we can only do that with your help. Become a Patreon subscriber now and support our b̶i̶d̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶l̶d̶ ̶d̶o̶m̶i̶n̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ writers, artists and editors, and keep Pellicle free to read for all 🫶🏻

www.pelliclemag.com/home/2025/11...
An Important Update About Our Subscription Fees (And How To Support Pellicle) — Pellicle
When Jonny and I started working on Pellicle in earnest at the very start of 2019, we spent a long afternoon discussing how we hoped to fund it. From day one, we were dedicated to paying every contrib...
www.pelliclemag.com
November 10, 2025 at 9:08 AM
Reposted by Will Hawkes
thank you to everyone who has pre ordered a zine! we are halfway to our pre order target already which is HUGE. you can get a cap now also! they’re gorgeous imo. the whole project is fun and beautiful and silly and i’m so proud of what we’ve created!

Get a copy here ⬇️

www.burumcollective.com/jlp
November 7, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Pleased to see one of those out in the wild - or, to give it its proper name, East London (lol rofl). At the marvellous Pembury Tavern.
November 7, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Saw my first Christmas Tree o’ the season this evening. 6 November! Gets earlier every year
November 6, 2025 at 8:24 PM
This is niche, but might be useful for some. According to my personal HMRC-employed tax advisor (wife), the rules relating to freelance journalists going on paid press trips/being sent free samples, etc, has not changed. The new guidance is more for influencers who, for e.g., are receiving ... 1/2
November 6, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Is it me or is this BBC bar chart awful? Why does it start from 0 years old?! People don't play Test cricket at the age of 0, not even Don Bradman. Goodness
November 5, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Wow, quite rude of @bathedailey.bsky.social to do this portrait of me without asking permission - but it does give me an opportunity to promote this opinion-packed pub package featuring my views on cocktails (no) & taking glasses back ➡️ the bar (yes)
Taking empties back to the bar for @pelliclemag.com's latest multi-contributor Essential guide to pub etiquette: www.pelliclemag.com/home/2025/10...
November 5, 2025 at 12:28 PM
Wetherspoons' sales currently up 3.7 percent on last financial year, according to Propel: "Bar sales increased by 5.7%, food by 0.9% and slot/fruit machines by 8.9%, while hotel room sales decreased by 6.3%. Total sales have grown by 4.2% in the year to date"
November 5, 2025 at 9:14 AM
Reposted by Will Hawkes
The Pellicle Essential Guide to Pub Ettiquette!

Already noted as curmudgeonly by @boakandbailey.bsky.social, we prefer "righteously bothered."

Table rezzies, bogey-filled tissues in empty glasses, rounds and more, all documented for posterity.

www.pelliclemag.com/home/2025/10...
The Essential Guide to Pub Etiquette — Pellicle
It was the writer and politician Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) who famously said, “ Change your hearts or you will lose your inns and you will deserve to have lost them. But when you have lost your inns ...
www.pelliclemag.com
November 5, 2025 at 8:18 AM
I’ve now tried the new Boddington’s. It’s fine. Presumably this is not the same beer elderly Mancunians have spent decades tearfully eulogising?
November 2, 2025 at 5:10 PM
Reposted by Will Hawkes
My home town tonight. Rewind to about -2.28 for the start of the good shit.

www.youtube.com/live/GnjkM3N...
Bridgwater Guy Fawkes Carnival 2025
YouTube video by BGFCarnival
www.youtube.com
November 1, 2025 at 10:17 PM
Reposted by Will Hawkes
Anyway next weeks Pellicle piece is a fucking banger. Maybe our bangingest banger yet? Nine people worked on it, all got paid. We’re a micro entity with a turnover of 50k a year, if we can manage it everyone else sure as hell can
October 31, 2025 at 12:26 PM
Reposted by Will Hawkes
Spooooky Halloween special for @pelliclemag.com this month. It’s Halloween somewhere 💁‍♀️

www.pelliclemag.com/home/2025/10...
October 31, 2025 at 10:30 AM
Reposted by Will Hawkes
I wrote something on my phone while sitting on my train to Lincoln, and liked it, so I decided to publish it. A little something about grief, and travel, and Jaipur in the Sheffield Tap.

www.totalales.co.uk/blog/2025/10...
October 31, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Guinness’s new brewery/venue in London finally has an opening date: 11th December. As revealed in @londonbeercity.bsky.social a year ago (!), head brewer will be Hollie Stephenson: imbibemagazine.com/hollie-steph...
2019 Beer Person of the Year: Hollie Stephenson
Hollie Stephenson, our 2019 Beer Person of the Year, is taking something old and making it freshly brewed at Baltimore’s experimental Open Gate Brewery & Barrel House, Guinness’ first U.S. brewery sin...
imbibemagazine.com
October 29, 2025 at 8:29 AM
Reposted by Will Hawkes
Good morning from my inbox where I have 14 (fourteen) pitches I would like to commission, but I don't have the budget to fund any of them. I keep banging on about this, but @pelliclemag.com needs more subscribers if it is to continue. Please spread the word.

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October 27, 2025 at 10:44 AM
I walked past The Crown in Brum the other day. It now has pictures of Black Sabbath - a band which, to all intents and purposes, was born at the pub - on the windows. Not sure if this is a good or bad sign
October 24, 2025 at 10:05 AM