Ship Inn, Haskayne - April beer festival

View of the canal from the Ship beer garden

N.B. dates changed to 25th to 28th April.
I visited the Ship Inn, a canalside pub in Haskayne, this afternoon to discuss their next advert in our local CAMRA magazine, Ale & Hearty. There were two beers on: Coniston Bluebird and Holts Bitter. The Holts is always there but the other handpump serves a changing guest. Chris the licensee told me that he'd had to cut it down from three beers for quality reasons. In the summer he can have all his handpumps working, but off season it's not practical. I've not had Bluebird for a while, and I found it to be fine. The next beer due on was one from the Heart of Preston brewery, and after that he had Rudgate's Jorvik Blonde lined up. We discussed Liverpool Organic Brewery, as he was interested in possibly putting one of theirs on.

He's planning to have a beer festival just after Easter when he proposes to have 20 beers on, some live music outdoors, weather permitting, and with food available. This will be second one; I went to his first in October last year when the beers that I drank were well kept. One feature of this pub is that during the festival, the beers are extremely close to the cellar, so the dasks are stored there rather than on the usual racks, which is great for keeping the temperature right. The festival dates will be Wednesday 10 to Sunday 14 April changed to: Wednesday 25 to Sunday 28 April. CAMRA are planning to hold vintage bus trips to local pubs, including the Ship, during this period - more information on that when I have it.

The pub serves food and has an open mike night on Fridays They used to have the Britannia Blues Band playing on Wednesdays, but not at present, although Chris is thinking of reinstating that fixture.