Meet the Panel: Pete Brown

Pete Brown is a British author, journalist, broadcaster and consultant specialising in food and drink, especially the fun parts like beer, pubs, cider, bacon rolls and fish and chips.  Pete was born in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, and much against his better judgement, still supports its football team.

After graduating from the University of St Andrews, Pete spent ten years in advertising, helping some of the world’s biggest brands with their marketing strategy. Most famously, he persuaded Heineken to ditch its ‘Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach’ slogan just weeks before it was named the most successful advertising slogan of all time. He also worked on Stella Artois’ ‘Reassuringly Expensive campaign’, for which he wrote several award-winning papers proving its commercial effectiveness.

Pete’s foray into being a published author came about after his search to find a book that adequately defined the British love for beer proved to be somewhat unsuccessful.  This failed search resulted in his first book Man Walks Into A Pub: A Sociable History of Beer (2003, revised 2010) which sold quite well.  So much so that it was very nearly commissioned as a BBC TV series.  Since then Pete has written widely and published a further 8 books covering both the social and natural history of beer and the pub, dripping with his trademark cultural commentary.

Outside of writing books, Pete is also a sought after contributor to writing about beer, regularly contributing to publications such as  Morning Advertiser and Class magazine, and frequent contributions to national new media and beer magazines such as Ferment.  This combined with his role as Editor-at-Large of Original Gravity magazine, saw Pete elected Chair to the British Guild of Beer Writers in July 2018.

Pete is a voice of authority on many subjects across the beer industry and he’ll be bringing this wealth of experience and knowledge to The Birmingham Beer Debate; tickets and full details of the event can be found via the link here.

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