Wednesday 7 August 2013

A day in the life

Well, it was a bright morning today, so I thought I would go out and take some pictures of the Shepherd & Ewe at Udderstroll. This impressive stone-built 1930s pub with mock-Tudor detailing in the typical house style of Drab’s Brewery, once packed out every session, closed within six months of the implementation of the smoking ban in July 2007, and since then has been derelict and boarded up. Unfortunately, when I got there, I found that it had been demolished in the three months since I last passed that way, so all I could photograph was a vacant site (pictured). Couldn’t even get a decent picture for Closed Pubs. I am told that Tesco have planning permission for a new-build Express store.

So I went down the hill in search of some lunch at the Apricot & Artifice in Dunnyshaw, formerly the Locomotive but now rebranded as a kind of quasi-gastropub. They had six different cask beers on, all from local micros and thus qualifying for the CAMRA Locale scheme. I went for Tearful from Pink Flamingo Brewery (3.9%) at a rather steep £3.40, which I have to say was probably the first pulled that session and borderline returnable, although in this case I decided discretion was the better part of valour. It’s one of a range of well-regarded beers including Bellyful, Fretful and Skinful.

I was pleased to see Traditional Ploughmans on the menu at £7.95, so immediately plumped for that. However, it was desperately disappointing, consisting of a small stale roll, about two ounces of bland cheddar, a mound of lettuce, an apple and a large slice of gala pie. Pork pie with egg in it, how disgusting. No pickle either. Half-way through eating it, a quartet of yummy mummies trooped in and their offspring rapidly started up the kind of co-ordinated wailing you would have heard as the Luftwaffe approached Coventry. So I have to say I left my meal unfinished and went on my way in search of a quieter and more traditional atmosphere.

I knew I could rely on the Feltcombers’ Arms at Arkwright’s Hillock, and I wasn’t disappointed. This is a long, low cottage-style building with “weavers’ windows”, probably dating from the mid-17th century and now surrounded by mostly Victorian development. The chintzy lounge with its upright piano is only open at weekends, so I went in the vault with its grandfather clock and stone-flagged floor. A sad sign of the times was that the only other customer was an old gent sitting in the corner chuntering into his pint.

I found a nice bench seat by the window which provided enough light to read the Daily Mail. The only cask beer available is Draught Barf, dispensed by gravity from a little room behind the bar. As usual, it came out with a very shallow head which may not endear it too much to the locals, and a slightly astringent, almost vinous taste. I am told John Smith’s Extra Smooth is actually the best seller. I was pleased to see old Wilf, the pub cat, who is a bit arthritic now but managed to climb up on the bench next to me, although unfortunately he decided to mark his presence by a touch of spraying. Still, cats will be cats. The landlord told me that he liked to spend much of his time asleep in the “cellar”, which he regarded as his territory.

Returning home, I put the faithful Harvest Gold 1.3 Morris Marina back in the garage. This model really is an underrated British classic. Driving duties done, I thought I would treat myself to a bottle-conditioned Old Toad Bitter from Slutchmere Brewery in the heart of Cheshire, which had been settling in a dark cupboard for at least three months. However, there was an ominous silence as I opened the bottle, and it turned out to be as flat as a witch’s tit and, despite the long storage period, still distinctly hazy. So straight down the sink it went.

However, salvation was at hand as, I had a bottle of Ayscue Ale stored in the fridge in case of such eventualities. This darkish, malty 6.2% brew, produced by long-established family brewery Hawkins of Lowestoft, is named after the most senior British admiral ever to be captured by the enemy, and represents the best “bangs per buck” amongst Morrison’s multibuy offer. It’s not bottle-conditioned, so you have a well over 50% chance of it actually being drinkable.

It must have hit the spot, as it seems I nodded off and when I woke up was disappointed to find that I’d missed Countdown, even on Channel 4+1.

(In view of this, I thought I’d better write my own piss-take before someone else got there first)

13 comments:

  1. Beautiful. I cried a single salt tear for all those wasting their existence with art, poetry and science and concluded that enlightenment is not just the purview of the philosophically studious. I shall never eat Gala pie again.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Someone told me this was a wind up, but clearly, it isn't. What's going on?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think, tand, we may be wishing, hoping, dreaming that it is in fact true but in reality Mudge likes nothing more than big screen football, Stella and shouting "awwite treacle" at ladies that pass his building site. It has all been a lie.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Professor Pie-Tin8 August 2013 at 12:39

    " their offspring rapidly started up the kind of co-ordinated wailing you would have heard as the Luftwaffe approached Coventry "

    Top notch,old cock.

    ReplyDelete
  5. "once packed out every session, closed within six months of the implementation of the smoking ban in July 2007"

    Carefully phrased, as "once" could have been 30 years ago. I suppose it's possible it was packed to the gunwales until the day before the smoking ban, and then immediately empty thereafter.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Read the final paragraph, Nev...

    ReplyDelete
  7. The Old Trooper8 August 2013 at 16:23

    I find the beer in the Feltcombers' consistently good and your implication that it is tainted with cat piss is out of order.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Nice touch with the Ploughmans

    ReplyDelete
  9. Martin, Cambridge8 August 2013 at 20:43

    When you say the Draught Barf was served on gravity, do you mean from a jug or from the barrel ?

    ReplyDelete
  10. From the cask. The landlord goes into the back room to draw the pint. He may use a jug at busy periods, though.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Silly me!! But then, fictitious but entirely plausible does not equal spoof.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Can anyone point us to the original that this is a parody of a parody of? Who is "Johnny Whitepebble" aimed at?

    ReplyDelete
  13. I think this is aimed at Mike Blackstone's "Beer North West" and possibly this post in particular:

    http://beerstagger.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/beer-as-miserable-as-weather.html

    ReplyDelete

Comments, especially on older posts, may require prior approval by the blog owner. See here for details of my comment policy.

Please register an account to comment. Unregistered comments will generally be rejected unless I recognise the author. If you want to comment using an unregistered ID, you will need to tell me something about yourself.