It's The Beer Talking: Adventures in Public Houses

by Ian Clayton

'Ian's book is brimming with laughter, tall stories, great memories and endless rounds of wonderful beer. It's also a call to arms to save this unique institution.' - Roger Protz, Editor Good Beer Guide 2000-2018

Where do we go to meet old friends? What is our first port of call when we want to show new mates something that speaks about our identity? The pub of course, or better still our local.

Author Ian Clayton embarked on a lifelong love affair with local pubs in the middle of the 1970s. He has raised a glass in neighbourhood bars around the world for more than forty years. His stories are intertwined with quests to find perfect pints and peoples' palaces and about joining in with the joy he finds in the unique gathering place we call the public house.

He moves across the generations and boundaries to take a glimpse at what makes the pub tick. Humorous and poignant by turns, It's The Beer Talking tells of the laughter, the tears, the cheers, the remembering and forgetting, but most of all the camaraderie we all crave. This book will resonate with anyone who as ever uttered that immortal phrase, 'Do you fancy a pint?'

Genres: History

264 pages, Paperback

Published February 22, 2019

About the author

Ian Clayton has been a jobbing writer, storyteller and broadcaster for over 30 years. He has written on subjects as varied as the environment, homelessness, jazz and rugby league. His stories are about making sense of where we come from. He has written three memoirs: Song For My Father about his lifelong search for a father figure; Bringing It All Back Home about his love of music; Our Billie about loss; It’s The Beer Talking, about adventures in public houses; In Search of Plainsong tells the full story of the original 1972 incarnation of the folk-rock group and their debut album In Search of Amelia Earhart. Right Up Your Street is the first volume of columns he’s written for Pontefract and Castleford Express. He is the co-compiler of Wisdom of Our Own, a book that tells the story of a learning centre that grew out of the Women Against Pit Closures movement. He is the co-author of Anne Scargill and Betty Cook’s memoir Anne & Betty, and he co-wrote Iain Matthews’s memoir Thro’ My Eyes

Ian still lives in the town where he was born, with his partner Heather, a social worker and artist.

source: Ian Clayton

Reviews

[Jorgen Lundgren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ian Claytons "It's the beer talking, adventures in public places" is a book where I smiled, laughed and got tear in my eyes from. An amazing recollection of stories around friends, music, travels and not to forget ale houses. An old English institution or as Ian calls out on page 69.

"I've come to realise that after many years of trying, what I'm really looking for is a place where I can be be myself. A place we're I can find friendship and camaraderie. Of course, beer greases the tongue and helps you to speak, but the atmosphere of the pub and the people you find there is what helps the beer taste good. I've come round to thinking that there probably won't be a perfect pint, an ultimate pub or even a greatest pub moment to point to. What there will be, and perhaps have been, is a series of moments when everything comes together like a spell, I've had a lot of them in my time."

[Edna Foster · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, this was not your traditional book club fare. I consider myself to be somewhat of an Anglophile and I still came across plenty of new slang in this recounting of one man’s love affair with beer. Not well written, but interesting characters for sure!

[Alexander Webb · Rating 5 out of 5]

extra fun as it mentioned Amelia’s grandad