Chairman’s Corner

Welcome back to the newsletter of the Peterborough and District Branch of the Campaign for Real Ale after an absence of 18 months. Over this period we have seen the COVID pandemic force two lockdowns which has put tremendous strain on the food and drink industry… and most importantly meant we did not run the Peterborough Beer Festival in 2020 or this year. Over the past two months, visiting many pubs, I think the most common question asked of me is if and when the next Beer Festival will be held. It is of course our intention to run the Festival on the Embankment in August 2022… but there are a number of challenges we need to overcome to make this a reality is my answer.

Pub of the Year and Annual General Meeting

We decided that due to the lockdown there would be no voting for a Pub of the Year for 2021 or Annual General Meeting last December. However, we hope to have both this year with AGM set for Monday 6th December at the Yard of Ale on Oundle Road, and the voting forms for the Pub of the Year to be sent out to CAMRA members in late October. There will be more pubs to vote for than in previous years with the likes of the Goat at Frognall and the Ostrich in Peterborough in the mix. As well as asking for POTY votes we need your nominations for the 2023 Good Beer Guide so please go out and support the trade with your custom, telling us through these forms which you feel are best!

This year I have decided to stand down as Chairman, so am looking for any willing volunteers to take my place. If you have an interest in the position please feel free to discuss it with any of the committee (see details in the back of BAE) or email:

info@peterborough.camra.org.uk.

Candidates for the position need to be known well in advance of the AGM when we will vote my successor in.

Welcome back

Peterborough Pubs

I have tried to get around as many pubs as possible since lockdown was lifted and made all the pubs on the Ale Trail 2021 within a couple of days. A massive thanks to the Beer Festival Organiser Mike Lane for arranging the 2020 and 2021 trails with over 25 people completing them in each year. There were a few pubs omitted from the trail due to numbers - these included the Fox and Hounds at Longthorpe, which hosted its first ever Beer Festival in August, and the Blind Tiger in Cowgate, which introduced real ales for the first time.

Closing Messages

I encourage all readers to please carry on supporting the pubs and breweries which are trying to recover after the massive challenge of the pandemic. As I write this I know of only a few which have closed but realise there are many more struggling who desperately need your support.

I personally will carry on supporting the trade well after standing down as Chair and wish the Branch, its members and especially the wonderful committee all the best for the future.

Matt Mace

Chair

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Pub News

Pubs Officer’s Report

After 15 months without visiting a pub because of my lack of immune system, I am going to find it rather difficult to write a report worth a damn for this edition. Needless to say it was extremely difficult for a pub lover such as myself to forego the pleasures of a friendly pint in a local hostelry for so long, but not half as difficult as it was for the struggling publicans.

What the pubcos started, the pandemic has tried its damnedest to finish – the final demise of the local pub, the heart of the community, the best place on earth!

However, as the pubcos have discovered and what the pandemic has failed to do is down to the magnificent efforts of our innkeepers and landlords showing their Dunkirk spirit in the face of extreme adversity and governmental inadequacy. Without clear guidance and despite everchanging rules and regulations, many of our local pubs have managed to survive and hopefully will begin to thrive again when this bloody Covid thing dies down.

As I say, I have only recently, following a double jabbing, felt comfortable in visiting a pub and even then I have spent most of my time outside.

So, before I mention the few pubs I have visited I wish to hail all the local publicans who have worked so hard, have been so inventive, have fought against the odds to stay afloat in what must have been the worst year in the history of alehouses. You have been magnificent!

I know, through social media, that many locals continued to serve their loyal customers by running an off-sales service. Personally I was able to maintain my ale intake thanks to the Nene Valley Brewery delivering to my doorstep during my imposed lock down. Not sure if any pubs did this but credit to them if they did.

Many pubs do not have much outdoor space, so found it difficult to serve customers under the regulations imposed by the government, but here I must make a mention of the fantastic adapting of their limited outdoor space by the Ostrich. I have not seen it yet myself but have it on good authority that it is pretty marvellous.

Pubs with the outdoor space have, in many cases, spent a considerable amount of time and money on developing it into an area for all the year round outside eating and drinking. Permanent marquees have been erected, new outdoor tables and chairs have been installed, heaters are ready for use as the weather turns cooler. I am actually quite looking forward to sitting out in the midwinter cold under a tarpaulin cover with a patio heater singeing my hair and a blanket across my knees as I hold a pint between gloved hands. I know it does not sound as appetising as sitting beside a roaring log fire in the inglenook in the comfortable warmth of the pub interior but, having enjoyed drinking in Prague bars in December, I can assure you it is fun.

I have, over the last couple of months, enjoyed lunch at a number of pubs local to me on the western side of the area. My first lunch was taken on the raised patio overlooking the Nene at the King’s Head in Wadenhoe. Lunch was good and the Nene Valley and Digfield ales were in good condition. The Chequered Skipper in Ashton was a joy, sitting under a large canopied area on new, good quality furniture with a peacock strutting around looking for titbits. The food was good and the ale was in fine fettle. Our lunch at the Montague Arms in Barnwell was very good too. They have a large covered area with a woodburning stove and a very good children’s play area nearby so you can send the kiddies off to play while you enjoy food and Digfield ales. The Black Horse in Elton was a very pleasant surprise as I have not been enamoured of this pub since someone tried to turn it into a Pink Pony! It has now a much-improved decor and the outdoor spaces are in abundance. They have a huge marquee on one side of the pub in a walled garden, but we ate in the compact but lovely courtyard. The service was excellent and the food pretty good too. They have 5 ale pumps but sad to say I have lost my notes so am unable to report what ales they had on. We recently tried out the newly refurbished Millstone in Barnack. Very smart interior and great raised outside courtyard with new furniture. Unfortunately it rained while we were there and the outdoor space has no cover. Each table has a sunshade but we were able to eat in the bar area close to the open door. The sandwiches were very good and filling although it was disappointing that the lunch menu was so restricted owing to shortage of chefs. There was a choice of Ghost Ship, Boon Doggle or Round Corner Brewing’s Topside on the ale front.

I have to rely on friends’ reports for the White Swan at Woodnewton which did takeaway meals through the bad times, which were pricey but very well received by those who ordered them. Likewise the Willow and Brook in Apethorpe whose food is, I am told, excellent. Unfortunately when I tried to book an outside table for lunch I was told they could not take specific bookings for outside. Why?

Actually my first visit to any drinking establishment was on a hot summer day with some drinking pals in Stilton at the S Bar. Not a place I had visited before, but I was quite pleased with the courtyard and their ales were in excellent order. The first pub I sat inside was the Frothblowers on an afternoon when it was quite quiet so I did not feel too uncomfortable and the beers of course were excellent.

Relying on social media for my information, I can report that a number of pubs ran their own beer fests during the last week of August when the PBF would have taken place. There was also an ale trail to follow which many took advantage of and enjoyed the variety of ales on offer. I visited the Hand and Heart and sat in the garden enjoying some quality ales.

I apologise to all pubs I have not mentioned. I have restricted my report because I am sure that if I started naming some of the many great pubs who have done so well during this difficult time, I would be severely chastised by those I missed out. I hope to make it up to them by visiting them before writing my next report.

Finally, congratulations to the Ploughman in Werrington for being in the CAMRA Good Beer Guide for ten consecutive years and for raising nearly £2000 for charity during their beer fest. Also, congratulations to the Wonky Donkey for achieving Gold and LocAle awards.

All the best for the winter,

Bill Taylor

Alun Thomas adds..

We’ll start in Barnack, where the Millstone reopened in July after a lengthy period of uncertainty following the decision by Everards to sell it. At a meeting in the village in September 2020, an encouraging 200 or so (out of about 2000 residents of Barnack and surrounding villages and hamlets) turned out to hear the thoughts of various parish councillors and interested parties. The happy outcome was the purchase of the pub by Stamford businessman Paul McSorley, who promptly ploughed an unspecified – but “more than he thought” amount into revamping the whole show. I grew up in Barnack and did much of my formative drinking in the ‘Stone (in its Ruddles days, shows how old I am) so I was enchanted on an early September visit to see the old place buzzing. Manager Paul Burke (recently of the nearby White Hart in Ufford) gave me a tour of the premises, which are to include a village store and a function room in the former Attic Bar. All three ales on the night were from the Adnams stable – Ghost Ship, Mosaic and Clipping Waves, and the range is expected to change with the addition of a fourth handpump. Both Pauls were keen to stress that ale, and the locals who drink it, are as important a part of their strategy as the food which was clearly being enjoyed by many.

There’s brave news from another Millstone, this time the one in Stamford’s All Saints’ Street. The pub had been closed for some time, having gained a dubious reputation, and its future seemed doubtful, but it is open and there’s light at the end of the tunnel, as it were. Jay Childs, whose CV includes running several pubs in Leicester, announced his intentions by making it clear to a number of people (who had landed the pub with its unwanted reputation) that they were no longer welcome. A good start, and Jay and owner Chris are working closely with Lincolnshire Police to ensure that the problem stays away. On my visit on a September Sunday afternoon, Taylor’s Landlord and Doom Bar were on offer (the former a more-than-decent pint) and there are plans for two further handpumps. Hopes will be high for this splendid old building bang in Stamford’s historic town centre.

To complete a hat-trick of sorts, the Millstone at Ryhall, just outside our Branch area, has reverted to its former identity after a few years as the Wicked Witch. Worryingly, though (and back in our area), the nearby Hare and Hounds in Greatford remains closed. However, the Red Lion at West Deeping has been getting good reviews after a difficult time pre-pandemic and the Exeter Arms at Easton-on-the-Hill, is very much up and running again. The leasehold of the nearby Royal Oak in Duddington is for sale at £30,000.

In the Barnack Millstone’s bar was a familiar face, Mick Thurlby of the Knead Group, who in a surprise move has relinquished four of his seven pubs. Bourne houses Smith’s and the Jubilee Garage, the Lord Nelson in Oakham and the Prince Rupert (Newark) are now in the hands of the Red Cat Pub Company, whose CEO is our old friend Rooney Anand, once of Greed Kerching. We wish regulars in those boozers luck – they’ll probably need it………The Knead empire now comprises its three Stamford houses – the Crown, Paten and Co., and the Tobie Norris. Congrats are due to the Crown – the AA has recently upgraded it from three stars to four.