Author: Jess

Graffiti and ale: 3 alternative pubs in East Bristol

Post author By Jess
Post date 8th May 2024
6 Comments on Graffiti and ale: 3 alternative pubs in East Bristol

I’m a bit of a hippy and I like hippy pubs. There – I’ve said it. It’s just a shame Ray doesn’t.

He posted recently about a session in the pub with his dad, including his commentary about the feel of the pub:

We’re going to take Jess sometime, and play euchre, though I doubt she’ll feel quite as at home as Mum and Dad, or as me. It’s the kind of pub I grew up in, and around, and doesn’t have a hint of London about it… But then there are pubs Jess likes where I don’t feel completely at ease, which I believe she’s going to write about soon.

While Ray was on his session, I was drinking in three pubs which are more to my taste than Ray’s.

The occasion was the CAMRA Bristol and District Ladies (BAD Ladies) pub crawl around St Werburghs.

St Werburghs is a fascinating area of Bristol, cut off geographically from the rest of the city by a combination of cliffs, motorways and allotments.

It’s been known for many years as a haven for alternative lifestyles and includes a self-built cooperative housing estate and a city farm.

The crawl took us to three of the four pubs in St Werburghs: The Farm, The Miners’s Arms and The Duke of York. All of them have hippy vibes of varying degrees and make me feel nostalgic for my early drinking days – while leaving Ray a little on edge. He’s such a clean boy!

The Farm has an enormous beer garden and several of my drinking companions told me it was more of a family pub than an alternative one these days, especially on Sundays.

Last time Ray and I visited someone was trying to persuade the bar staff to give them the beer slops from the drip trays, allegedly to keep slugs off their plants in their allotment.

On this occasion it was the First Beer Garden Day Of The Year and my heart sank at the apparent chaos in front of the bar. Veteran pub goers and infrequent flyers went two different ways: the veterans crowding every inch of spare bar, the infrequents forming a queue out of the door.

Which goes to show that looks can be deceiving, as the extremely hard working and friendly staff seemed supernaturally capable of working out which order to serve people in. Bravo.

There were three ale hand pumps, although one was in the process of being changed.

The Miners’ Arms does not have an enormous beer garden but there is a square of grass round the back which the punters pour onto when the weather is nice.

It’s a typical backstreet corner pub on the outside, and inside it’s no-frills from about table level down, with lots of former pump clips around the walls and bar.

It’s a Dawkins pub and now Dawkins isn’t brewing seems to have gone over to New Bristol Brewing, with NBB on three of the four hand pumps.

We got put off coming here a few years back due to a few too many roaming dogs on long strings. But I didn’t spot any on this occasion and, in fact, there is now a sign saying that dogs and babies are welcome “as long as they behave like civilised adults”.

We missed most of The Duke of York the first time we visited. We featured it (and The Farm) in a gallery post on Bristol’s painted pubs, written fairly shortly after moving here.

The high level of decoration continues on the inside with an enormous quantity of arty greebling which could be at home in a Brussels bar.

We noted during our first visit that it was cosy and vaguely hippyish, and didn’t go again –not because it’s bad but because there are lots of similar places in East Bristol and, as previously mentioned, this is not necessarily Ray’s cup of tea.

What we hadn’t noticed on our first visit is that there is a whole separate drinking area round the back.

In fact, it is one of the few pubs in Bristol that still has a working skittle alley – and several different groups actually played skittles during my recent visit.

There’s also a sizeable beer garden and another space upstairs including a pool table and dartboard.

What struck me about the crowd is that there were quite a few younger people who had come in to play games as much as drink.

For those that do like to drink, there were four ales on, all in great condition.

What is the quality of hippyness these pubs share that Ray struggles with?

The pervasive smell of weed, perhaps – which just reminds me of Walthamstow and Leytonstone c.1995. And I’d rather have that than the overwhelming stink of scented candles and bleach.

There’s also the layer of worn-in grot that goes beyond ‘character’. I barely notice it but it makes Ray squirm.

On balance, it’s probably quite nice that there are pubs he likes and I don’t, and vice versa. Because, contrary to what you might have heard, we remain distinct and separate human beings.

Tags East Bristol

St Davids in 2024: The Farmers is still The Farmers

Post author By Jess
Post date 14th April 2024
3 Comments on St Davids in 2024: The Farmers is still The Farmers

I visited St Davids in Pembrokeshire, South Wales, after 15 years away, and noticed some changes, and some things that had stayed the same.

The first place I checked in was The Farmers Arms, pictured above, which I wrote about back in 2008, not long after starting this blog:

If I had to choose my favourite pub in the world, it would probably be the Farmers Arms in St Davids, Pembrokeshire. This isn’t because of its beer offerings or even because of the great atmosphere, but because all my early pub memories were formed here. When I was growing up, we went to the Pembrokeshire coast every year for our annual holiday, sometimes as a family, sometimes with a large group of my parents’ friends as well.

It’s strange to go back somewhere you used to know well, which is tangled up with memories of loved ones and happy times, after such a long gap.

In the 2008 post I mentioned going to St Davids every few years. This stopped when we moved to Cornwall, partly because of distance and partly because we found that when you live where other people go on holiday, you like to go on holiday where other people live.

I was delighted to discover that The Farmers still feels like The Farmers. That is, a cosy pub with plenty of locals and lots of interesting chat about who’s doing what, who’s been where, who’s been in lately, and what’s going on in the rugby.

The menu has changed just enough to avoid feeling outdated but yes, you can still get fish and chips and one of my favourite things in the world, pub-grub lasagne.

Having lived in a tourist area for six years we have a better idea of how pubs like this can feel at different times of the year, and also how hard it is to pull off appealing to locals out of season, while still bringing in the tourist money in summer. Locals, especially those working seasonal jobs, aren’t generally loaded with money, and want good value. Whereas tourists on their annual binge can be squeezed a little harder.

Whether it’s the pictures of the lifeboat crew on the wall or the easy conversations at the bar, The Farmers manages to feel like a place that is utterly at the heart of the community.

It’s always interesting to see which brewery’s beers will be on offer. I have a theory that the Farmers Arms is a good bellwether for trends, particularly in real ale. As I wrote in 2009…

Back in the eighties and early nineties, the beers on offer were from one of the ‘big six’ – I think Whitbread, but wouldn’t swear to it. In the nineties, Flowers from Whitbread was still available, but beers from the regional heavyweight, Brains (Cardiff) became more and more popular.. This year’s selection was Felinfoel (Llanelli), Crwr Haf from Tomos Watkins/Hurns Brewing Company, (Swansea) and Rhymney bitter (Rhymney). Smaller local breweries have taken over from the regional giant, just as more local produce has started to appear in the cafes and restaurants.

More than a decade on, Double Dragon by Felinfoel is still a regular, and as we get older and more conservative in our tastes, we tend to appreciate beers like this all the more.

The hip newcomer was Evan Evans whose beers were on in most pubs we visited on this trip. We really enjoyed their WPA (4.1%) which was like a softer version of Hop Back Summer Lightning. It was golden but not intensely hoppy, and was deeply satisfying. A proper same-again beer.

Inside The Bishops.

I knew St Davids as essentially a one-pub town for most of my childhood. My dad has reminded me that there were a couple of hotels with licensed bars but, to my mind, they weren’t pubs. We visited one on this trip and it was utterly dire.

Now, though, there is also The Bishops, occupying a prominent position in the central square and sending out Ye Olde Pub vibes. And we liked it well enough.

The staff were friendly and the beer was decent, too. There was more ale from Evan Evans along with the light-bodied and zingy Whitesands Pale Ale from St Davids Brewery.

The crowd, such as it was, seemed lighter on locals than The Farmers. Here, it was all geeky tourists like us sitting quietly in pairs recovering from their day’s cliff walking.

The exterior of The Smorgasboard on a rainy day.

There is also a craft beer and pizza joint whose opening hours never quite worked for us and intriguingly, The Smorgasboard which was fitted out before our eyes over the course of a few days and opened just before we had to leave.

We’ve spotted this trend but hadn’t expected it to reach places like St Davids just yet.

When he spotted us peering through the window the owner beckoned us in and told us about their plans, including their intention to serve craft beer on draught.

When it did open, with only coffee on offer, we paid £3 per person for a two-hour session.

Even with work still being done, and the tourists still to come, it seemed to attract a lot of attention, and did decent business.

When I was eight, I’d have loved a board game cafe, and would have been constantly pestering my parents to take me – even though my dad insists on calling them “bored family games”.

I suspect it’s going to do well this summer. Even if – or perhaps especially if – it’s as wet as last year.

I will try to get back to St Davids again before another 15 years have passed, if only because it’s a useful indicator of what people are drinking, and where they’re drinking it.

Tags wales

opinion

The Blackhorse Beer Mile at Twixmas

Post author By Jess
Post date 10th January 2024
3 Comments on The Blackhorse Beer Mile at Twixmas

Between Christmas and New Year we finally had chance to do most of the craft beer crawl that has emerged in my home town of Walthamstow, East London.

I say ‘finally’ because one of the last blog posts we published before the COVID lockdowns was about the number of breweries in Waltham Forest. Four years is a long time to leave something like that unexplored.

Before diving in, though, I just want to reflect a bit on how weird it was for me personally to be exploring this part of Walthamstow.

The overlooked island

I grew up in E17 and felt I knew it pretty well but I only came to Blackhorse Lane for the first time on a work trip a year or so ago.

At the time, I found it astounding that I had never walked this way before on foot, or explored the wider Higham Hill area at all.

The landscape and architecture are rather striking, with some huge Art Deco factory buildings and acres of post-war housing, alongside the occasional row of pretty Georgian cottages.

It’s an endangered landscape, too, with many 20th century buildings slowly disappearing to be replaced by vast new high-rise housing developments.

But when you look at the geography, it makes sense that I had overlooked it.

The area is bordered by reservoirs on two sides and you don’t go through it on the way to anywhere else. It’s almost an island.

Nor were there any ‘Walthamstow Wetlands’ to visit when I was a kid – only the Marshes, with a few paths, and lots of brambles.

Old industrial buildings plus new residential developments might be the perfect recipe for a beer mile, though.

Just think of all those young professionals itching for something to do at the weekend, and property developers keen to establish that this is A Place rather than a dead end.

The crawl

Our exploratory walk took place on a grey Saturday before New Year, which is always a weird time for hospitality. But there was a surprising amount of life to be found.

We began our crawl at the top with a visit to the Tavern on the Hill rather than the Wildcard Brewery. We do, in theory, prefer pubs after all.

It was quiet but welcoming and we found both cask ales decent enough. (Ray was more critical than me, though.)

We’d be interested to come back when it is a bit busier; it felt like an inviting community space, only without much evidence of the community.

At the Hackney Brewery we had our standout beer of the entire crawl. Millions of Melba (4%) was a wonderful peach-raspberry sour that tasted like a Fruit Salad chewy sweet with a dry champagne-like finish.

The space was small but not busy, and overlooks a much bigger room crammed with brewing equipment.

It’s also a handy place to get a pizza delivered from round the corner – but do remember to use the free delivery discount code in the small print on the menu.

Exale was closed, which seems fair enough.

Beerblefish felt quietest of all – we were the only visitors for most of our mini session, but enjoyed their Rauchbier. It’s cool that lots of breweries seem to be able to turn out decent versions of this style now, which is fun and show-stopping in a different way to pastry stout or super-hoppy IPA.

At the Pretty Decent Beer Company we were charmed by No Not the Buttons, a 5.5% Gingerbread Stout which smelled like a German bakery and tasted like liquid Printen biscuits, even down to a subtle herbal note. It had a proper cake-like finish which felt warming on a miserable day in a fridge-like tap room. You could almost sense crumbs on your tongue. I could Get Better at Tesco – what a great passive-aggressive name! – was a decent standard 4.5% session IPA.

The space had a few more punters than previously, although this was mostly a couple of large families meeting up to coo over each others’ babies, so it felt a bit like we’d crashed a private party. (That’s on us, not the families.)

The Big Penny Social Club (formerly the Truman Social Club) is a hell of a space. It looks as if it ought to have X-Wing fighters parked about getting ready for an assault on the Death Star. But we struggled to work out who actually brewed the beer we were drinking, and where, without Googling. There was a very impressive Table Beer, branded Big Penny, which was a mere 2% and had a zingy sherbet flavour.

This was the busiest venue yet, with exhausted parents trying to entertain their kids with ping pong, arcade machines and various other games. The space is big enough to handle all this and still handle groups of drinkers of various sizes and ages.

Finally, we visited Signature Brew, which is another location where the actual brewing is segregated from the tap room. The latter sits in a temporary-looking cube. It was warm and cleverly lit with fairy lights, and felt the most like a pub of any of the taproom venues.

Black Vinyl Nitro Stout (4.5%) by Signature is clearly designed to fill a Guinness shaped hole in a hipster East London bar and, actually, does that very well – much more so than Camden Stout.

We will be back

The problem with doing a crawl is that you can really only do a couple in each place, and most had pretty lengthy beer lists, so we definitely need to come back.

Ideally in spring when it’s lighter and warmer, and we can enjoy walking around the area rather than rushing with heads down through the drizzle to the next covered space.

pubs

Fairytale of Sheffield: the annual check in

Post author By Jess
Post date 10th December 2023
7 Comments on Fairytale of Sheffield: the annual check in

It looks as if we might end up visiting Sheffield every winter – why change a winning formula?

Last December we made a point of only visiting new pubs. We also sought out traditional carols in a pub, which was a profound and magical experience.

A couple of things were different this year, though.

First, Ray was unfortunately unwell, so this ended up being a solo trip for me.

Secondly, it turns out I can’t come to Sheffield two years in a row and ignore The Rutland Arms, even if that does break the new-pubs-only rule.

Meeting up with Martin

Martin has handily written up the first part of my weekend. (Yes, I am the mysterious “guest from Bristol”.) He suggested a few meeting spots and I went for The Old Shoe, on the grounds that it was central and promised a good range of beer.

It’s always interesting to see how a newly-opened pub can compete in a well-established drinking culture. I’d say based on a short visit that this is a great addition to the city centre.

It had two casks, three ‘real’ ciders, and a thoughtful selection of 15 kegs covering a range of different styles, both local and from far away. I got chance to drink my first Titanic Plum Porter of the season which was as good as this beer gets.

Excellent as The Old Shoe was, we chose to crawl on.

The next stop was The Church House, tucked away behind Sheffield Cathedral. It was packed with a post-shopping crowd of all ages. It felt timeless and cosy and is yet another example of the basic high standard of Sheffield pubs. I’d never heard of this place before this visit even though it would easily be a top three pub in just about any other city.

On Martin’s recommendation, I drank Farmer’s Belgian Blue by the Bradfield Brewery. It stood up well to Plum Porter, as a warming, slightly exotic winter special. I didn’t detect any Belgian character in the beer but perhaps that’s because it’s actually named after a breed of cow.

The next stop was the legendary Fagan’s which we didn’t manage to visit prior to the change of ownership. That was an oversight on our part last year – but we just couldn’t drink any more! That means I can’t offer a before and after commentary. What I can say is that the Bass was some of the best I’ve ever tasted, and the surroundings were extremely pleasant.

At this point, I was due to get a bus back to my friend’s as we had an evening session carolling in the pub. However, as the bus stop was next to The Rutland Arms, it proved impossible to resist its charms. I managed to stick to one half only by promising myself that I’d come back the next day.

No phones at the carols

The carols were at The Travellers’ Rest in Oughtibridge. It turned out to be a Sam Smith’s pub which was strictly enforcing the no-mobile-phones policy.

I’ve got a couple of observations on that policy. First, it rather supposes that you have absolutely no need to be in touch with the outside world while you’re in the pub, so screw you if you’ve left the kids with the babysitter and want to check in on them. (As did my companion.)

It also means that I have no video or photographic reminders of what was a really lovely evening of carol singing. So you’ll just have to take my word(s) for it.

It was a slightly different atmosphere to last year’s experience, possibly because it was in the evening so the crowd was less mixed. This didn’t make the singing any less accomplished or moving. And they even laid on snow for when we came out.

Oh, and the perfectly decent keg dark mild was £2.80 a pint.

A butty and some bitter

The following day I revisited The Rutland Arms, as promised, and saw off my grogginess with a hearty chip butty and the hair of the dog while I read a book in the corner.

The highlight was Bampa Best Bitter by Beak. It was a pale amber bitter with smoky toffee notes and a touch of honey about it. A modern take on a trad style that managed to taste fresh and different without disrespecting its heritage.

We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: if you like pubs, you owe it to yourself to spend a weekend in Sheffield. There really is nowhere quite like it.

Tags sheffield

pubs

Sheffield Carols: a Christmas tradition built around the pub

Post author By Jess
Post date 11th December 2022
6 Comments on Sheffield Carols: a Christmas tradition built around the pub

What could be more true to the spirit of Christmas than standing in a crowded pub and singing Christmas carols? Especially if the tunes are only to be heard in a few towns and villages near Sheffield, in South Yorkshire.

I first heard about the Sheffield Carols from a friend who lives in the city. She knows I love pubs and she also knows I grew up in a musical family. I’ve been in and around choirs since before I was born.

It’s a big thing, she explained, that goes on from mid-November until into the New Year, and is unique to the region.

I was fascinated and became determined to visit Sheffield during caroling season. Of course it took a couple of years to get that trip scheduled but this year, finally, we made it.

The website Tradfolk has a good explainer by James Merryclough. He begins by explaining that ‘Sheffield Carols’ is a misnomer:

With a few exceptions, the carols themselves do not originate from Sheffield, but rather Sheffield is where the tradition of singing carols in pubs has been maintained. Go back 200 years or so and the repertoire of carols that are now largely only known in Sheffield’s pubs would have been commonplace across the country… The Sheffield Carols are, mostly, carols as they used to be. Which is to say, at a time before it was decided that the questionable Christian doctrine and folky heritage of these earlier, earthier carols didn’t belong in England’s increasingly pious churches.

This is where the connection with pubs comes in. If you can’t sing your favourite carols in church, because the vicar will give you the stink eye, the pub is the obvious place to keep them alive.

Professor Ian Russell wrote a thesis on Traditional Singing in West Sheffield 1971-72. It has tons of detail on the culture surrounding pub singing and makes clear that it wasn’t just done at Christmas. It’s just that (if I’ve understood this correctly) as year-round pub singing died out, Christmas became the exception.

One fascinating detail in the tradition of Sheffield Carols is the repetition of ‘While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks’. It’s often performed multiple times with different tunes. They’re recorded in the songbook by the name of the town or village associated with each version.

To actually hear (and maybe join in with) the Sheffield Carols we took a tram to the end of the line at Middlewood and then trekked up a hill and along a wintry country road (‘liable to flooding’) until we reached the village of Worrall.

There, we found The Blue Ball Inn, absolutely packed, and throbbing with music.

We couldn’t actually get into the room where the bulk of the carol singers were massed around an organ. Instead, we found ourselves a perch near the coat rack by the door.

For two hours, the crowd drank ale, ate roast beef and roast potatoes, and sang together.

Some people had books of music, or just of the words, bought from behind the bar.

Others who had clearly been singing these songs their whole lives belted out the words from memory, swinging pint glasses, wrangling dogs, or feeding toddlers as they did so.

Even though the tunes were unfamiliar, and sometimes unusual, most were easy to pick up, especially as many have repetitive elements within a verse, or call-and-response structures.

It definitely pays to memorise the words to ‘While Shepherds Watched’. We counted four versions and there may have been more before we arrived.

Here’s an example of the ‘Pentonville’ version from another pub, at another time:

This was truly one of the most magical things I’ve ever experienced. I’d recommend it to anyone who wants a hearty dose of Christmas spirit combined with some English cultural tourism.

You can still catch Sheffield Carols being sung for a few weeks yet. Check out this calendar for dates and details.

Tags Christmas, music, sheffield, yorkshire