CAMRA National Pub of the Year Finalists 2019

The 4 national finalists for CAMRA Pub of the Year 2019 (website), and sadly I have never visited any of them, are, starting in alphabetical order:

The Bell Inn

The Bell Inn, 3 Ambury Road, Aldworth, Berkshire RG8 9TL (photograph, many thanks to CAMRA). The Bell Inn is Grade II listed, going back hundreds of years, depending on which source you use (eg Aldworth website), consequently has a great history, indeed, has stayed in the same family since the 18th century. I can't find a website for it, nor a Twitter account, though there is a Facebook page, that doesn't appear to have been added to for 2 years, apparently very traditional. Looking at other sites and reviews, it is well admired and appears to sell 3 regular ales and 2 guest ales, all local, eg from West Berkshire, real ciders and excellent food. It is closed on Mondays, except Public Holiday lunchtimes, and won this national award in 1990.

The George & Dragon

The George & Dragon, Hudswell, Richmond, North Yorkshire DL11 6BL (photograph, again with many thanks to CAMRA). The George & Dragon reopened in 2010 following its closure in 2008, with the building and land having been bought by the local community after raising £220,000, and then a further £80,000 that paid for its refurbishment (website); since when it has been a regular local CAMRA pub of the year, and national winner in 2016. Similarly, reviews say much for this pub, unsurprisingly for these are the shortlisted 4 national finalists, and they sell 5 regularly changing ales, apparently from local brewers, eg Rudgate and Roosters, real cider and excellent food too. On their website they declare they're not serving food on Christmas Day, which suggests, I presume, they are open every day of the year...

The Red Lion

The Red Lion, The Green, Preston, Hitchin, Hertforshire SG4 7UD (photograph, yet again, with many thanks to CAMRA). The Red Lion is an example of a very early community owned pub, indeed the first in Britain, having been reopened in 1983 following the decision of its previous owners, Whitbread, to sell the pub 3 years earlier (website). The building's history goes back to 1844, when separate cottages were integrated to create the now public house. It has 2 regular ales, Fullers London Pride and Tring Side Pocket for a Toad, and a regularly changing 3 guest ales from a wide range of breweries, local and further afar. Food also, of course, and unsurprisingly again, good reviews in abundance; the reigning Herts CAMRA pub of the year.

The Swan with Two Necks

The Swan with Two Necks, Pendleton, Clitheroe, Lancashire BB7 1PT (again, many thanks to CAMRA for this photograph). The Swan with Two Necks is a Grade II listed building, renovated in 2009, and has been with the current owners for over 30 years (website). They have 5 regularly changing ales, eg Phoenix and Copper Dragon, and a real cider, plus food, with the expected excellent reviews. This pub was CAMRA national pub of the year in 2014.

I wish the 4 entrants the best of luck with the competition; the winner will be announced in February 2020, and I do need to get travelling more, cheers!

Applecross, West Scotland

By another friend David, AKA Jalfreziman, many thanks!
Please note scenic images are from Applecross Photographic Gallery (website), many thanks!

Applecross Inn

Applecross, Scotland. Where? I must confess, I hesitated about writing this little review. For 42 years, my wife (Management) & I (Jalfreziman) worked in tourism and catering. Daily we dealt with queues, screaming little darlings, noise and mayhem. When we wanted a holiday, we wanted peace, tranquility and above all, no screaming little darlings. It helped that we had to take our holiflops out of season. We found our sanctuary in Applecross. So where is it? Miles from anywhere is the answer, on the west coast of the Scottish Highlands, 100 miles north-west of Fort William, 80 miles west of Inverness. Don’t let those mileages fool you. The roads are nearly all mountainous and single-track with passing spaces. From Fort William, allow 3 hours and from Inverness, allow 2. And only if the weather’s good. If there’s ice or snow about, add to that quite a wide safety margin. More about that in a mo.

Many thanks to Google for the map

Rule one… don’t go in the summer. Too many people have discovered it and it’s loony-tunes time. Add to that the famous west coast Scotland summer midges. Go off season. We usually go early November when the great unwashed have cleared off. And yes, it’s a gamble with the weather but we’ve always been lucky. And that’s why I hesitated to write this. We don’t really want to encourage more visitors to go then. We want to keep it all to ourselves. So, Applecross. The village where the pub is, is usually what people call ‘Applecross’ but the name really applies to the whole peninsular, about 25 miles by 15 miles and sparsely populated. 

Until the 1970’s, the only way in was over the Bealach na Bà, a mountainous winding road first built in 1822 and is engineered similarly to roads through the great mountain passes in the Alps, with very tight hairpin bends that switch back and forth up the hillside and gradients that approach 20%. It has the steepest ascent of any road climb in the UK, rising from sea level at Applecross to 626 metres (2,054 ft), and is the third highest road in Scotland. The name is Scottish Gaelic for ‘Pass of the Cattle’, as it was historically used as a drovers' road. The Bealach, as it is known for short, is considered unsuitable for learner drivers, large vehicles and motorhomes. The route is often impassable in winter. Consequently, before the ‘70s, Applecross was frequently cut off in the winter, with access from the sea only. In the 70s, a coastal road was constructed around the north coast of the peninsular, which adds nearly 30 miles to the journey and is in itself ‘a bit of a challenge’.

View from the pub across Applecross Bay 

Anyway, you get there one way or another. What is there? A fabulous coastline; views across the bay to Raasay and the Isle of Skye behind it, usually with snow on the peaks in November; wonderful, clean air; fabulous walks; otters; deer; highland cows wandering down the road; lovely, warm, welcoming people - and THE PUB! The Applecross Inn (website) is the only pub, literally for miles. It has justifiably won awards for its food, particularly the local game, crab & langoustines, the latter of which are caught in the bay daily and served fresh in the pub the same night.

The pub does accommodation (7 rooms). (Always try and get room 7 - it’s the nicest and quietest). The views are stunning. The bar is small with limited seating and with a roaring log fire in the winter. You can’t book a table for food (unless you’re a resident) but it doesn’t seem to matter, they always seem to be able to squeeze you in somewhere. In the summer there is outside seating aplenty, right on the beach. Over the years, the menu has changed little but then, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! The specials change daily and if you get the chance, try the haddock, highland lamb, venison, haggis or (only seen once), calves liver. Yum!

Now here’s a negative… (or at least it was), the beer. For years, the only ale on offer was Skye Red (4.2%, brewery website), which frankly is down there with Doombar in the ‘don’t bother’ department. But in 2019, things have changed! Check out the Applecross Craft Brewery at 5 Camusterrach Place, Camusterrach, Applecross, Strathcarron, Wester Ross, IV54 8LQ, whose beer brewing is much better than their website maintenance (never yet been able to successfully access it). Anyway, Google it yourself and see how you get on. The beer though is a huge improvement on Skye Red.

I promised myself I’d try all three of the main brews but after my first pint of Applecross Inner Sound (4.7%), the dark ale, I was hooked. I never did try the other two but I’m reliably informed they are very good. The dark ale is as you would expect… nutty, malty, very tasty! One is not enough so get someone else to drive. Excellent beer and a stunning location.

The other two ales on offer are Applecross Sanctuary Red Ale (4.0%) and Applecross Pale Ale (3.7%). It’s good to see the local pubs and restaurants supporting the local brewery. We did even spot them on sale in Portree on the Isle of Skye but at an eye-watering price of £6.70 per bottle. And yes, you can buy them by the bottle from the Applecross Inn as well (at a much more reasonable price). 

So that’s it! Applecross, Applecross Bay and the Applecross Inn. Don’t go there. It’s crap (ed: I love satire too!). Stay away (at least in November when we’re there).

Cheers Jalfreziman!

Stout in Rye, and more

I have visited The Rye Waterworks micropub quite often since my first visit soon after they opened last year (blog), and felt that, as they regularly have darker ales and as International Stout Day was just the other day (blog), another visit was in order, of course! No Eddie this day, though David and Ulla were present, as well as a barman I didn't quite catch his name (Paul?), and David was in fine form again, cramming people in where it didn't seem possible sometimes with an astute use of seating and tables, getting people to chat with each other, and even running impromptu quizzes, whilst Ulla ensured my glass was full, many thanks!

There were 8 real ales served straight from the cask, as usual, plus numerous ciders, and much more (gins and wine plus plus), and, oh look, a stout from local brewer, of course, Hopfuzz Brewery (website) Blacksmith, a 4.2% stout, very dark and smooth, with chocolate in the aroma and taste, quite subtle, and very drinkable too.

You will realise by now that I do love pale hoppy ales in particular, so I also drank a few pints of ale from another Kent brewer, Old Dairy (website) Uber Brew (3.8%), as I usually do when in a pub selling this fine ale. Pale and hoppy, using Citra, Chinook and Equinox hops, and plenty of them too, refreshing and bitter with a lovely dry finish, I love it!

As I've said before, the furniture and everything not fixed down is for sale, so it looks a wee bit different every time you walk into the bar, this is how it looked when I entered on Saturday (above). Oh yes, they also sell quality bar snacks, I had a lovely large scotch egg made very locally with free range eggs served with locally produced homemade spicy chutney, gorgeous.

If you haven't been before, it is well worth the visit, friendly, chatty, characters, and at the corner of Tower Street and Rope Walk in Rye TN31 7AT, fewer than 5 minutes walk from the railway station; see older blog for more information about the pub and its history, and enjoy, cheers!

This is International Stout Day!

OK, I announced the other day that today is International Stout Day 2019, so I had to go and find somewhere selling a stout, or hopefully two, and I was really praying for an Iron Pier stout/porter (website) special, but no luck there... However, I walked up to The Tower in London Road (facebook) and drank, before drinking 2 excellent strong pale bitters (that will come out soon in another blog), a very nice dark bitter, virtually a dark mild/bitter, and a milk stout. 

You can guess the milk stout, but before that I drank, from North Yorkshire, Great Heck (website) Dave, a 3.8% deep dark red bitter/mild (oxymoron maybe, but drink it and you'll know what I mean!), roasted barley in the taste, hint of liquorice, so much flavour for such a session ale, virtually a weak stout, with a dry bitter finish, and very good indeed! 

Then it was the Sussex brewery Gun (website) Milk Stout (4.1%), which does what it says on the label, vanilla milky, hint of chocolate and coffee, so very smooth, and so easy to drink! What more can I say, but cheers... Happy International Stout Day! 😀

International Stout Day 2019

This Thursday, 7th of November 2019 is the 8th International Stout Day (website), surprise surprise, celebating Stouts. Stouts appear to have developed from Porters, a dark ale favoured by London market porters 300 years ago, though a blend of ales originally, before brewers started brewing Porters themselves. Whereas 'Stout' tended to be a term to describe stronger beers. Stout, as in Stout Porter, was a strong, dark brew that London's brewers developed, and the dark beer that we think of today as a typical Stout style.

Technically, nowadays, Porters are brewed using dark malts, and are usually a very deep, very dark, red in colour if you put your glass up to the light, whereas Stouts are brewed using Roasted Barley and are black or very dark brown, notably brown in the colour of the head. Of course, I've drunk different brewers' Stouts, Porters and even strong dark Milds that taste as you would expect one of the other styles to taste, but, for me, I would define the Stout from the roasted barley taste, though no doubt many would argue with me there...

Whatever, enjoy a dark ale on Thursday, cheers!

HARBWR - Tenby Harbour Brewery

Friends of mine, Mark and Maureen, had a holiday in Tenby in Wales a couple of weeks ago and brought back a pack of beer (all from Tenby Harbour Brewery or Harbwr and all named after former Tenby boats - website) for me as a present, many thanks! So I had to drink them all, but didn't rush myself: first, I tried the M. V. Enterprise, named after a 1960s-1990s passenger boat, a 4% Pale Ale, brewed with Cascade (US) and First Gold (British) hops. This is a traditional style pale ale, pale copper coloured, with a bitter finish, not bad at all...

Next I drank the RFA Sir Galahad, named after Tenby's RNLI Lifeboat from 1986 to 2006, and very interesting too... A 4.6% Red Ale, brewed with British First Gold and Pioneer hops and US Cascade and Willamette hops, the combination resulting in an avalanche of aroma and flavours! A deep red colour, although surprisingly light to drink, with subtle malt and a hint of butterscotch flavours, and forest fruit and citrus flavours too; a wee bit sweet to begin with, but a lovely dry bitter and refreshing finish, indeed, very interesting, and a very nice beer!

M.V. Enterprise

Next I had the 4.2% North Star, named after a former fishing boat, an Amber Ale, which people appear to like to call what I suggest are traditional bitters, and this is pretty much that, a very decent best bitter indeed. Brewed with British First Gold and Bramling Cross hops, with a subtle malt in the first taste and a nice dry bitter finish, and as it went down malt in the aroma and a hint of orange/lemon in the taste and aroma appeared, again, not bad at all.

Finally I drank the 4.5% Caldey Lollipop, named after a Tenby boat that used to provide a ferry service between Tenby and Caldey Island in the 1950s, an I.P.A., which does what it says on the label! Brewed with German Magnum, US Mount Hood and New Zealand Waimea hops, which have produced quite a complex ale, certainly a hoppy IPA. Began with a fruity, slightly perfumed, aroma, big flavour and body, with a subtle spicy and dry fruity taste, but bitter orange and grapefruit emerging strongly in the flavour, and a dry bitter finish, what's not to like?!? My notes say 'very interesting' and 'very good' so it must be, indeed, my favourite of the 4.

Mark and Maureen had these beers at The Buccaneer Inn, St Julian Street, Tenby SA70 7AS (facebook page), and at the Harbwr Tap Room in the brewery too. Mark, my friendly local landlord, told me that the ales were all excellent as real ales too, I should imagine even more exciting, and that the food at the brewery-owned Buccaneer was excellent too, they had a seafood platter and lemon sole, which doesn't surprise me as they own a pub in Hastings fishing quarter and opposite Hastings Fish Market (Dolphin Inn website), and they know a bit about seafood, and cheers to you both for the beers!