My life in pubs
Which would be my ‘desert island pubs’? Which would I dream about if incarcarated? This list is different from those I’ve spent most time in: it’s a list of those I dream of spending more time in. My preference, as you’ll see, is for rural locations and all of my choices have historic resonance.
From south to north:
- The Square and Compass, Worth Matravers, Dorset. The Isle of Purbeck does retain its distinctness from the ‘mainland’; Corfe Castle is the main tourist attraction, but this pub is unique. Simplest of menus, beers from the barrel, Jurassic fossils in the attached museum; views of strip lynchets to the sea; the chip chip of sculptors at the front living up to the pub’s name. Special.
- The Carew Arms, Crowcombe, Somerset. I’ve been there sporadically over the last twenty years, and it’s always a special place (the drive over the Quantocks to Nether Stowey may be short but it’s outstandingly special, especially in the crowded soutern half of our island). Last time I visited, a bar had been converted to a tea room. Enterprising.
- The Turf Tavern, Oxford. Just finding this hidden gem along medieval Oxford alleyways is memorable. Being there does not disappoint: it’s a true real ale house, with space inside and out. Shame that health and safety rules have ended the braziers. Students and locals may take it for granted; for visitors, it’s like experiencing a scene from Jude the Obscure.
- Wig and Mitre, Lincoln. I was struggling to find anywhere in the Midlands to nominate; this pub/restaurant wins it for its position at the top of Steep Hill. Yes, Lincoln has a dramatic hill – crowned by the castle and cathedral. I always drink Batemans when in Lincoln: ‘Good Honest Ales’.
- Craven Arms, Appletreewick, North Yorkshire. I often write about this pub, and it never disappoints. OK, it’s the one that’s most local to me, but it’s also currently my favourite. The history here is blatant (and surprisingly recent). Gas lights, old bakelite phones, and the newly-built ‘medieval’ thatched cruck barn. It’s a special experience, with beer as the centrepiece.
- Queen’s Head, Troutbeck, Cumbria. Lots of choice in this part of the world, but the Queen’s Head gets my vote for its atmosphere (stone flagged floors; bar made out of a four poster bed; open fires) and position in the quieter eastern part of the Lake District. People come for here nature, not architecture, but the long walk through Troutbeck to the National Trust house at Townhead presents a spectacular display of vernacular architecture. And don’t miss the church with its William Morris glass, or fail to look up at the hills.
This list reminds me that I need to spend more time in Wales and Scotland (and also Cornwall and Northumberland). But favourite pubs aren’t discovered overnight; they grow on you over years and decades. So I don’t expect to update this list until my dotage.
What else to do on a rainy Sunday in winter? Sit by the fire in The Craven Arms (close to the river Wharfe) and enjoy some local ale.
Ilkley’s just downriver, but I’d never even heard of the Ilkley Brewery until today when I was able to shut out the weather with a pint of Mary Jane. How else to describe it but as a classic Yorkshire pale ale?
Checking the website, the brewery was only established in April so I’ve not been too slow on the uptake.
My title (Wharfed ale) is borrowed from a specialist beer shop in Otley which sadly closed this year.
I’ve popped in three times since Saturday to the Friend at Hand just off Russell Square in Bloomsbury (it’s been a busy week). The Young’s bitter has been good and not too expensive for central London. But before this becomes a habit, I’ve no plans to be back in the area until the New Year. Shame.
The Betjeman Arms in the restored St Pancras station has become my usual regular in this area. Appropriately, since Betjeman visited Cornwall and is buried there in St Enedoc’s church, there’s always a Sharp’s from Rock available. This is is an expensive gastro-pub, but it always has a pleasant buzz and was fun tonight with Arsenal fans gathering before the Champions League fixture. We have Betjeman to thank in large part for the survival of St Pancras station and the rehabilitation of this style of high Victorian architecture.
When you usually serve eight real ales, it seems odd to host a real ale festival. But that’s what Wetherspoon’s are doing (at a pub near you from 28 October to 15 November). More beer, for lower prices (£1.69 a pint).
The accompanying booklet’s an interesting read; the festival is part of the company’s 30th anniversary celebrations, so everything is linked to a 1979 theme. To give a flavour of this, Bateman’s have brewed a new beer – Iron Lady- to celebrate Grantham’s Margaret Thatcher who became our first and only female PM that year.
I hope to catch Adnam’s Pale Champion Ale, Clark’s Resurrection Ale, Davenport’s Last Minute among others. Not sure what’s available where, though.
I visited Wetherspoon’s newly-opened Bank House in Cheltenham this evening. Here’s what I didn’t like: swirly carpets; Wi-Fi not working; the menu not all available; the Goff’s Jouster being flat.
But here’s what I did like: the staff were well-trained and eager; the Mad Goose pale ale was sensational, and it’s a good space and location. Did I mention the Mad Goose? Sensational.
Yesterday I enjoyed a Leeds Pale at the Hunters Inn on the way home from a day’s teaching (yes, on a Saturday). I noted how many of the handpumps had been given over to darker seasonal ales. (I also noticed that I was drinking alongside some people who had been out hunting.)
So today I went back for a Saltaire hazelnut and coffee Porter. At the first sip it’s like a creamier and sweeter Guinness; it took me a few more sips to identify the most memorable flavour. This is a beer that reminded me of drinking Kahlua-flavoured White Russian cocktails many years ago.
Jonathan Ray’s wine column in the Saturday Telegraph is devoted today to beer: Is beer really the new wine? Girls, it’s over to you…
He raises two paradoxes: how come craft brewers are doing so well at a time when pubs are struggling? And why isn’t beer more appealing to women, who should be more receptive than men to its wide range of flavours, and who might be expected to appreciate that it has fewer calories than wine.
Ray feels glassware is the key, and I know from experience that a third-of-a-pint measure might also prove attractive. Not to men, obviously, but then we need to change our thinking.
It’s good to see some successful breweries picked out for praise in this column: he names Hepworth & Co in Horsham and St Austell Brewery in Cornwall (where the assistant head brewer is a woman).
It was good to hear Roger Protz (interviewed on Radio 4’s The Food Programme today) saying this in defence of good beer. Beer is expensive (because of the tax levied), so drinkers tend to be choosing one or two good pints when going out rather than drinking large quantities of lifeless lager.
That’s my approach to beer: it’s now an occasional luxury rather than an everyday tipple (that would be wine).
The ancient prejudice still lives on that ale is the everyday drink of the working man and wine is an alien import reserved for the nobility. But price demands a rethink. Let them drink wine!
Timble Inn
When I moved to North Yorkshire in 2003, the nearby Timble Inn was a very traditional pub – though not necessarily in a good way.
I used to call it the Tumbledown Inn, and resented that walkers weren’t welcome.
Now having been closed for several years, having been on and off the market, and having been slowly restored, it’s open again for business.
The name has been preserved, but little else.
There’s Theakson Best on handpump, but I’d say in its new guise it’s more gastro than pub (restaurant with rooms might describe it better).
Still, there are few pubs – and no restaurants – in this part of the Washburn valley, so I wish them well and look forward to eating there soon.
We’re allowed to enjoy many pubs, but only one can ever be called ‘the local’. So which is it to be? Do we pick our locals or do they choose us?
I’ve lived next door to a country pub for six years, so proximity suggests this must be my local by now. But this evening (and on several previous occasions) I’ve continued to receive a local’s welcome here – despite leaving the area in 2003 and this ‘local’ being 200 miles away from my current home. (The Wadworth’s IPA was better than ever, too.)
Even more impressive, we once returned to a long-ago favourite haunt elsewhere in Oxford after a gap of several years and the ‘character landlord’ welcomed us with a ‘hello Gail, hello Richard’ without a moment’s pause for thought.
Once a local, always a local. You can check out, but you can never leave…
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