POTY about pubs

The Freshfield

Southport and West Lancs Branch of CAMRA covers North Merseyside and West Lancs, and so has two awards for pub of the year (POTY for short).

The 2013 POTY for the Merseyside part of the Branch is the Freshfield in Massams Lane, Formby. This pub has had a good selection of beers for many years, but there were concerns in late 2011 and early 2012 that it would be converted to a Hungry Horse eating house with little or no emphasis on real ale. Fortunately, such worries have proved unfounded, and the Freshfield reopened last July with an even greater range of real ales than previously. The Freshfield is less than ten minutes' walk from Freshfield Station on the Northern Line.

The Hop Vine

The West Lancs POTY for 2013 is the Hop Vine, Liverpool Road North, Burscough. This pub sells changing guest beers as well as the products of the Burscough Brewing Company which operates in outhouses behind the pub. It is less than five minutes' walk from Burscough Bridge railway station. The Hop Vine will be holding its 4th annual Spring Beer Festival from 24 to 27 May.

Both these pubs are well worth a visit, and both are known for doing food as well.

Dorothy Goodbody is no Amazon

Wye Valley Brewery is a small family-run company in Herefordshire, famous for beers such as Butty Bach, Wye Valley Bitter and the Dorothy Goodbody range. It's in a different league entirely from multinational tax avoiders such as Vodaphone, Google and Amazon. I therefore found it quite bizarre to read this post by the brewery on Facebook: 

"This morning we are shocked to hear that as a relatively small family business we pay MORE tax than Amazon UK, who have sales of £4bn. They only paid £2.4m in tax and received government grants of £2.5m!" The BBC news story on Amazon's taxes is here. I don't think you need to be a financial expert to get the impression that, rather than pay tax, they are in fact subsidised by us mugs, the tax payers.

I've written about beer tax before, but usually from the drinkers' point of view. Here is proof, if it were needed, that it's not just drinkers who are being ripped off by the tax system: breweries are as well. I wonder whether that also applies to multinational brewing corporations that have businesses in the country, such as Molson Coors? Call me a cynic, but somehow I doubt it. It's only businesses that are wholly based in this country and pay all their tax here, without the option of shipping their liabilities around the globe to the cheapest jurisdiction, who are hammered in this way, and our own home-grown drinks industry is hit even harder than other businesses.

It was the utterly ruthless American capitalist, Leona Helmsley, who once said: "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes." Although she was eventually prosecuted and spent 18 months in prison, she still left £4,000,000,000 when she died in 2007. Modern tax avoiders aren't as obvious as her, spending a great deal more on clever accountants and tax lawyers and leaving no chance - sadly - that we'll see any of them doing porridge, but their attitude is identical to hers.

One of the comments below the post says: "Can I pay for my beer in Luxembourg please?" Quite.

Mason's and Swords

A couple of events this week:

l In the Mason's: it's the usual singaround, or acoustic song session, tomorrow night (15 May). The pub's in Anchor Street, Southport, behind the main post office on Lord Street. Real ale from Robinson's and they usually provide butties too. From 8.30pm.

The Swords at the Albert Dock

l Southport Swords Annual Day of Dance is in Liverpool this Saturday 18 May with ten different guest dance sides. It should be a chance to enjoy traditional English dance, and an opportunity to see how varied the different styles can be. Traditional dance often involves real ale pubs, so Liverpool is a great place for it. It always seems to go down well with bemused, but fun-loving, Scousers. I've have checked the Swords website, but I have no idea about their itinerary or timings. I've asked for them and will add them to this post, should they let me know.

P.S. (15 May): 10 teams, the best from the North West, will be entertaining from 10.30am onwards. 

Dance spots are Church Street/Whitechapel, Church Street/Church Alley, Mathew Street, Williamson Square, Bold Street/Central Station with a massed stand at the Podium (Church Street/Parker Street) possibly about 15.45.

Downtrodden String Band

The Downtrodden String Band consists of four musicians who all have long experience of playing acoustic music of all kinds. They first came together to provide music for an Appalachian dance group based in Bakewell in Derbyshire. They have moved from there to playing concerts, barn dances and festivals all around central England. Their line-up consists of mandolin, banjo and guitar resulting in a distinctive, driving style, and most of their songs feature 3- or 4-part harmony. Reviewers are saying things like this:

l The music is tight and together but also fun ... the CD makes for entertaining listening with stand out moments throughout. (Living Tradition)
l From start to finish what we are presented with is an authentic sounding band specialising in old-time music with a high 'feel-good' factor. (Maverick)
l A very enjoyable CD. Good choice of songs, well-sung and well-played. (Old-Time Herald)

They're making their second visit to the Bothy Folk Club, Park Golf Club, Park Road West, Southport, PR9 0JS this Sunday 19 May at 8.00pm. Thwaites real ale. On-line tickets available here.

Goodbye Cains? Probably

When the old Higsons brewery was closed down by Whitbread more than twenty years ago, there was a genuine sadness among local beer drinkers because everyone thought that was the end of a long tradition of brewing in the city. When a Danish brewing company reopened the brewery and relaunched the old Cains name, there was a tremendous outburst of enthusiasm and - pleasingly - the beers were good. Unfortunately, the company became loss making, but was saved from closure by the Dusanj brothers. Initially this was something that was welcomed, especially as the brothers announced their commitment to real ales: I recall that at the CAMRA AGM in Southport in 2004, one of the Dusanj brothers gave a speech and a powerpoint presentation reiterating that commitment, declaring that Cains was a friend of CAMRA. What happened a couple of years later I've copied from Wikipedia:

A reverse takeover of ... pub operator Honeycombe Leisure PLC was agreed by the company’s board in June 2007, giving Cains access to Honeycombe's 109 outlets ... On 7 August 2008 the company was placed in administration following problems caused by an unpaid tax bill. Negotiations with its bank failed to reach a conclusion that would have avoided administration. The brewery and eight original pubs have since bought back by the Dusanj brothers.

They had overreached themselves and, as bad creditors, they had to buy their ingredients wherever they could for cash - credit was not an option. The end result was that their beers were brewed on the cheap with whatever ingredients they could lay their hands on, and quality went through the floor. Beers that I had previously enjoyed, such as Cains FA, Sundowner and Raisin Beer, became utterly mediocre.

Cains has now mothballed its brewery, pending the ambitious redevelopment plan that I wrote about here. They have completely abandoned the supermarket own brand trade, once crucial to its financial stability, but now loss-making, and are looking to find someone else to brew their real ales under contract while they redevelop the site. 38 jobs have been lost, but with the promise that their plans will create 800 new jobs; the Liverpool Echo reports on the story here. Unfortunately the track record of this management team cannot inspire the people of Liverpool with confidence. The worry is that, once they have contracted out the production of the beers, will they ever come back to Liverpool? A bigger worry for Cains must be whether anyone will want them back? Liverpool now has several small breweries producing beer that is far superior to anything from the Cains stable. Just owning the old Higsons brewery site will no longer ensure loyalty to Cains beers, whether they are brewed in Liverpool or elsewhere under contract. Closing their brewing operation down and getting their beers brewed under licence is precisely the wrong thing to be doing. Having beer brewed under contract elsewhere doesn't inspire confidence among real ale drinkers: outsourcing mediocre brews is a double risk. To regain credibility among beer drinkers, they should be developing good recipes locally.

My view is that this may well be the end of the line for Cains as a brewer. I can't claim to be surprised, but I am disappointed that yet again Cains seems to have a complete hash of running its business.

New Fleetwood has reopened

The New Fleetwood

Having reported the bad news about the imminent closures of the Caledonia in Liverpool and the London in Southport last week, it's makes a pleasant change to write about a pub reopening. The New Fleetwood has been closed for some time, and we were beginning to think that we'd never see it open again. Mike Perkins of the local CAMRA branch has told me that it had reopened recently with a new, but experienced licensee, who has bought the pub, which is now free of tie. It had two Southport beers on handpump, and the licensee has promised more good beers shortly. It also has a meeting room, which are becoming few and far between.

The New Fleetwood is at 1 Hoole Lane, Banks, PR9 8BD, not far outside Southport.

Mad Hatter Beer Festival

This looks as though it might be fun:

The Mad Hatter Brewing Company is Liverpool's newest microbrewery, so new that I've yet to try their beers. The nearest station to this festival is Aigburth on the Northern Line. You can get tickets here.

Don't drink and drive ~ you might spill some!

Better than a ban - or a crash

New rules have been introduced for the worst drink-drivers, especially those caught driving while more than 2.5 times over the limit, or done for drink-driving twice in the last ten years. The measures include requiring high risk offenders to have a medical examination to prove they don't have a problem with alcohol misuse before they can get their licence back. More details can be found here.

This is all to the good. These measures will do more about drunken driving than reducing the legal limit, which I have written about several times previously, e.g. here. Personally, I'd go even further: anyone who is convicted of drink-driving for a third time should be banned for life - three strikes and you're out. If you haven't learnt by then, you clearly never will.

In the 1970s, when I learnt to drive, the attitude towards someone who'd been banned for drink-driving was "Bad luck!", but this changed during the 1980s to become "Serves you right!" as people increasingly understood how alcohol impairs your abilities. I recall one evening about 25 years ago a friend of mine who was well over the limit and about to drive home being harangued by drunks around the bar to leave his car keys behind and collect his car the next day. 

In the 1970s, I often heard drivers claim that they could drive better after a few drinks. I had thought that such a dinosaur view had died out, but not a thing of it. After a fatal accident in Southport a year or two ago, a young woman who'd been injured in the crash said that the driver, a young male, used to claim that he drove better after few drinks, and I heard exactly the same nonsense a couple of weeks ago in a TV documentary about young drivers. Seeing that road accidents are the biggest killer of people under 25, it is worrying to hear some of them express such an attitude. I've heard a lot of suggestions about how to tackle this, such as prohibiting new drivers from driving late at night, limiting the number of passengers they can carry, maximum car engine size, maximum speed and even a zero alcohol limit, but it's no use making yet more new rules if there aren't the resources to enforce them. In the long run, education as part of the driving test is probably the best way forward, including shocking pictures of real accidents and people describing the devastating impact drink-driving can cause. 

Like many people at the time, I occasionally used to drink-drive in the late 70s. I'm not proud of that, and I never thought I was a better driver after drinking. Fortunately nothing ever went wrong, although I had one near miss which didn't result in an accident mainly because the other driver was more on the ball than I was; I was lucky. Shortly after that, I reflected that I knew lots of people who had perfectly good social lives without using cars, that there were trains, buses and taxis, and also that I actually had a lot of pubs within walking distance. As one near miss taught me a lesson, I can't understand the mentality of people who, despite having been caught, sometimes even after accidents caused by drink, offend again and again; such people would ignore any limit, even a zero one. If the new rules help stop some of these high risk offenders, they'll be worthwhile.

Southport Jazz Festival ~ jazz and real ale

Not recommended as a drinking vessel

The Southport Jazz Festival returns this month, 10 to 12 May, and it will be based in the newly refurbished arts centre, now known as the Atkinson, which will feature most of the main events. CAMRA will be running a small beer festival in the Cambridge Theatre Bar area; it's open to all and there is no admission charge to the bar, although there is to the concerts. The beer festival will be open throughout the jazz festival, unless the beer runs out first. You can see who's on, both in the Atkinson and around the town in the brochure here.

Jazz in other real ale venues around the town (very few this year)

Friday 
Credo in the Sandgrounder Bar, Lord Street at 8.30pm. Free.
Chameleon in the Coronation, King Street, at 9.00pm. Free.

Saturday 
Modjango in the Inn Beer Shop, Lord Street at 2.30pm. Free.
Cottonhouise Shakers in the Coronation, King St. at 9.00pm. Free.

However, if you can cope without real ale, you'll see from the brochure that there are plenty of other jazz events around the town in various places, some in the open air in the Town Hall Gardens, and the Café D'Art in Formby is hosting free events for diners. There's even a couple of free concerts on Saturday afternoon in Christ Church on Lord Street, although I doubt anything stronger than tea will be available. I'm not sufficiently familiar with jazz to comment upon the various acts that will be on, but I will be going to some of the events and working for three sessions in the beer festival in the Atkinson. Even if you don't like jazz, the beer festival is surely worth a visit!

Ship Beer Festival to carry over to next weekend

The Ship, seen from a canal boat

The Ship Inn in Haskayne is planning to carry over its beer festival to the coming weekend, 3 to 5 May. The Ship is one of our local canalside pubs; we are fortunate in having several good ones in the area. This festival scores over others in that the beers are all stored in the cellar, which is closer to the area used for the festival than pub's own bar. This means that, whatever the weather, the beers should be nicely cellar cool.

I shall be catching the bus out there at some point. The Ship Inn is at 6, Rosemary Lane, Haskayne, Ormskirk, Lancashire, L39 7JP.

Nels Andrews with Good Intentions

This Wednesday 1 May, Grateful Fred's in Formby is presenting Nels Andrews who's from Santa Cruz, California. This is what they're saying:

l "Strikingly intimate album that combines deft storytelling with a warmth of tone and gentleness of pace ... awash with layers, metaphors and echoes woven into subtle, contemplative contemporary song. Like finding a seashell at the back of a dusty cupboard, putting it to your ear and hearing the ocean." - Folk Radio UK.
l "A true wellspring of 21st century music." - Album of the week, Iain Anderson, BBC Scotland.
l (4/5 stars) - The London Telegraph, UK.

The Good Intentions' new album

In support are South Liverpool Americana group, The Good Intentions, who play mostly original compositions and whose albums are receiving good reviews. They were awarded the Best Americana Act of the Year at the British Country Music Awards in 2011. I have seen them several times and have thoroughly enjoyed what they do.

You can see both acts at the British Legion, Whitehouse Lane, Formby, L37 3LT, which has a bar but no real ale. Tickets are £7.50 and you can buy them here.

The London to be demolished

The London Hotel, Southport

Closer to home than my previous post, Sefton Council, which covers Southport, has agreed that the London Hotel in Windsor Road can be demolished to make way for a housing development. I wrote about the rumours concerning the pub's future in December last year, and followed that by contacting the owners, Barnsley Brewery. They were reluctant to reply and I had to send reminders before I received any kind of admission that the pub's future was in doubt. They admitted planning permission had been applied for but still claimed they wanted it to continue as a pub, but I'm not convinced. The local branch of CAMRA has opposed the closure by attending the planning meeting to see objections lodged and by press releases that have prompted one or two letters from the public, but it's now a foregone conclusion.

In January last year I explained how the term "community pub" applied to the London, with various teams using it as a base, and it also providing entertainment for its customers. It wasn't helped by a lack of investment - it badly needed redecoration - and weird opening hours such as, for example, closing at 10 pm on Wednesdays. With the town centre pubs only 10 or 15 minutes' walk away, you can't do silly things like that, but the tenant told me that it was a brewery decision, not his own.

I'm not convinced this pub had to close; there are pubs elsewhere in Southport a similar distance from the town centre that are doing well, and the London has the advantage of no competition in the immediate vicinity. It is the only local outlet for Oakwell Brewery, and its beers have always been extremely reasonably priced. I consider that it has been in a state of managed decline until it became uneconomical, thus justifying closure and clearing the way for a windfall from the sale of the site.

The pub, which was opened in 1866, will close on 1 May.

Picture 'borrowed' from CAMRA Southport & West Lancs Facebook page.

The true face of pubco greed

The Caledonia, Liverpool

The Caledonia on Catharine Street, Liverpool, has been sold by its owners, the pub company Admiral Taverns, to a property developer who has given the licensee, Laura King, 28 days' notice to quit. Neither she nor her staff had any idea that the pub was up for sale; it was surreptitiously done behind their backs. She will be jobless and homeless and seven staff will also be out of work. The Caledonia is a successful real ale pub that has also a place in the local live music scene; it was "short listed for Live Music venue of the year at the 2012 Liverpool Music Awards and has become the home of Liverpool's vibrant Americana and bluegrass scene." (Liverpool Confidential) In fact Laura has turned the pub around in three years from a failing pub full of "drug takers and scallies" (in her words) to the successful and popular local it is today. It's a pub I like to visit when I'm in that part of the city.

So why it it being sold? Simply because its owners were made "an offer that couldn't be refused". It is not entirely clear who the buyers are, but it seems certain that they don't intend to keep it open as a pub. The pubco's website states: "Admiral Taverns understands that developing great business partnerships with our licensees is the only way to build success. We recognise that our pubs will only thrive and prosper in their communities if we attract passionate people to run them, and then give them all the support they need to maximise their success." And then, once they have maximised their success, chuck them out with 28 days' notice as long as the price is right: 30 pieces of silver, I expect. Laura, who is 28, said, "It's such a shame as a young person who's built up a business which is now in profit for the first time in a long time, to have all that taken away.” 

There can be no mistake here: this pub is not closing because it's failing, or because of supermarket prices, the smoking ban, or any other of the usual reasons given. It is closing because of pubco greed, pure and simple. The sick joke here is that on its website, Admiral Taverns boasted in March that it had been awarded Pub Company of the Year at the Publican Awards, which are hosted by the main pub trade magazine, the Morning Advertiser. While they were raising glasses to celebrate their award, they were cheerfully negotiating the destruction of one their own pubs.

More details in Liverpool Confidential here.

P.S. (30 April): further news on this story in the Liverpool Echo.

P.P.S. (4 May): save the pub website and petition here.

Norwich AGM ~ the pubs

The Fat Cat

I knew very little about Norwich before the CAMRA AGM: the insurance company formerly known as Norwich Union, Colman's Mustard and that's it. It is a very picturesque city with a mediaeval castle and cathedral, winding streets, and lots of excellent pubs, causing it to be described as (if you're from CAMRA Liverpool Branch, look away now) the City of Ale. I visited 14 pubs during my stay, along with the temporary members bar for the AGM, which is less than 10% of the total of real ale pubs in the city. I'll describe just a few.

The Fat Cat, 49 West End Street, was by far my favourite, and I went there twice: once with Ken and Carol and once with Graham and Peter. It is a compact and cosy pub with many interesting pieces of brewery memorabilia on the walls, and a choice of up to 30 real ales, many on handpump and many others on gravity. I tried beers from the Fat Cat Brewery: the bitter (3.8%) was a very pleasant golden beer, and at £2.40 a pint, very reasonable for Norwich. Fat Cat Honey (4.3%) and IPA (6.4%) were also very good. The pub also has plenty of guest beers, and I discovered I'm no longer particularly keen on Kelham Island beer (I had Pale Rider, 5.2%), which was clearly outshone by the house beers. Crouch Vale Yakima Gold (4.2%) won praise from all of us (Graham, Peter and me). We drew attention to ourselves by a hearty rendition of Bandiera Rossa; I noticed the line "every propeller is turning in defence of the USSR" turned a few heads, but we decided to call it a day before we got thrown out.

The Ribs of Beef

The Ribs of Beef, 24 Wensum Street, is a pleasant, comfortable old riverside pub. We sat for a while on its small terrace which overlooks the River Wensum. I particularly enjoyed the Woodforde's Bure (sic) Gold (4.3%) and the Oakham Ales Scarlet Macaw (4.4%).

The Murderers, 2-8 Timber Hill, is properly known as the Gardeners Arms, but got its nickname after a landlord was convicted of murdering his wife in the 19th century. A genuine old world pub with nooks and crannies and several real ales; I had something that the pumpclip described as Heritage Imperial Ale (5.2%). I was only after closing time that I noticed they had a small beer festival on the go. The friendly bar staff agreed it wasn't well signposted.

Ketts Tavern, 29 Ketts Hill, has a large beamed pub, a garden and a combined pool room and conservatory. It was the first pub I went into after parking my car for the weekend, and is one of two outlets for the Norwich Bear Brewery; I had their NPA (Norwich Pale Ale) 4.1%, which I found to be pleasant.

The Kings Head

The Kings Head, 42 Magdalen Street, proudly boasts outside that it "a keg free house", so I asked whether that meant it was a house free of keg, or a free house with keg; they hadn't realised the ambiguity. I suggested a hyphen in "keg free", but they probably won't bother. There's no ambiguity when you get in as the pub has no keg beers at all, not even Guinness. It has 14 handpumps; I enjoyed a couple of pints of Woodforde's Nelson's Revenge (4.5%). The rear room has a bar billiards table, which is rare enough nowadays, but it had four pins instead of the three I've seen previously; it must be a local variant of the game.

The Reindeer, 10 Dereham Road, is a large one-roomed, food-based pub serving a selection of real ales. We had the Oakham Citra (4.2%), and all agreed it was a fine beer on excellent form.

The Earlham Arms, 41 Earlham Road, a large pub-restaurant, obviously recently refurbished, with several real ales on. The first pint we had was flat as a pancake, so Peter took them back and obtained replacements. The young woman in charge invited him to see the cellars, and she won Peters' approval by her standards cellarmanship and of cleanliness, although her looks probably helped too. She was very keen to show us (apparently) knowledgeable drinkers that she did keep the beer well, and different pints began to appear for our approval. All were fine, so the first one must have been flat from the brewery, as can happen. Kiwi Norfolk 3.8% was the beer initially flat, but was fine from a different cask; she was anxious to show us it can be all right, especially as it's brewed by the boss's wife. I also had a Humpty Dumpty Reedham Gold (3.6%), and tasters of several others.

Coach and Horses

The Coach and Horses, 82 Thorpe Road, is home to the Chalk Hill Brewery. I went there with Ken and Carol for a meal and a couple of beers. The food was fine, although Ken's was late as they'd missed it off the order. Ken and I had pints of Chalk Hill Brewery Tap (3.6%) which neither of us liked particularly; it seemed to have an unpleasant burnt flavour. The beers have won awards, so perhaps it's only a matter of personal preference.

The Fat Cat and Canary, 101 Thorpe Road, is another outlet for Fat Cat ales. A nice pub, it has a similar decor to the Fat Cat, with five handpumps and up to a dozen beers and real ciders on gravity in the tap room. I enjoyed my pints of Fat Cat Wild Cat (5%) and Dark Star APA (4.7%). This pub was very welcome after the disappointment of the previous pub, and was our last pub before we departed from Norwich the next morning.

There were several other pubs I went to, but these are the ones that have stuck in my mind. It's not a "best of" list, as there was a random element to our choice of pubs, but I hope it gives some idea of the range of great pubs in Norwich. Definitely worth a visit.