The week in pictures

db dropped by London drinks emporium Gerry’s Wines & Spirits in Soho for a taste of Brighton Gin, one of the most charismatic additions to the booming British gin scene. Co-founder Helen Chesshire convinced us that the liver-cleansing milk thistle used to flavour the gin made it fine to have a second glass of this distinctively smooth spirit.

Rupert Thompson, head brewer at the Hogs Back Brewery in Hampshire, head brewer Miles Chesterton and their team enjoy a beer ahead of this year’s harvest. The team will harvest the first hops form its hop garden, planted last year next to its brewery in Farnham, in September. It is now the largest brewery-owned hop garden in the country.

db headed to Laithwaite’s at Vinopolis in Borough Market this week to interview Tony Laithwaite, who is currently writing his memoirs. This year marks the 50th anniversary of his inaugural trip to Bordeaux in 1965, which resulted in the formation of Bordeaux Direct. Tony had to rely on the good will of a small cluster of producers to club together to buy him a van so that he could drive their wine back to Windsor and sell it door-to-door.

Before: a barren beer garden. Credit: Cuprinol

A barren beer garden has been transformed with a lick of paint, courtesy of Cuprinol. The White Lion’s beer garden in West Lancashire was selected out of hundreds in the UK to be transformed as part of Cuprinol’s ‘Cheers It Up’ campaign.

Afrter: a colourful beach scene. Credit: Cuprinol

Brightened up with a new nautical look, compete with beach-themed dining huts, Cuprinol hope the makeover will encourage patrons to make the most of the British summertime and support their local.

The Famous Grouse Experience marked the achievements of Andy Murray by naming its third “Bottle Your Own” single cask whisky after the tennis ace. Hand-picked from the Glenturret Distillery by The Famous Grouse Master Blender, Gordon Motion, the first two exclusive casks have already been snapped up by whisky fans, starting with a Earl and Countess of Strathearn Cask, bottled first by the Duke & Duchess of Cambridge on their visit to the Distillery in 2014. The second cask marked the achievements of Hollywood movie star and local, Ewan McGregor.  

Scotland’s Caledonian Brewery have been pounding the aisles at Tesco offering thirsty shoppers the chance to sample its flagship beer, Deuchars IPA, during the Fringe festival in Edinburgh. The team will be in stores across the city throughout the festival.

More than 50,000 people descended on Olympia London as the Campaign for Real Ale opened the doors to the 38^th Great British Beer Festival this week. The festival opened with speeches from festival organiser Ian Hill, CAMRA chief executive Tim Page and special guest, Pubs Minister Marcus Jones. Jones used the event to launch a new CAMRA initiative to save 3,000 pubs from closure by listing them as an Asset of Community Value (ACV), and presented the first ever Badge of Honour to Tina Massie of The Red Lion pub.

This year’s event saw the the team at Bushy’s Brewery on the Isle of Man team up with the world’s most remote island Tristan da Cunha, a remote group of volcanic islands in the south Atlantic Ocean, to create a specially brewed ale for the Great British Beer Festival using one of the rarest ingredients on earth, Rubrum berries. The berries were picked by the Island ambassadors Robin and Dawn Repetto, who pulled and served the first pints of the Island Brew and also invited festival goers back to the Island of Tristan da Cunha for a free second.

As this year’s northern hemisphere harvest swings into action, we received these snaps of the team at JP Ramos’ Falua in Portugal working hard in the vineyards. The team are currently picking Chardonnay from Charneca Terroir at Falua’s Convento Vineyard, and will continue moving through all of the group’s vineyards until the end of September.

Of this year’s harvest Falua’s sales and marketing manager Roque Cunha Ferreira said: “Plants are good and let´s hope that weather continues without rain. It might be a fantastic year!”

The Andrea Bocelli Foundation raised €45,000 for a project fighting poverty in Haiti by selling three bottles of its brut rosè Cuvage, signed by the legendary opera singer Andrea Bocelli himself. The auction was held at the beginning of August in the house of the famous Italian tenor in Pisa. Each Jeroboam was sold of €15,000.

Charlie Dalin and Yann Ellies skippered a team of five, including Pol Roger’s James Simpson MW and Paul Graham, to second place in ‘The Artemis Challenge’, one of the highest profile races of its kind at Cowes Week 2015.

Finally Meantime flooded Greenwich with beer hosting Meantime’s Brewfest and Friends – a bigger version of its Brewfest – just outside of the O2. The craft brewers served up more than 180 of the finest craft beers from around the world and hosted a convoy of food trucks ranging from The Cheese Truck, Tongue ‘n’ Cheek, MyPie and World of Zing, which also served up beer cocktails.