St Annes Pub Explorations

Travelling a few miles south of Blackpool, I called in to the coastal town of St Annes, with a plan to visit the two current Beer Guide entries.

St Annes was designed as a new town in the late 1800's.  It was once home to the prize-selecting computer ERNIE, which picked Premium Bonds winners.  My dad was always hoping that the 'man from ERNIE' would come knocking on the door, but instead they just occasionally popped to the post office (now a micropub, of course) to send us a cheque for £10.

Arriving early and hungry, as my guest house offered no breakfast, I made a beeline for the local Wetherspoon, tucked in the wide, leafy side-streets.

The Trawl Boat (36-38 Wood Street, St Annes, FY8 5DH - web)

I don't think I need worry too much that I've got nothing exciting to say about this particular branch of the chain.
WhatPub is unusually brief in their description:
"A Wetherspoon pub. Offers a variety of guest ales".

It was here that I twigged there were two pricing tiers for 'Spoons and that I'd been frivolously paying an extra 70p for my breakfast in the Velvet Coaster in Blackpool. 
Just a couple of cups of coffee and my morning fare here - as I sensibly declared it too early for beer.

That would have to wait until, oof...just gone eleven, as I strode into the early opening Number Fifteen...

Number Fifteen at St Annes (42 St Annes Road West, Cleveleys, FY8 1RF - web)
Not another pub with a numerical name?!  Hadn't I had enough of those in Blackpool?
But this one's a good'un, and a regular local award winner.
Despite a frontage that looks like someone's cut out a rectangular portion of a church and stuck it on a high street building, it actually turns out to have once been a branch of Lloyds Bank.

It's quite a stunning place inside, comfy and nicely decorated, tall stylish ceiling and balcony in the front section, Urban Cookie Collective playing in the background.

Longest trek of the weekend to the toilets; best beer range of the weekend.
I was spoilt for choice with plenty of tempting ales at budget friendly prices.

£3.20 for my Moorhouse's 'Crossed Arrows' - a good pint in good condition, and a nice change from Pendle Witches Brew, which is usually the only beer I see from the Burnley brewery.

We'd reached midday, which meant the craft beer place I'd passed on a corner a little earlier would now be open.  So I figured I'd go and check it out...

Hop Shoppe (2-2a Wood Street, St Annes, FY8 1QS - web)
Previously something called the Jazz Emporium, this opened as the Hop Shoppe in 2021.
I'm not sure why the queens head appears in the window on the corner, but other than that the decoration lives up to the name - hops painted on the glass and liberally strung across the ceiling.

More decision-making here, with an enticing beer range including Vocation, Twisted Wheel and Beartown on cask, and the keg selection pictured below.
Resisting the Madagascan Infusion double chocolate imperial stout, I instead settled on a precarious high stool near the door with a Marble/Rivington Cold IPA.

What's a Cold IPA?

Finishing my beer, I aimed to do a little sightseeing, strolling down to the front at St Annes to walk along the lovely traditional pier and the expansive sandy beach, where the tide was well and truly out.

I can see the sea.......oh, hang on, no I can't.

One last Beer Guide entry in St Annes to report on - I called into this one a little later in the day after a trip down to Lytham, being as the Keg N Cask didn't open until 3pm. 

Keg N Cask (17 St Andrews Road West, St Annes, FY8 1SX)
This is another relatively new micro, having converted a one-time post office and opened it's doors in February 2020 (not ideal timing as it turned out).
There were five casks along the bar, two beers from Bradfield, two from Conwy Brewery and a Saltaire 'Blonde'.
I picked the 'Clogwyn Gold', good value at £3.10, then cursed picking the wrong Conwy beer as several locals raved about how good the 'Welsh Pride' was.

Maybe the Keg N Cask would be better appreciated with a crowd inside, but my visit was a bit unremarkable, sat on a high table in an empty room whilst everyone else opted to sun themselves on the outdoor tables.

With that, I declared St Annes 'done' and headed back to Blackpool on the bus.
More punk awaited at Rebellion, more home-brew in the 1887 Brew Room, another long day and late, late night.
How was your holiday?  Exhausting!

Blackpool By Numbers

 

How not to do a pub crawl...
In which I picked the places in Blackpool with numbers-for-names and tried to trek around 'em all.

I didn't even manage to complete the numerical pub name mission - I walked past the No.3 Sports Bar a couple of times on my travels but never crossed the threshold... 

Walk a little further eastbound on Newton Road from No.3 and you'll reach No.4.

No 4 (Layton Road, Blackpool, FY4 8ER - web)
This was previously called the Freemasons Arms, being as the local Masons conducted their first meeting at a pub that stood on this site.

Inside it consists of an L-shaped room with one slightly raised area, the bar also having a back counter to serve a games room to the rear.

'A brilliant range of Cask Marque ales', says their website.
Hmmm, depending on whether you consider Thwaites 'Wainwright' and Ringwood 'Thumper' to be brilliant.
Oh well...the Wainwright was okay, the entertainment - 90's Biggest Video Hits on a mega-size screen, not so much so.
Was Shabba Ranks 'Mr Loverman' really one of the biggest hits of the 90's?
Was it really what I wanted to be listening to on an afternoon pub visit?

Nope.  I finished my beer and crisps and set out to the next pub on the list.

A fairly long walk, thanks to the bus times not quite working out, took me to No.10...

No 10 Alehouse (258 Whitegate Drive, FY3 9JW - web)

This was Blackpool's first micro pub (they're multiplying at a rate of knots now).

Despite it only being 15-minutes after opening time when I arrived, most of the outdoor tables were taken, mainly by what appeared to be a youth football team associated with the pub. 
Someone had the mop and bucket out, cleaning up the first glass fatality of the day.
And the music was pumping - dubious modern pop hits that weren't any better than Shabba.

Not much cask being sold to the young folk, who were missing out on a great range.
Titanic 'Chocolate and Vanilla Stout', Reedy Hallows 'New Zealand Pale', Banks's 'Sunbeam' for the traditionalists.
And my pick, Lancaster Brewery 'Zeus' 4.1%, a light, easy-going, single-hopped ale, served in fine condition.

Local football allegiance

Returning to the centre of town, I headed one street back from the seafront, behind Madame Tussauds and Happy Dayz amusements, onto Bonny Street where you'll find Number 13...

No 13 Bonny Street (13 Bonny Street (funnily enough!), Blackpool, FY1 5AR)
In 2015, when I was here for the football, this pub was called the Pump and Truncheon and was the only entry that wasn't Wetherspoon's on my very short Blackpool real ale pub list.

That previous name came from it's proximity to the police station and law courts, making it a regular haunt of the local constabulary.
After a change of ownership, a refurb, and a name change, it reopened in 2019.

I liked it here - it had a bit of old ale house character, with wooden pillars and floors, pool table and a crowd mainly made up of aging rockers.
Pity none of us could be trusted with glassware though, with all beers being served up in plastic pint pots...

A nice simple choice of Black Sheep, Dark Star or the local one.
I stuck local with my second beer of this trip from Morecambe's Cross Bay Brewery.

Number 13 was almost unlucky for me, as I came close to being clobbered by the door whilst trying to take a photo in the loos.  Which frankly serves me right.

But you don't get pictures of the gent's beer barrel urinals on Blackpool Jane's blog... 

...on second thoughts, maybe you do - she's very thorough.

Just one more numerically named place for me to visit.

Bar 19 serves as an example as to why it pays to use an up-to-date copy of the beer guide.  This was an entry back in the 2019 Guide at the time it was being crowned the Blackpool, Fylde & Wyre CAMRA Pub of the Year.

Bar 19 (19 Queen Street, FY1 1NL)
Crikey, this was really the best in the region three years back?

My picture was taken when the karaoke compere and gang on the nearest table had all stepped outside to smoke.  Bar staff too by the looks of it...

At the back was a raucous family group enjoying some kind of celebration.  Balloons got occasionally burst with a loud bang, scaring the living daylights of the old-boy drinkers.
Tone-deafness was no obstacle as folks took their turns on the karaoke, whilst the chap in charge of it came out with adult-rated between song banter.

Sat with my JW Lees bitter, as someone belted out Rod Stewart's 'Sailing', I felt utterly out of place, thinking to myself that my pub explorations had really hit rock bottom. 

At least I only had to part with £2.30 for a pint of bitter...

Try asking what you can get for £2.30 at the Head of the River back in Oxford.  A packet of crisps, if you're lucky.

I suspect I missed a couple of other Blackpool pubs with numbers for names.
But y'now what? I'd done enough.
Silly idea for a pub crawl anyway.

The Jolly Tars, a Dark Flagon & the Levellers

The first of several posts exploring a bit of the Fylde coast from Cleveleys to Lytham: beaches, piers, amusement arcades; Wetherspoons, micro pubs and punk rock!

I headed to Blackpool for the Rebellion Festival, despite my being the least likely of punk rockers.
Plenty of blurry pictures of noisy bands, but before any of that I set out to make the most of a travel pass and discover what the places up and down the coast had to offer.

Starting with Cleveleys, four miles north of Blackpool...
First stop: Spoons...

The Jolly Tars (154-158 Victoria Road West, Cleveleys, FY5 3NE - web)
This opened in 2011, a conversion of an unremarkable 50's building that was previously a Kwik Save supermarket.

Ooooh...Phoenix 'Wobbly Bob' among'st the guest ales - but it was early doors and I suspected the long day ahead would be seriously derailed by starting on a 6%er.
I stuck instead to the Cross Bay pale ale, 'Halo' - a good pick: plenty of hoppy flavour, smooth, and easy going.

The Jolly Tars is a pleasant Wetherspoon pub, with booths and bookshelves dividing the room and providing cosy corners and homely drinking areas as an alternative to regimented rows of tables. 

And the odd name?  That relates to a family of entertainers called the Jolly Tars Concert Party who would put on shows on Cleveleys prom for the enjoyment of large crowds in the 1920's and 30's.

It was just a couple of minutes walk down the road, toward the sea front, to the town's second current Good Beer Guide entry.

The Shipwreck Brewhouse (53 Victoria Road West, Cleveleys, FY5 1AJ - web)
Rather than the sprawling trad brewpub I was expecting based on the name, this is a bright, cheerful micropub/cafe on the main shopping thoroughfare.

The fine weather had tempted a crowd of mostly tea and coffee drinkers onto the sunny outdoor tables.  Leaving me with a few spots to choose from in the small single room.

I settled down with a pint of 'Karma Citra' from Wigan brewery Wily Fox, Dire Straits 'Romeo and Juliet' playing in the background.
Always trust somewhere that's playing Dire Straits... unless it's 'Money for Nothing'.

The other cask ales, in a line-up of five, were
Rock the Boat 'Fab Four', Ossett 'Blonde', Ossett 'Butterfly', and Wily Fox 'Dark Flagon'.

The two ladies at the next table brought the gent who was with them a bacon butty and a pint of porter, then left him in charge of the dog whilst they popped to the shops.
What would he make of his rum porter, having originally asked if they had Guinness?
"Ahhh, that's nice - might just have another pint of that whilst you're shopping."
"Oh no you won't," he was told in no uncertain terms.

Well, I really had to try the rum porter for myself.  And it was gorgeous.  A lovely sweet, rich boozy porter which gave the impression of being much stronger than its 4.4% ABV.

Moving on from this great little bar, I thought I'd better have a look at the sea whilst I was at Cleveleys.
Past the last shops on Victoria Road where the life-size CHiPs figure caught my eye.
Was it for sale?  And could I get it home on the train?...

It's a very peaceful seafront here, with residential houses looking out onto it; a wide promenade with a few walkers and joggers, and an ice cream van, in stark contrast to the amusement arcades, neon lights, and hustle & bustle just down the coast.

Heading back to Blackpool on the tram it was time to watch some live bands at the festival.
This year Rebellion has expanded to an outdoor stage on the front under the Tower.  An extra venue you could get into with a weekend wristband, whilst also running as a stand-alone event called R-Fest.

On subsequent days for the likes of Gary Numan, the Undertones and Peter Hook, it did get fairly busy.  But on Thursday there was ample room - plenty of space to do a silly jig to Dreadzone's 'Little Britain' whilst pretending it's still 1996.

Hawkwind managed to arrive on stage whilst I'd popped to use the facilities - top marks for the sound system on this stage, as 'Leviation' sounded great in the portaloo.
Getting a more traditional vantage point, I really quite enjoyed the veteran space rockers.
Hawkwind squeeze a lot of psychedelic noodling into a 65-minute set, playing in front of some colourful trippy visuals on a big screen.

Headlining the R-Fest on the first day was The Levellers.   
It's over 30 years since they released 'Leveling the Land', an album that I loved, and which set me off hitch-hiking around the UK in army surplus boots. 
That was my 'crusty' era, traveling to far off places to see bands, a free spirit, roaming the land...at least until I ran out of clean socks and pants and needed to go back to my mum's.

The Levellers are still good fun live today, even if they are a little bit chubbier, play a little bit slower, and are a little bit less incendiary than that first time I saw them at Rock City.

Hmm...it's standing out like a sore thumb that I really hadn't seen much PUNK ROCK yet at this Punk Rock Festival. 
That needed to remedied.  So expect a whole bunch of pictures of bands who look much noisier than the Levellers in the next blog post.
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