The Devonshire Arms

And there I was in a pub, the sort of pub in which I felt at home in as soon as I slipped in through the door, and across the road, in the distance, the big building that once housed Ind Coope’s brewery stood, reminding me of Ozymandias and his ruins and the end of things and Burton’s decline, while directly across the road, the Herculean conical containers of Molson-Coors towered over the road, like a crowd of nosy parkers looking across the garden fence, but in the Devonshire Arms I felt snug and occupied with the matter in hand, a glass of beer and an ambience that geared me up for an hour or two of escape. And you can read my review of this Burton gemstone in today’s Daily Telegraph here.

My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Shakespeare’s Local

Last week my review of Pete Brown’s Shakespeare’s Local appeared in the books pages of the Daily Telegraph, which you can read here. As is normal it was cut to fit the page but I thought it might be fun to let people read the whole review, so here it is.

Shakespeare’s Local

By Pete Brown

384pp, Macmillan (RRP £16.99, EBOOK £9.85)

****

This is a book about a pub: the George Inn in Southwark. The George has been around in one form or another for five centuries. Hidden away off Borough High Street, with the Shard piercing the sky to its front, it’s especially unique in being London’s last galleried coaching inn. I’ve been there several times: it’s a rickety old place, listing like an ancient ship of the line, its galleries tipsily overlooking the yard where tourists drink deeply of Ye Olde England. Charles Dickens drank here, as did Dr Johnson. The Globe was just around the corner so Shakespeare probably popped in, which why we’ve got this catchy little title.

Pete Brown is one of the UK’s leading beer writers and has three beer-centric books to prove it. His last one was Hops and Glory, in which he transported a barrel of India Pale Ale to India on a variety of boats (to replicate the 19^th century trading route). It was a unique tale of leaky casks, banana boats, mid-ocean madness and lots of beer. It won him Beer Writer of the Year 2009, but this time, this London-based Yorkshireman hasn’t strayed too far.

Why the George? It might be a survivor but it’s not the oldest London inn. It’s not the most historic either. However, Brown choose it because as he writes early in the book: ‘there are arguably more celebrated pubs…but if you are going to focus on the story of one pub, you’ve got to pick the one that tells the best story.’

And stories he tells. Princess Margaret came for Sunday lunch in the 1960s with the Bishop of Southwark; the newspapers wagged fingers as only they can after the Princess and her group seemed to carry on way past closing time. Winston Churchill dined here, bringing his own port though he met his match in redoubtable landlady Agnes Murray, who served from 1871 until 1934.

‘He once turned up for dinner with a bottle of quality port, explaining to Miss Murray that on his last visit there was none. She served him with a quiet smile, and then presented him with a bill, which included “Corkage: one shilling and sixpence”.’

So did Shakespeare visit the George? Brown believes so, but he also writes: ‘did Shakespeare perform plays at the George? Much as it pains me to say so, probably not.’ You could argue that the book title is somewhat of a red herring as it suggests that the book might be a keenly argued thesis on Shakespeare’s relationship with the George. It’s not. Think Julie Myerson’s Home instead, applied to a pub and written in Brown’s matey, down to earth slightly tipsy man at the bar style (his footnotes are hilarious).

It’s lively and exuberant, a literary version of a cracking pub crawl. It recounts the history of the George and its people, but also delightfully digresses to the social history of Southwark while celebrating those who have walked and drank in its streets over the centuries. From puritans to prime ministers, princesses to poets, the George has seen them all. Though I’m not sure I’d have liked a drink with 18^th century regular, the poet Sir John Mennis: his speciality was writing about flatulence.

Adrian Tierney-Jones

Bohemian Rhapsody (ahem)

Last year I spent a week travelling around southern Bohemia by bus and train, visiting bars and breweries in an attempt to get to the nature of the beers of the area. Ironically enough, next week I head off to the north this time. Last year my trip ended up at the The Sunshine in the Glass (Slunce ve skle) Beer Festival at Purkmistr Brewery, Pilsen, and this year I will do the same on September 22 (before I travel to Munich for an Oktoberfest assignment). My report on last year’s journey is in tomorrow’s Telegraph Travel but you can read it online here. As for the beer festival, if you can make it I would as it’s fabulous and features the best of what I call the new wave of Czech brewing (but those in the heart of it, such as Evan Rail and Max at Pivni Filosof, might call it something else), more details here. 

Perfect Pub

What’s my favourite pub? What are my five favourite pubs? What makes a pub perfect? Would you like another pint? If you want to know a bit more then why not have a look at today’s Daily Telegraph, page 19, in which I have written about the perfect pub — or go to the article here.

London

You have to laugh
I first thought this said
Ale Cider Mead…

When I was young I had a credo about London: live there in my 20s and move out in my 30s, which is what I did. My time in London coincided with the rise of Wetherspoons and I used to spend a lot of time in the White Lion of Mortimer in Finsbury Park, a place where I discovered to my surprise that I enjoyed cask beer. As for London beer though, I think one of the few places I was aware of it was at the Fuller’s pub The Ship in Soho, otherwise that was it though I do recall driving my motorbike past Young’s at the end of the 1980s and being enthralled by the smell of brewing. Now of course, London is undergoing a massive brewing renaissance and you can read my take on it in today’s Daily Telegraph here. Oh and while I’m at it, Will Hawkes’ Craft Beer London app is also well worth getting, and you can find more info here.

The Three Tuns in Bristol

Three Tuns Bristol. Good little pub this, belongs to Arbor Ales, good brewery, coming up with some excellent beers, one of which I had last week in the Red Lion in Cricklade, good pub that as well, frontage festooned with hanging baskets, that’s what you get for being in a town that wins Britain in Bloom. Back to Bristol though, great city for drinking at the moment, good breweries in the shape of Arbor, BBF and Bath Ales (confusing that they are called Bath but based in Bristol, think there might be a case for pedants to raise merry hell). Back to the Three Tuns though, you can read what I think about it in Saturday’s DT or just go straight to the link here. Cheers. 

I ♥ beer

Monday afternoon in the pub. Sun shines on the passage of people in the street, rays reach me at the table at the end of the bar. Two men next to me, old friends I think, meeting up again after a while. Sharing a bottle of something from Mikkeller, ‘this is beer, beer without all the bullshit,’ says one. ‘The other declares, ‘it’s as strong as a glass of wine but it’s not rough and not Special Brew.’ They purr and pour praise on the beer from a great height. Treacle says one, port says the other. Another? And as I tune in and out, contemplating a glass of Hofbrau’s Munchen Oktoberfest (delighted with its strong bitter finish), I once again realise how much I love sitting quietly and studying beer, in Craft Beer Co, far away from all concerns about what beer is, who it is for, what round or square hole it falls into. I simply adore beer and all that comes with it — and Craft Beer Co is one of those great bars that I drink beer in, as you can read in tomorrow’s Daily Telegraph here.

Seven Stars Falmouth

The Seven Stars in Falmouth is one of the most dishevelled pubs I have ever come across and I love it — you can read about it here in today’s Daily Telegraph. Here are a couple of pictures to whet the appetite — and while you’re at it in Falmouth have a look at Hand and the Front Bar. 

Taking a holiday in other people’s happiness

Halfway House, Pitney, where I engaged in a scintillating
conversation with  a local about the filthiness of farmhouse cider

Am currently writing a pub book that has involved visiting loads of them (for instance I’m hoping to get to four today, was at one last night and two on Thursday) — it’s very much brief visits, taking a holiday in other people’s happiness as the Sex Pistols might have said if they’d been happy types. However, what it’s reminding me, as if I really needed to be reminded, is that despite difficult trading, pessimism over pub cos, beer prices etc, the pub stands firm. I don’t subscribe to the notion that we are seeing the last of pubs, but I also don’t feel that there is a need for complacency. Last night I was at the Yarcombe Inn, a rural roadside boozer that was shut for a couple of years and then — with the help of a TV programme — opened up again with the help of the local community. I walked in and the barman immediately engaged me in a conversation about the rain — I felt welcome. At the bar, people came and went, knew each other, there was a real sense of community; the beer — Otter Amber — was light and refreshing and the interior a mish mash of old agricultural inn ambience with various amendments down the years. It was homely, comfortable, uncluttered and organic. I loved it. I’m not surprised that the local CAMRA branch made it their pub of the year. Another pub that I also swooned over was the Crown in Stockport and you can read my review of it in today’s Daily Telegraph here.

Harping on about The Harp in tomorrow’s Telegraph

The Harp is currently CAMRA’s National Pub of the Year and justifiably so — you can read my review in tomorrow’s Daily Telegraph here. I love the place, and I recall visiting it last December on a dark and dingy afternoon prior to the British Guild of Beer Writers’ awards and dinner. Having just come in from three days in Leipzig and faced with a nerve-wracking Guild dinner, it was a great chill-out zone after several days traipsing around the magnificent city of Leipzig (and getting to thoroughly know Leipziger Gose), a hideaway from the storm to come, and also somewhere marvellous to divest myself of the noise and clatter of central London. Even though I knew I was going to enjoy the coming evening, part of me just wanted to stay there all evening and consider the beers on display. When that happens you know that it’s your sort of boozer — and I can’t wait to get there next time I’m in London. So if you’ve not been there and you’re in London this weekend (or even tonight), why not get down there and grab a Dark Star. To get you in the mood here are a couple of photos I took.  

Coopers Tavern Burton

In the matter of months the Coopers Tavern in Burton-upon-Trent has become a firm favourite — a place where I would love to hang my metaphorical hat and contemplate the glory of beer and pubs. That moment will have to wait though, but you can read about it in today’s Daily Telegraph here — I’m in Burton next week for a couple of days during the Brewing Industry International Awards (by way of judging at the SIBA craft keg competition) so no doubt I’ll find my way to the Coopers for a spot of study. 

Vermont beer in the Daily Telegraph

I was over in Vermont in July, visiting breweries, meeting great people and drinking fantastic beers. I was there to research a piece on the place and its beers for the Daily Telegraph and it’s published today — so if you want to have a look at what I thought go here. Amidst all the wonderful debates about beer styles that seemed to have simmered into life after this week’s British Guild of Beer Writers beer styles seminar (the latest is here), there seems to be a growing consensus that the American brewing zeitgeist is all about more and more beer styles and that perhaps it’s getting out of hand (to put it in my own mild way). That may be so, but I still believe that the US is one of the most exciting places on earth to drink beer (even though, just like hundreds of micros in the UK doesn’t guarantee 100% faultless beer, I did have a sort of anti-IBU epiphany after one DIPA that was all throat rasp and little else) and this article is my personal love letter to that belief.

Queens Head, Glanwydden

Good grub and a decent drop of ale (Adnams, Great Orme) are righteously available at the Queens Head in the North Wales village of Glanwydden — so if you’re anywhere near you might want to drop in, after reading my review in today’s Daily Telegraph (if I remember rightly my primary school beat Glanwydden school 3-0 when we played them at football when I was a kid. I think I scored a couple — and once you’ve had your fill here a mile away in the village of Penrhynside is the Penrhyn Arms, where beer and cider are drank with studied determination, the grumbling farmer at the bar is my old mate Mark). 


North Wales beers are very much on my mind at the moment as fellow beer writer Tim Hampson and myself are doing a collaborative beer tasting at the Hay Ale and Literature Festival next month. A kind of ‘he says North Wales and he says South Wales’, sort of.  With some readings of Welsh literature — I’ve picked George Borrow on the ales of Llangollen and I might even try a poem in Welsh (or maybe not).

Sheffield Tap review in today’s Telegraph

No sign of Celia Johnson or Trevor Howard, but plenty of fantastic Thornbridge and Bernard beers in today’s DT review of the Sheffield Tap here.

Beer celebration in today’s DT

Last night a contemplation of Adnams at the Anchor in Walberswick, today a stint out fishing in the North Sea (and the weather looks good), but just enough time to say that if you fancy a beer in print then go to today’s DT’s Weekend section, which has a front cover story on the glory that is beer.

The Brunswick Inn, Derby

The Brunswick Inn is one of my favourite pubs and you can see what I think of it in tomorrow’s DT or here; BTW did you know that the city has a Beer King who also performs poetry readings, he even wears a crown and cloak sometimes, making him look like one of those wrestlers from World of Sport when I was a kid — pubs offer everything don’t they? Beer, conviviality, warmth, food, poetry, the chance to raise money for charities, comfort in which to plunge into the pages of a favourite book, I could go on but I think I’ll go down the pub instead.

How not to get lost with the Quarrymen

Write up of the Quarryman’s Rest in today’s DT here, a good old Devon pub where a pint of Otter Ale will be appreciated on a day like today (we’ve got snow!), or you might like to go for a walk in the Dales with this man — not only will he wean you off the GPS and learn how to read maps, but he will also find you a good pub in the evening.

Take a drink with a stuffed baboon

If you’re in and about Winchester and fancy a cracking pub stuffed full of curios (including a stuffed baboon, see pic here) then the Black Boy in Winchester is your man, or read what I think of it in today’s DT.