Blogs

It has been billed as the best job opportunity ever - Official Beer Taster!
In December of last year, Evan-Evans started the search for a group of beer tasters to help the award-winning brewery with the development of its new beer range for the summer of 2012.
The company received more than 250 applications for what was described as the best job in brewing.
The first 25 successful tasters met last month for a training session headed by Evan-Evans brewery Chief Executive Simon Buckley and Ian Swanson of The Beer Academy.
Now, tomorrow (June 9), a second batch of tasters are to be put through their paces on a specially-designed beer tasting course.
The course, being held at The Cricketers in Cathedral Road, Cardiff, will cover a variety of topics and include the tasting of a series of beer styles and the skills required to become a professional beer taster.
The course culminates in an exam and a final tasting session at the bar of The Cricketers, the top food pub in Wales.
Mr Buckley said: This will be the second training session for our new beer tasters.
Once it is complete, we can get down to the serious work of brand building with their help.
On the first training course, it was a delight to see so many genuinely enthusiastic tasters determined to grasp the complex subject of beer production and the intricate flavours we produce.
We can now move forward with our plans for the development of new cask and bottled beers, knowing that the tasters will give us their considered opinions.
We are the only brewery in Wales and probably in the UK to have our own tasting team and we feel confident that with the feedback from the tasters we will continue our expansion as a major drinks brand company.
We hope to launch a new range of cask beers in July and follow that with a new range of bottle beers for the autumn.
I am grateful to the tasters for coming to the training and to The Beer Academy for their help.
Picture above: The Evan-Evans Brewery tasters at the first training course at The Cricketers Cardiff, Simon Buckley is pictured centre.
The Beer Academy
The Beer Academy is an educational body that was founded by a small group of beer enthusiasts in 2003 to help people understand, appreciate and enjoy beer sensibly.
To date more than 10,000 people have attended Beer Academy courses and tasting events such as the BBC Good Food Show, the Great British Beer Festival and the British Museum as well as in pubs and bars up and down the country.
The Academy offers a range of courses and qualifications ranging from a 90-minute tutored introduction to beer through to the two day Advanced Course for serious beer connoisseurs. Full details of all Beer Academy Courses and events can be found www.beeracademy.co.uk or on Twitter @TheBeerAcademy
Weblink
http://www.evanevansbrewery.com
Evan-Evans Brewery
Evan-Evans has a reputation for brewing the highest quality cask-conditioned beers. Evan-Evans is Waless largest specialist brewer of cask ale. The company started brewing in 2004 to produce specialist cask ales for the Welsh and national guest ale market.
The brewing heritage of the Buckley family stretches back to the early 19th century after the Rev James Buckley married the eldest daughter of Henry Child who had founded Childs Brewery in Llanelli. It was set up to slake the thirst of the towns tinworkers, who were rapidly increasing in numbers.
Evan-Evans was founded in Llandeilo in 2003 and began brewing in 2004. It is named after William Evan-Evans who married into the family four generations ago

A gala dinner is being planned in Carmarthenshire for the Help For Heroes charity.

My interview with Bede MacGowan, Editor of the Llanelli Star, for the Llanelli Talking Newspaper for the Blind.

My interview with Mark Jewell of Carmarthenshire Library Services for the Llanelli Talking Newspaper for the Blind -

Interview with Caru James of the Llanelli Heritage 6 Project, conducted for the Llanelli Talking Newspaper for the Blind -

In the past three weeks Seren have been celebrating prize nominations from around the country. The Wales Book of the Year 2012 shortlist for fiction includes two Seren authors, Robert Minhinnick and Patrick McGuinness for the most prestigious literature prize in Wales.

Keep checking the Seren website, Facebook or Twitter for updates on how both authors get on in the next couple of weeks. All of us here at Seren are enjoying the celebration parties nearly as much as Patrick and Robert!

Diamond Jubilee Offer

To mark the Queen's Jubilee, we thought we'd celebrate the work of writers who, over the past sixty years, have made significant contributions to the cultural life of Wales.

We've selected six books by six distinguished veteran authors, which you can buy for 6 each (+ p&p) from our website over the course of the double bank holiday.

Emyr Humphreys The Woman at the Window
Mavis Nicholson What did you do in the War, Mummy?
Dannie Abse There was a Young Man from Cardiff
Ruth Bidgood New and Selected Poems
Tony Conran Eros Proposes a Toast
Dai Vaughan Totes Meer

This offer will be from 9am Monday 4th until 9pm Tuesday 5th June 2012.

New Titles Out Now

Forthcoming Titles

Hay Festival 2012

Meet the Author

Poem of the Month

'Witch'

Were in Domesday: meadow,
fallow, plot and gravel pit,

flintwork church a little to the east;
Great House and cherry grove;

damson orchards blemishing
the light; the river slick

with fish; those millsails beating
on the pent-up pond. Beyond

lies corn-earth draining
to the sea. Even on rafty days,

keen eyes can see five spires
Gods needles tacking up the dark.

My garden borders on the deadfold
where they murder down the lambs.

Witch is the title poem taken from Damian Walford Davies's new collection Witch

Bydd gan Y Lolfa stondin yn Eisteddfod yr Urdd , Eryri (stondin rhif 127-128). Os ydach chi neu aelod och teulu yn cystadlu, dymunwn bob hwyl i chi, a chofiwch fod croeso mawr i chi alw draw am sgwrs ! Bydd cyfle i brynur llyfrau sydd ar restrau fer Llyfr y Flwyddyn Pantglas (Mihangel Morgan) a Cofiant Kate Roberts (Alan Llwyd).

Dyma restr o ddigwyddiadaur Lolfa yn Eisteddfod yr Urdd:

Dydd Llun 4 Mehefin

Canu gyda Rala Rwdins yn stondin CBAC , caneuon or llyfr Caneuon Ffadldi-Rwla-La , rhwng 11 a 2 or gloch .

Cyfle i neud Cadw Mi Gei papier mache yn stondin Palas Print am 2 or gloch , ac i glywed Morgan Tomos yn darllen ei lyfr newydd yng nghyfres Alun yr Arth - Alun yr Arth yn yr Ysgol.

Dydd Mawrth 5 Mehefin

Angharad Tomos yn arwyddo copau oi llyfrau yn stondin Y Lolfa am 11 or gloch , ac yna yn stondin Palas Print am 11.30 or gloch .

Dydd Sadwrn 9 Mehefin

Gwennan Evans yn lansio ei nofel newydd yn stondin Y Lolfa am 2 or gloch !

Bydd gan Y Lolfa nifer o lyfrau newydd fydd ar werth am y tro cyntaf yn Steddfod yr Urdd, yn cynnwys:

Alun yr Arth yn yr Ysgol Morgan Tomos

Guto Ny thbrn Jeremy Turner

Gwastraff Catrin Jones Hughes (Cyfres y Copa)

Gyl Peter Davies (Cyfres y Copa)

Bore Da Gwennan Evans (Cyfres y Dderwen)

There is little doubt that Wales has a rich history of heroes and villains who are both idolized and despised in equal measures but Heroes and Villains in Welsh History published by Gomer Press compels us to question the virtues of those historical figures that we all thought we knew.

Like the previous book in this series, A New History of Wales (Gomer 2011), this publication is the result of a collaboration between the Western Mail and a group of twenty-two historians who form part of History Research Wales. First published as part of a series of articles in the national newspaper, the essays retain the clear, easy-to-read appeal, which made them so popular with readers.

The 24 accessible and entertaining essays profile a number of characters in Welsh history from politicians to sport stars and saints to soldiers. The cast of both heroes and villains range from well-known national figures such as Oliver Cromwell and Gerald of Wales to ordinary local heroes teachers, miners and rugby players. Yet not all heroes and villains come in the form of a man or a woman, some of the essays also discuss the hidden villains in Welsh history, such as disease and poverty, which have also plagued the country.

Be prepared for some surprising conclusions as the authors pull no punches in their assessments and cast a new light on our perceptions of the heroes and villains in Welsh history and ask us to reconsider their achievements.

Several events will take place at this years Hay Festival to coincide with the publication of Heroes and Villains in Welsh History . Editor Huw Bowen, Professor of Modern History at Swansea University, will be joined by various guests for thought-provoking discussions which are sure to surprise as well as entertain the audience (please see below for full details of these events).

Heroes and Villains in Welsh History is available from

all good bookshops and online retailers.

For more information, please visit www.gomer.co.uk