Your FREE guide to real ale and pubs in South Oxfordshire
Winter 2015/16
Issue 28 www.soxoncamra.org.uk
MILLER THE
OF MANSFIELD • GORING
OPENING TIMES Monday - Saturday Lunch 12 - 2.30 Dinner 6 - 9 Sunday Lunch 12 - 3.30 Supper Club 6 - 8
CAMRA Pub of the Season 2015 18th Century Coaching Inn with 13 Individual Rooms Local Discounts & Corporate Rates Apply.
Wine Dinners 21st January
..with Chef Nick Galer & wine supplier Pierre to answer questions.
£39.00
Weekly Changing Lunch Menu
2 courses £15.00 3 courses £17.50 Sunday Supper Club £12.50 main course & drink.
Nibbles menu now available.
New Years’ Eve Local musician & talent Andy Taylor, Keith & Gordon return to help us see in the New Year. Spaces Limited
Contact Mary for any further enquiries
Miller of Mansfield High Street, Goring, RG8 9AW t: 01491 872 829 m: 07702 853 413 email: mary.galer@millerofmansfield.com www.millerofmansfield.com Miller-of-Mansfield
TheMillerofMan
LOCAL NEWS All CAMRA branches select a Pub of the Year for entry into the national championship. Many branches also make other awards to recognise pub excellence: SOX is no exception. Four times a year we make a Pub of the Season award; the winner being selected by Branch members at an open meeting. So the Autumn Pub of the Season 2015 is the Packhorse, Mapledurham. If you’ve not been in the Packhorse, it’s a fine old rambling pub on the A4074 just north of Chazey Heath. (To confuse non-locals there’s another pub nearby, also on the A4074, called the Pack Saddle!) Since 2011 the Packhorse has been leased from the Mapledurham estate by the Brunning & Price/Home Counties chain of pub restaurants and since then has demonstrated a firm commitment to quality cask ales. The general manager is Sarah Livesey who has worked in the restaurant trade for nearly twenty years, joining the Packhorse in 2008. Helping Sarah look after the cellar and the ales Sarah Livesey receiving the are deputy manager Tom Mead, award for Pub of the assistant manager Rick White and Season for the Packhorse supervisor James Wren. The pub has four pumps with only one a permanent fixture, usually Loddon’s Hoppit. The other three often change by the cask with the pub sourcing its ales from a variety of breweries, micro-breweries and distributors from all over the country. They’ve had ales from as far as Scotland and Cornwall as well as more local, familiar beers. It’s sometimes a case of blink and you’ll miss the brew! There’s good eating to be had in the Packhorse. Food is available all day, every day. The menu is designed in-house by head chef Carlos, and changes every six weeks. The Packhorse holds regular food and drink events. It fact the Pub of the Season award was presented to Sarah at the pub's bi-monthly ‘Meet the Brewer/Distiller’ evening. This was a particularly appropriate event because the evening’s talk was given by Chris Hearn of Loddon brewery. Chris is a very exContinued on page 4
Published every three months by the South Oxfordshire branch of the Campaign for Real Ale © CAMRA 2016 SoxonAle is produced and distributed by members of the branch in their own time. Views expressed in SoxonAle are not necessarily those of the editor, publisher or of CAMRA. Edited by: Paul Dixon Email: contact@soxoncamra.org.uk. Design & Production: Daniel Speed - Orchard House Media Ltd 01778 382758 Email: info@orchardhousemedia.co.uk Advertising: For advertising enquiries please contact Jane Michelson on: 07732 393 621 01778 382718 jane@orchardhousemedia.co.uk Distribution: 3,000 copies / four times a year Got a short pint? If you believe that you have been treated unfairly in a pub, club or bar, you should contact the Trading Standards service by writing to them at Oxfordshire Trading Standards, Graham Hill House, Electric Avenue, Ferry Hinksey Rd, Oxford OX2 0BY or call them on 0845 051 0845. A wide range of consumer information and advice is also available online from the Consumer Direct website at www.consumerdirect.gov.uk
CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale is an independent, voluntary organisation campaigning for real ale, community pubs and consumer rights.
3
Local News - continued
perienced brewer and a fine speaker and he kept a packed bar enthralled for over two hours as we enjoyed a tutored tasting session of Loddon’s main beers. Chris started Loddon in 2002, just around the time when progressive beer duty was introduced. This suddenly made brewery start-ups a much less risky proposition and has directly resulted in the explosion in the number of UK breweries. One of Loddon’s first beers, Hoppit at 3.5%ABV, was introduced to compete directly with Brakspear’s Bitter and remains Loddon’s top seller. Hoppit was the first beer we Chris Hearn of Loddon Brewery sampled at the Packhorse. The others were: Reading Bitter (3.7%ABV), a recent beer featuring two new pilot hop varieties. Hullabaloo best bitter (4.2%ABV) uses Fuggles, Goldings and Cascade hops. Ferryman’s Gold (4.4% ABV). This is Loddon’s best-selling bottled beer and second biggest seller in cask. It uses Slovenian Stryian Golding hops which impart a zesty lime flavour, and the mix of Cara malt and wheat malt give a smooth, creamy body to the beer. Bamboozle (4.8%ABV) is a strong pale ale, heavily hopped with English Goldings. Russet (4.5%ABV) is red beer brewed with barley, wheat, oats and crystal rye and hopped with Fuggles and Styrian Goldings. Finally, the heavy hitter – Forbury Lion (5.5%ABV), a real IPA. One interesting point made by Chris (among many) was that the yeast that Loddon uses was obtained over 12 years ago from Bedford brewer Charles Wells. But over the intervening years, as it continually reproduced, the yeast has mutated and is now unique to Loddon. Moving on to pub news ..... In the summer edition of SoxonAle we commented on Didcot’s deteriorating pub situation and noted how under-pubbed it has become. Well, since then there have been several developments, mostly not good: Planning permission to demolish the Sprat and replace it with housing was granted well over a year ago. Since then the pub stayed open, though in an almost comical state of disrepair. Then at the end of October it was demolished. Our photo (left) catches it part-way through its death throes. During the summer a planning application was submitted, and approved, to demolish the Crown; again to be replaced with housing. This time the end came more quickly. Coincidentally, or not, it was demolished at the 4
Local News - continued
same time as the Sprat. The SoxonAle photographer was just too late: by the time he got there it had already been flattened (right). The Wallingford Arms remains closed, with a sign encouraging someone to come along and take it on. Since it’s been allowed to fall into a similar state of decay as the Crown and Sprat and occupies a large plot in the centre of town, it would not be surprising to see it suffer their fate. Broadways has been put on the market by the owners, Enterprise Inns. At the time of writing it remains unsold. Hopefully, when a purchaser does appear they will put some investment into what is a fine building, positioned in a prime town centre site. Didcot now has six open pubs, in a town with a population approaching 30,000 and set to rise still further. That’s a ratio of 5000 residents per pub. In comparison, there are 48,000 pubs serving the UK’s population of 60 million – one pub to 1250 people! Quite how a prosperous and rapidly expanding town managed to get into such a dire position is a bit of a mystery! Not all bad news for Didcot though. Greene King recently sold Continued on page 6
Henley’s all-year-round pub on the river. Mulled wine, Fabulous Sunday roasts, local Hambleden Game and classic home-cooked dishes. Don’t miss our whisky tastings, the Shanty Man or our regular live music events. We have ample seating throughout the pub. Please check our web site for events and menus or call for details.
5
Local News - continued
the Ladygrove to Marston, who have refurbished it and opened it as part of its ‘Generous George’ chain. The formula remains largely unchanged: a family-friendly pub with a strong emphasis on food. On a recent visit an impressive six real ales were available, all of course from the Marston stable. One unusual thing of note is the huge armchair that sits outside the main entrance. Good news elsewhere in South Oxfordshire: the Half Moon, Cuxham, has reopened. The pub has been bought by Vaska Battley and her business partner Artur Foltah. They’ve redecorated and installed a pizza oven, but otherwise left it pretty much as it was. The food will have an Italian theme, including pasta dishes and salads. SoxonAle readers will recall that the Half Moon was closed by the previous owner, Brakspear, over a year ago. It is an Asset of Community Value (ACV), which meant that the villagers had six months to raise the money to buy it before Brakspear could put it on the open market. After a valiant effort the villagers managed to raise only £90k of the £350k asking price. What? More good news? In the last SoxonAle we reported that the owner of the Lamb, Satwell, had applied for planning permission to turn it into a dwelling. Happily, South Oxfordshire District Council (SODC) refused it. We await further developments. The Greyhound, Whitchurch, has a new landlord. Nick Baker has many years’ experience in the licensed trade, most recently running a pub in Basingstoke. He has redecorated and the pub reopened in October with around 100 people celebrating its new look. Again, SoxonAle regulars will recall that the owner, Punch Taverns, had put this pub up for sale last year advertising its ‘residential and commercial’ potential. Whitchurch Parish Council applied to register the Greyhound as an ACV, which would have restricted the pub owner’s ability to change its use. However, the application was rejected by SODC on the grounds that there is another pub nearby. Peter and Helen Bland recently retired from the Maltster’s Arms, Rotherfield Greys, after running the pub for an impressive 17 years. The new team is George Thomas (previously manager of the Unicorn, Kingwood Common) and Calum Miller. In a break with tradition (i.e. the ever-present threat of pub closure) South Oxfordshire has a brand-new pub: the Milton Gate, part of the Harvester chain. It is sited right next to the busy Milton interchange on the A34, presumably to attract hungry travellers. Somewhat unusually for a Harvesters it sells real ale – on a recent visit Doombar and Brakspear Oxford Gold were available.
The SOX Branch holds a meeting on the first Wednesday of each month and a social evening on the third Thursday. We vary the venues to cover as much of the Branch’s (quite extensive) territory. For news and events take a look at the Branch website: www.soxoncamra.org.uk. Alternatively email us at contact@soxoncamra.org.uk.
6
NATIONAL NEWS CASK ALE SALES IS THE FASTEST GROWING SECTOR OF THE BEER MARKET This year’s Cask Report – how pubs can profit from cask is supported by Cask Marque, CAMRA and many of the country’s brewers and pubcos. It finds that cask ale is in sustained volume growth, significantly outperforming the on-trade beer market. According to the author Pete Brown, cask is forecast to hit 20% of on-trade beer by 2020, hugely significant when beer accounts for 64% of the average pub’s wet sales. Cask ale gives people want they from pubs – a premium experience that can’t be replicated at home. Cask ale drinkers visit the pub twice as often as the average person. Cask drinkers see the quality and selection of cask ales as a reflection of the overall quality of the pub. And real ale drinkers are keeping pubs’ tills ringing: the cask ale drinker spends £967 a year in pubs, almost double the average person’s spend. However, the report recognises that people have a range of leisure experiences to choose from and are going to the pub less. But when people do go to the pub, they’re looking for something they can’t get at home or from the supermarket. Cask ale can’t be replicated at home, so it’s part of the less frequent but more valued pub experience for a growing number of people. THE BENEFITS OF BEING AN ASSET OF COMMUNITY VALUE New CAMRA research in England has found that pubs benefit from being listed as an Asset of Community Value (ACV). More than nine out of ten licensees of ACV-listed pubs said they wanted a window sticker to use the status to attract new customers and increase trade. In addition, more than four out of five licensees of ACV-listed pubs believe it has benefited them. People prize their local being listed too and are more likely to feel loyal to their pub and use it regularly. And now pubs can show their listing by displaying CAMRA’s This Pub Matters sticker. There’s an article later in the magazine that explains ACVs and lists South Oxfordshire’s protected pubs. WHITE SHIELD’S BACK! Good news for fans of the great White Shield IPA. Burton on Trent’s Worthington brewery has been idle for 18 months but is now to reopen under a new owner. Molson Coors installed the equipment in 2010 but has now sold it to Planning Solutions (PSL), the company which operates the National Brewery Centre museum on the site. PSL’s acquisition means a return to brewing for former Bass brewer Steve Wellington, famed for saving the iconic, bottle-conditioned Worthington White Shield. Wellington will once again be brewing both White Shield and Red Shield under licence from Molson Coors. Here’s hoping we see it back on sale pretty soon! 8
National News - continued
TOP 16 PUBS REVEALED CAMRA has named the top 16 pubs in the country and one will go on to be its National Pub of the Year, announced in February. The 16 include rural, town and city-centre pubs, and are as follows: CENTRAL SOUTHERN EAST ANGLIA EAST MIDLANDS GREATER LONDON GREATER MANCHESTER KENT MERSEYSIDE NORTH EAST SOUTH WEST SCOTLAND and NI SURREY WALES WESSEX WEST MIDLANDS WEST PENNINES YORKSHIRE
Rising Sun, Berkhamsted, Herts White Horse, Sweffling, Suffolk Old Poets Corner, Ashover, Derbys One Inn the Wood, Petts Wood, Orpington Crown and Kettle, Manchester City Centre Yard of Ale, Broadstairs Cricketers Arms, St Helens Steamboat, South Shields Sandford Park Alehouse, Cheltenham, Gloucs Stockbridge Tap, Stockbridge, Edinburgh Surrey Oaks, Newdigate Bunch of Grapes, Pontypridd Plough Inn, Little London, Hants Hail to the Ale, Wolverhampton Drovers’ Rest, Carlisle Kelham Island Tavern, Sheffield
NOTTINGHAM’S ROBIN HOOD - FROM ALMOST OUT TO CHAMP IN 18 MONTHS A Nottingham pub which was derelict 18 months ago has been named National Cider Pub of the Year. The Robin Hood and Little John dates back to 1750. Closed in 2013, the pub was reopened in 2014 through a partnership between Hucknall’s Lincoln Green Brewing Company and Leicestershire’s Everards brewery. Since reopening under the management of Mark and Lorraine Swain, the pub has won Nottingham branch’s Pub of the Year 2015 as well as being named the East Midlands champion and the region’s Cider Pub of the Year. The pub has become famed for its eight ciders and perries which are always from smaller producers. How often have we heard from pubcos ‘this pub isn’t viable and has to close, to be a convenience store/housing/whatever’? Here’s clear evidence that with the right tenants a pub can revived and come from nothing to a champion in only a few months! A BUSINESS DEAL BEYOND HUMAN COMPREHENSION After the usual ‘will they, won’t they’ dance, the world’s largest brewer AB InBev has had its offer accepted for the global number two, SABMiller. Continued on page 11 9
The Argyll Pub & Kitchen
Wising all of our valued customers a very happy Christmas
Come and visit our famous pub where two episodes of the tv series ‘Midsomer Murders’ have been filmed. Join our friendly locals for a drink or enjoy a fantastic meal. On offer is top quality home cooked food, including rib eye and sirloin steaks, old English sausage and mash along with homemade vegetarian options, sea bass and traditional fish and chips. Sunday roasts are a specialty.
The Argyll Public House 15 Market Place, Henley-on-Thames, RG9 2AA.
For bookings call: 01491 573 400 www.theargyllhenley.co.uk
10
The Argyll Pub & Kitchen
National News - continued
Keen pub quizzers will know that SABMiller started in 1886 when Charles Glass began making Castle beer for South African miners. It became the biggest brewery in South Africa, but plans to expand overseas were scuppered by the trading restrictions imposed during the apartheid era. However, in the 1990s apartheid ended and the company started buying up overseas rivals and moved its headquarters to London. Among others it bought Grolsch, Foster’s and the Miller Brewing Company. AB InBev was formed in 2008 by the merger of Annheuser-Busch (the US maker of Budweiser) and InBev, itself a merger of Belgium’s Interbrew (owner of Stella Artois) and AMBev the Brazilian maker of Brahma. The deal is not expected to have any immediate impact on UK real ale brewing since neither firm produces cask-conditioned beer here. But it’s interesting just to consider the enormous numbers involved. Together, the two companies are worth something like £275bn. The merger is the biggest in UK stock market history and means, if successful, that one in three beers drunk in the world will be made by the new company. This leaves the next largest, Heineken, trailing with a paltry 10% of world sales. How all this will pan out is anybody’s guess - huge mergers often come unstuck eventually. And there is a definite desire in many parts of the world for something better than anonymous over-priced watery lager. GREENE KING – BIG IN CHINA When Chinese president Xi Jinping visited the UK last month, David Cameron invited him out to the Plough at Cadsden in Buckinghamshire for a quiet pint – presumably in front of several hundred press photographers. But the contrived photo-op had an unexpected consequence. Cameron’s favourite beer is, we are led to believe, Greene King IPA. The picture of Xi drinking it appeared across China and resulted in an explosion in the demand for anything branded Greene King. Normally around 6,000 bottles of IPA are imported into China each month - at least 80,000 bottles are planned for next month.
11
THE LORD OF MISRULE The Lord of Misrule is the main character in medieval Christmas celebrations. Wearing a paper crown and motley garments, for his appointed time the Lord of Misrule turned the ordinary rules on their head. His role was to organise and encourage others to subvert the accepted orders and let off steam. This led to all sorts of goings-on, including over-indulgence in what was, and remains, the national beverage. While mostly known as a British holiday custom, like a lot of things the Lord of Misrule can be traced back to Roman times. The winter solstice was celebrated by Roman as the ‘festival of the birth of the unconquered sun’. During the feast of Saturnalia from the 17th - 23rd December a prototype Lord of Misrule was appointed who represented the god Saturn. During this time the ordinary rules of life were turned upside down as masters served their slaves and slaves held offices of state. Military discipline slackened and laws and the government were ridiculed. This upset of accepted norms included gender-reversal too as many men went around dressed as women. In later Roman and medieval times the Lord of Misrule is a figure of fun and no more than that. But in the early years of the empire Roman soldiers would choose a man from among them to be the Lord of Misrule for thirty days. At the end of that time his throat was cut on the altar of Saturn. In the medieval and Tudor period the Twelve Days of Christmas actually began on Christmas Day and went on to the 6th of January (the origin our tradition now of taking the decorations down on that day). The season began with the appointment of the Lord of Misrule. This Lord was generally a peasant, appointed by the local parish. He led the celebrations and presided over large drinking parties and feasting, including the Feast of Fools. 12
The Lord of Misrule
There were variations between places and across time - another format for the Lord of Misrule revolved around Twelfth Night Cake which was eaten during the festivities on the Twelfth Night of Christmas. A dried pea or bean was baked in the cake and whoever got it was king or queen for the night. There are records of this practice going back to the court of Edward II in the early 1300s. In wealthy households the bean was sometimes a silver ring or small crown. The first coins used were a silver farthing or penny. After WW1 it became a three-penny bit and then a silver sixpence. The person who found the bean became the Lord of Misrule and presided over the banquet. At midnight, the Lord of Misrule's reign ended and the world returned to normal. The Lord of Misrule is mentioned a number of times by contemporary documents referring to both revels at court and among the ordinary people. At court, the Lord of Misrule mocked the king and ‘ruled’ in his place for 12 days. At the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas his rule came to an end and the King resumed his duties. After the death of Edward VI in 1553, the English court ceased to appoint a Lord of Misrule. When Mary I came to power, she reinstated the tradition but Elizabeth I abolished it again. As the early modern era drew to a close the Lord of Misrule disappeared along with his riotous behaviour (well, to a degree anyway!) and we moved into the Victorian Christmas that we essentially celebrate today. But echoes of these earlier days persist. For instance it is the custom in the Royal Navy for officers to serve Christmas dinner to the ratings. And let’s face it, many British men are only too keen to go to a party dressed as a woman!
Paul Dixon
Traditional Family Run Village Pub Four Cask Marque Beers Award Winning Restaurant 7 Station Road, Lower Shiplake, Henley on Thames, Oxon. RG9 3NY Tel: 01189 403332 enquiries@thebaskerville.com www.thebaskerville.com
13
Beers around Bath Although in SOX we tend to look east to the capital for our crawls, the lovely city of Bath is equally accessible by train. We had been thinking about a pub crawl around Bath for a while when, during our annual visit to the Great British Beer Festival, we got chatting with David Carter, a CAMRA member and Bath resident. We kept in touch and after extensive planning and consultation came up with a plan. The city has a wide range of interesting pubs most of which are very close to the railway station. So it was that on the second weekend in November a motivated, and thirsty, group kicked-off at the Bath Brew House, the local CAMRA branch’s City Pub of the Year in 2015. This was previously the Midland Hotel but was converted in 2013 with the James Street Brewery inside the pub behind a glass screen. Anna, the brewer, organises twice-daily brewery tours for £5 and brew days for £60, including lunch. The bar had a pleasing seven real ale hand pumps and another four top pressure. Four in-house beers were available on our visit: Big Red, 4.5% ABV; Emperor pale ale, 4.4% ABV; Ostiarous porter 5.7% ABV; and Escape which was described as pina colada flavoured. We tried a sample and most of us agreed that the smell was indeed reminiscent of pina colada but the taste was much less sweet and probably not for us. The Ostarous porter was a great porter with lovely chocolate and coffee flavour. (Ostarous was the Latin name for servant or guard posted at the entrance of a building.) Also available were: Pendulum Pale 3.8% ABV from nearby Castle Combe brewery; Neigh from Aylesbury’s Animal Brewing Co, a pale lemon and lime and tropical fruit brew; and Visual 4.4% ABV Amber. Food is available here, including locally produced spit-roasted chicken and sharing platters. Our second pub was a short walk away: the Griffin Inn in Beauford Square, a Grade II listed building which has been given a very modern feel. Electric Beers’ Infrared 4.2% ABV, Elemental and Moor Beer of Bristol’s Nor’hop 4.1% ABV were on the hand pumps with a further ten top pressure including Meantime Stout 5.7% ABV. A short trot from the Griffin was number three: the Garrick’s Head (top of opposite page) in St John's Road and which is described as a theatre pub, reputed to be haunted and originally the town house of Beau Nash, Bath’s 18th century master of ceremonies. On offer was Gaucho Ale from the 14
Beers around Bath Twisted Brew Company, Otter Head (sadly gone off during our visit), and Garrick’s Head 4.5% ABV made for the pub by Stonehenge Brewery. Artisan peanuts, crisps, wasabi peas and pork scratchings were displayed in glass jars to accompany the beer. Another short walk took us to our fourth pub of the crawl: the Raven in Queen St which is where local CAMRA rep David Carter joined us together with some other friends from Bristol. This 18th century freehouse was voted CAMRA City Pub of the Year in 2010 and has been in every Good Beer Guide since 2006. Selling their own Raven at 4.7% ABV, Raven Gold 4% ABV, Tournament 4% ABV, plus 30.8 a milk stout at 4.5% ABV, Native Storm 4.4% ABV, and Resin Del Belgica 5.7% ABV. Four draught ciders were also on tap. The pub is well known for its large range of Pieminster pies, artisan ploughmans, and sausages. Number five was the Salamander (left), a very busy pub a mere 30 metres from the Raven in John St. The Salamander is a Bath Ales pub selling their Festivity Porter 5% ABV, Bounders 6% ABV cider, Barnsley 4.5% ABV, Spa 3.7% ABV, Conversation 3.6% ABV and the well-known Gem, 4.1% ABV. There is a separate dining room on the first floor, which continues the tradition of being Bath’s oldest Steak and Chop House. At this point, the rain was really closing in and we were considering missing out the Star Inn, but local guide David Carter persuaded us otherwise. Good advice, since the 16th century Star Inn is a throwback to traditional pubs where conversation and beer rule. Bellringer 4.2% ABV, Jail Ale 4.8% ABV and Porter 4.3% ABV sit happily in a bar alongside Thatcher’s Cheddar Valley. They are proud to have no games machines, no TV, and no food choices to distract you from the excellent range on offer. Chatting to a couple of locals near the bar they mentioned that for the World Cup they were permitted to bring in a small TV, but that was a rare event. And neither of them looked at all unhappy about it. This is a pub where, as we did, striking up a conversation with a lady from New Zealand is a normal and happy event and new faces are as welcome as the locals who love this pub. As is usually the way with an extended crawl, the group split with some going off to check out the Italian restaurants and another off-piste pub, whilst we pressed on to what proved to be the final pub, the Coeur De Lion in Northumberland Place. Four hand pumps offered Brewer’s Gold 4%ABV, Bellringer 4.2%ABV, HDS 5%ABV and Cotswold Way. Sadly the weather was getting worse, so we decided to finish to our crawl at this point. We made our way back to the station for a happy journey home, knowing that the Huntsman, Graze Bar and others would be waiting for us for another day. David and Janet Humphrey
15
We’ve talked about micropubs before in the pages of SoxonAle. They are the back-to-basics pubs that have appeared in a former butcher’s shop, pet grooming parlour and even undertakers. The business model demands that fixed operating costs are kept to a minimum, so this requires small low-rent premises with no restaurant and none of the associated waiting and kitchen staff that require paying even when there are no customers in. Just a bar selling real ale and cider and maybe a few snacks. The first British micropub opened in east Kent in 2005 after the licensing law was amended to make it simpler to sell alcohol. The Butcher’s Arms near Herne Bay, housed in a former butcher’s shop, showed what could be done with a small (4.3m × 3.6m) room, a landlord that loved ale and a backto-basics desire for conviviality and community. Martyn Hillier had the insight to start this revolution and he was named CAMRA’s campaigner of the year for 2015 for his work launching the Micropub Association and encouraging beer lovers to open small pubs in empty premises. Growth is such that there are now around 200 micros which have since spread from their original home territory in Kent and now exist as far north as Northumbria, across into Lancashire, in Wales and the West Country. There are even two in the home of brewing, Burton upon Trent, which is not exactly short of traditional pubs.
The reality .... Kent is the birthplace of the recent phenomenon that is the micropub and now has over 20 with more being opened. Many of these can be easily reached by train or bus and a tour of some the best can be undertaken in a day using Canterbury or one of the towns of Thanet as a base. What follows is a record of a recent tour starting and ending in Canterbury and taking in Deal, Minster-in-Thanet, Herne and Whitstable.
Just Reproach, 14 King Street, Deal, CT14 6HX Deal can be easily reached by train travelling either via Dover or Ramsgate and this small family-run micro-pub is a short walk from the station. It has a welcoming, convivial atmosphere which encourages conversation between customers. Four ales are on offer, usually from Kent breweries, alongside cider from the Kent Cider Company, wines and soft drinks. With its high benches and table service, the pub takes everything back to the absolute fundamentals: no keg, no spirits, no fruit machines and no music. Fines are levied for using a mobile phone. Snacks include pork pies and some unusual local cheeses with home-made pickled onions. Dogs and children welcome. It is believed that the owner Mark Robson has also acquired premises in Northgate Canterbury and will be opening his second micro-pub called the "Thomas Tallis" - if so, this will be Canterbury's first micropub. Hair of the Dog, 73 High Street, Minster-in-Thanet, Ramsgate, CT12 4AB Returning from Deal by train may require change in Minster and gives you the opportunity to visit one of the few micropubs in a village location. This is a suitably named conversion - the premises had previously been a hairdressers! Bright décor and furnishings incorporate a lot of recycled wood. Beers and ciders are served on gravity dispense from a cooled room accessed via a door behind the small bar counter. Return to the station and travel by train to Sturry. 16
Micropubs, the beginning
Butchers Arms, 29A Herne Street, Herne, CT6 7HL The remaining pubs can all be easily reached from the number 6 Canterbury 'Triangle' bus - be sure to purchase a multiple journey ticket. Catch the number 6 from just north of Surry station to Herne Church; the stop is opposite the pub. This is the prototype micropub which is also reputedly the smallest free house in England, and a true gem. Once a butcher's shop, it still has the original chopping tables with hooks and other implements. There is seating for ten customers and standing room for about 20 - the compact drinking area ensures lively banter. An ever-changing variety of guest beers are offered and customers can buy beer to take home. The pub has won five CAMRA awards and was the East Kent Pub of the Year in 2009. Arrive early to get a seat! Tankerton Arms, 139B Tankerton Road, Tankerton, CT5 2AW Also on the number 6 bus route this micropub is situated among Tankerton's small shops. The single roomed ‘Tank’ is lined with high wooden tables which encourage good conversation among customers. Mobile phones are banned! The walls are adorned with hop bines and pictures featuring Thames sailing barges and the sea forts. Food is restricted to local Ashmore cheeses and Scotch eggs from the butcher's shop opposite. Black Dog, 66 High Street, Whitstable, CT5 1BB Whitstable is a 20 minute walk or a short bus ride from Tankerton and the Black Dog is on the High St. The interior Continued on page 18 could be described as Victorian gothic and
17
Micropubs, the beginning - Continued has many interesting features and artefacts around the walls. The five handpumps on the bar counter are for decoration only, though they do show the beers available which are gravity-dispensed from the cooled cellar room. Food is limited to Scotch eggs and pies from local producers.
Handsome Sam, 3 Canterbury Road, Whitstable, CT5 4HJ A short walk south of the Black Dog this pub is named after the owner's cat which died exactly four years before the pub’s opening in November 2014. It is often referred to as the ‘Dead Cat’, much to the owner’s dismay. The high-ceilinged room retains some original beams. High tables, bench seats and stools provide the seating, and hops adorn the two front bay windows. There is a temperaturecontrolled cellar room, the Beer Tent, from which beers and cider are dispensed by gravity. There is always a pale/light ale, a copper ale and a stronger one, as well as local ciders including fruit-flavoured ones. Return to the stop opposite the Black Dog for a bus to Canterbury. This is a small sample of the thriving micropub scene in East Kent and many more can be easily reached in a day by bus and train. Plan your timings carefully; many have restricted hours, particularly on a Sunday.
Hugh Steele
The future? South Oxfordshire’s first micropub is on its way! At the time of writing, a planning application has been submitted to SODC for South Oxfordshire’s first micropub, in Wallingford. The decision is due in mid-December. Provided it is successful and the premises license is agreed the pub will open in March, skipping dry-January and quiet-February. This will be a partnership between two local chaps, Sam Smith and Rob McGregor. Any readers who have been in the Bear, North Moreton, will know Sam who has worked there for seven years. This is a great grounding for learning how to handle real ale and which beers are popular. Rob has also worked in many pubs and bars, and he's also been a BBQ chef for a pig-roasting company. So both partners have plenty of experience working at the sharp end of the licensed trade. The pub will be on Castle Street next to Wallingford Castle, so appropriately it will be called the
Keep. A keep is 'used as a refuge of last resort should the rest of the castle fall to an adversary.' Sam likes the fact that a keep is where you cram all your settlers in to one small place and this is what he and Rob plan to do, plus selling them beer at the same time! The pub will be only a minute’s walk from Wallingford market place, opposite the Lamb Arcade. It has been a failed retail property for years so this is a chance to revitalise an area of the town that gone off the radar. Sam’s favourite brewery is XT, whose XT3 and XT4 have always proved extremely popular in the Bear. Their pump clips are simple but have a very positive effect on customers at they enter. Beers from West Berkshire, Loose Cannon and Marlow Brewery will feature regularly. But the partners aim is to get as many different brewers in as they can. The Keep will also sell a range of craft beers that will constantly rotate just like guest beers. Eventually they aim to have 4-6 beers on at once; but that depends on sales, so to start with there may only have a couple. They plan to sell bottled lagers such as Boston and Brooklyn, together with wine. Food may be an option in later months but they want to get settled and make sure the beer is kept at its best, so to start with there will only be light snacks. 18
BRINGING THE PUB BACK The Queen’s Head has been restored to its glorious self as a British Pub & Kitchen at the heart of Crowmarsh Gifford, a short walk from Wallingford and The Thames, and easily accessible from the A4074 by car. Enjoy fresh British seasonal food, a superb choice of wine from around the world and an enviable selection of well-kept ales boasting London Pride and Gale’s HSB and particular favourites and guests from Fullers and further afield.” PUB OPENING TIMES: Mon-Thurs 12:00 – 23:00, Fri & Sat 12:00 – 00:00, Sun 12:00 – 22:30 SERVING FOOD: 12-3 and 5-9 Mon – Fri & 12-9 Sat & 12-8 Sun 72 The Street, Crowmarsh Gifford, Near Wallingford, Oxon OX10 8ER Tel: 01491 839857 | talktous@queensheadcrowmarsh.pub | www.queensheadcrowmarsh.co.uk
19
Poperinge beer festival If you fancy a weekend away somewhere, drinking beer, you can do a lot worse than hop on the Shuttle and drive across to Belgium. Flanders is barely an hour from Calais and is home to many beery delights, all within easy reach. Being close to the border with France, the town of Poperinge is a good spot for a base and a favourite with Brits. It is in the centre of a hop-growing area and has the added advantage of holding a two-day beer festival at the end of October. So a crack team of SOX beer-hounds travelled over there to see what it’s all about. (Incidentally, an essential purchase before you go is the top guide book Good Beer Guide Belgium by Tim Webb. This is published by CAMRA and can be bought through the CAMRA website.) The best place to drink and stay in Poperinge is the Paix, situated in the square in the centre of town. The menu has over 100 beers. The first one to go for is Hommelbier from the van Eecke brewery, just down the road in Watou. This is, of course, a hoppy beer, very well-balanced and at 7.5%ABV deceptively strong. The Paix has an excellent restaurant too. So we filled up there on the Thursday evening and the next day took the train to Bruges. Bruges is a very popular tourist destination, probably one of the most-visited cities in Europe. There are a number of bars well worth visiting and, although pretty full, they tend to be off the conventional tourist route. Brugs Beertje is a real gem and where the idea for the Good Beer Guide Belgium was hatched back in 1985. The Garre is pretty tricky to find – it’s located down a small and unremarkable alley. But the effort is repaid by the excellent house beer. We finished in the Niew Museum. This place has a well-deserved reputation for its steaks and enormous rack of ribs, cooked over an open fire in the restaurant area. I had an excellent bottled beer, clearly a small production run since the label was hand-written. It turned out that the guy cooking the ribs is also an aspiring brewer and it was one of his! The plan was to visit the Poperinge beer festival on Saturday, the day after the Bruges expedition. Mindful of the need to pace ourselves we first of all took a short trip to Westvleteren, one of the six Belgian Trappist breweries. You can drink beer in the cafe there and enjoy a simple excellent lunch. The monks haven’t bought into the market economy: if the brewery shop has some beer in stock you can buy a six-pack. If they haven’t, then you go away empty-handed. British beer festivals are usually run by an organisation (say, CAMRA) which buys in a range of ales and sells them out of what is effectively a single bar. A couple of years ago SoxonAle carried a detailed report of the Munich Oktoberfest and noted that half a dozen breweries each ran their own (immense!) bar selling only their beer. The Poperinge beer festival operates on a similar principle, 20
though on a much smaller scale. This being the 20th festival it had moved to larger premises (possibly a leisure centre, just off the main square) and had 26 breweries represented each selling its own beer, and there was of course no real ale. The strength was mostly around 6-8% ABV, with a few in the 10-12% ABV for real hard cases. The previously mentioned van Eecke brewery was there and I guess the others were mostly micro-breweries; anyway, I’d never heard of most of them! The place was pretty much at capacity, and judging by the accents a fair proportion were Brits. I particularly liked the Dunekin blond – mainly because of the spaced-out hare on the pump-clip. Sunday was for returning home, so after a bit of shopping we drove to Iepres (Ypres, or Wipers if you prefer) for beef carbonnade and a reviving beer to sustain us on the journey. Paul Dixon
Assets of Community Value Some people are saying that the war to re-establish real ale’s pre-eminence is effectively won and that the battle has shifted towards fighting to make sure that there’s somewhere to drink it, i.e. to resist pub closures. There may be an element of truth in this, though it never pays to get complacent: so-called ‘craft’ beer is frequently just keg beer with more hops and a cool-looking pump clip. But undoubtedly the threat to pubs is a real and present danger. Along with many other CAMRA branch magazines, SoxonAle bangs on about Assets of Community Value (ACV) quite a lot. Why is this? Well, the Localism Act 2011 created the Community Right to Bid. This gives eligible organisations like Town and Parish Councils along with other defined community groups, such as CAMRA branches or a group of 21 local individuals, the opportunity to nominate an asset such as building or land, which they believe to be important to the community. If accepted it is listed by the Local Authority as an ACV. When a listed asset comes up for sale or lease the ACV Regulations provide for a delay in the sale process to allow local community groups to prepare and make a bid for it on the open market. This does not apply where a pub is sold as a going concern, i.e. where it continues to operate as a pub. The Regulations do not give the community group any rights other than to delay the sale so it can prepare a bid; it is not entitled to preferential treatment in the sale process once the six months are up. To be considered as an ACV it must be shown that current or recent use of the asset furthers the social wellbeing or social interests of the local community. The benefits are that this can lead to major delays in the owner completing sale, be of concern to finance provider(s), increase holding costs, delay development and extend the time a site is vacant. These factors may deter some owners from attempting to close or change the use of the pub. 22
Assets of Community Value
Even better, since April 2015 additional measures have been introduced that require planning permission to be granted for any change of use or demolition of a public house registered as an ACV. This covers change of use to a shop, restaurant or café as well as demolition of the building. This is another big step forward since many pubs have been lost because of the loophole that previously allowed a pub to be turned into a supermarket with no planning required at all. But it doesn’t stop there. The new rules introduced by Government set down further obligations for owners/developers of pubs not listed as an ACV. A written request must now be submitted to the local authority prior to carrying out any development (such as converting it to a convenience store) to determine whether the building has been the subject of an ACV nomination. This forces the owner to write to the council stating his intentions and risking local community groups finding out and nominating it as an ACV. Town
Name
Benson Benson Berrick Salome Binfield Heath Blewbury Brightwell-cum-Sotwell Chilton Clifton Hampden Crays Pond Cuxham Dorchester Ewelme Great Milton Long Wittenham Long Wittenham Lower Shiplake North Moreton South Stoke Upton Whitchurch Hill
Crown Three Horseshoes Chequers Bottle & Glass Red Lion Red Lion Rose & Crown Plough White Lion Half Moon Fleur de Lys Shepherds Hut Bull Plough Vine & Spice Baskerville Bear at Home Perch & Pike George & Dragon Sun
CAMRA is taking a very active role in encouraging any group to nominate pubs as an ACV. Anyone interested in doing so can contact their local CAMRA branch or email CAMRA directly at acv@camra.org.uk. Currently over 800 pubs are protected and the target is 3000 by the end of 2016. At the time of writing there are 20 pubs in the SOX area that have ACV protection: about one in six pubs. Your Branch is actively pursuing the nomination of certain pubs, but most of these have been made through the quickest and easiest route of nomination by the local Parish Council.
Three applications have been rejected so far. The Four Horseshoes, Checkendon, because the pub had not traded for 22 months prior to the application. The Queens Arms, Goring: In this case Pubs in the SOX area that have ACV protection the pub had not traded for 19 months prior to the application, plus there are other pubs within walking distance. The Greyhound, Whitchurch, because, as noted in the Local News section, the Ferryboat is so close. If we seriously want to keep developers’ hands off our pubs (and we do!) we need to stay vigilant. Communities have never been in such an advantageous position and we must be ready to use the tools we have been given. 23