Award-winning writer Melissa Cole is widely acknowledged as one of the UK’s leading beer & food experts. Respected the world over for her fine palate, Melissa is invited to judge at competitions in New Zealand, the US and Brazil, as well as closer to home in the UK and across Europe. Melissa is also a regular contributor to several different broadsheets, food and drink magazines, BBC and independent radio and television - as well as international appearances all over the world. She was also the first women to be given a Knighthood of Mash Brewer's Mash Staff by the Union of Belgian Brewers.
As the first woman beer writer in the UK, Melissa has had to overcome some sizeable hurdles, and spent years reading, studying and educating herself about how to properly assess beer, partly through achieving her Certified Cicerone© but also about the brewing process, by getting her hands dirty making collaboration beers with breweries across the globe, like Fuller's, Odell, St Austell, Thornbridge, Rooster's, Ilkley, Anspach & Hobday, New Holland and Brasserie de la Senne to name but a few.
Melissa’s other passion is food and is recognised as the UK’s leading expert in pairing, and cooking with, beer having dedicated years to figuring out which beers work in which dishes and why (which she regularly calls ‘making a whole series of disgusting mistakes, so you don’t have to’).