One of the country’s most articulate and entertaining writers talks to Alastair Gilmour about beer, bikes and Belgium. Harry Pearson makes a salient point over a couple of pints in The Heart of Northumberland pub in Hexham. He has just published his latest book – The Beast, The Emperor and The Milkman – about bike racing in Flanders, the northern half of Belgium, and says he’s covered the subject so often that most people assume he’s been a professional cyclist himself. “Not