Belgian Blue in Bracknell

On a crisp cold December day I took the chance to visit the Berkshire town of Bracknell, calling in to the two current Good Beer Guide pubs, as well as popping to neighbouring Binfield for a pint of London Pride.

I'd consider I've explored Berkshire reasonably well over the years: completed the Reading Ale Trail; walked the Thames path, taken in the sights of Maidenhead; risked frostbite at the Siren Brewery fifth birthday party during the 'Beast from the East'; even watched Lewis Capaldi at Reading Festival by mistake once.
But I'd never set foot in Bracknell, so off I went on a maiden voyage. 

Bracknell spent most of its existence as a market village before being designated a new town at the end of the 1940's.  Over the years it expanded to incorporate nearby villages, topping 100,000 residents and attracting an impressive roster of tech firms to make this their home.

Hopping off the train at 11:30 on a Saturday morning I strolled through a recently redeveloped busy shopping centre.
Lots of modern buildings...

And underpasses which I needed to navigate to find my way to Wetherspoon's...

Which is housed in one of the few old buildings in town, a grand Tudor manor house next to the ring-road...

Old Manor (Grenville Place, Bracknell, RG12 1BP -web)
It's a bit of a cracker.
There was a choice of various rooms to sit in, two bars, grand old fireplaces, wooden beams and low doorways complete with 'please mind your head' signs.

The real draw is the characterful old hall, surely one of the most impressive rooms in a Wetherspoon pub anywhere in the country.  There's a priests hole beside the fireplace, plus stories of secret tunnels used by highwaymen evading the law - all the kind of stuff I'm a complete sucker for.

Having been a private residence, club and residential hotel in the 20th century, the Old Manor is now a regular Good Beer Guide entry serving the best selection of real ales in the town.
The choice on my visit included two local breweries: Rebellion and Stardust, as well as a blueberry bitter by Coach House Brewery or a Brewsters pale ale.
But I only had eyes for the seasonal Bradfield 'Farmers Belgian Blue', a bit of a rarity round these parts.  Guaranteed to generate small talk with the bar staff about it's unusual colour (more purple than blue).

Mmmmm!

Moving on from the Old Manor, Google told me it was going to be a 25-minute walk to my next destination in the suburbs.  The route took me south of the centre, through a housing estate, across some parkland called 'The Parks', and onto a fantastically named street: Ralphs Ride', where I'd find a new Beer Guide entry...

Newtown Pippin (Ralphs Ride, Harmans Water, Bracknell, RG12 9LR - web)
This is something a bit different: a two-room 1950's flat-roof estate pub.
According to a local news article this was named the worst pub in town a few years ago and had a rotten reputation, before being recently revived by new tenants.

I picked the right hand bar where there were a couple of old boys furrowing their brows over their crosswords, a hi-viz trio on the high tables, and a couple of ladies perusing the laminated menus.

I settled down with a pint of Rebellion 'Overthow' (the other choices being Black Sheep bitter or Youngs 'Special').  A good beer considering no-one else was on the cask and the chap behind the bar took the opportunity to teach his colleague how to pull a pint when I ordered.

I checked the bus times, spotted a local service was due to pass the pub in a few minutes time, and quaffed the last quarter of my pint...  Then decided to take one last picture outside at which point the bus whizzed straight past me.
Oh well, at least some quality chips from Churchills next door fueled a walk back to Bracknell bus station.

Once there I hopped aboard the 150 service for the 20-minute journey to Binfield.   All was quiet in this village on the northern edge of Bracknell, as I ambled down the road on my way to the Victoria Arms.

Victoria Arms (Terrace Road North, Binfield, RG42 5JA - web)

A large central bar has counters looking out into three different drinking areas, the largest being the extension to the right with its beams being home to an impressive display of beer bottles.
Extra TVs had been dotted around to ensure no-one missed England being knocked out the World Cup later in the day.  The clientele mostly seemed to consist of various varieties of blokes from the village, all seeming quite cheery as they got behind Morocco in the afternoon quarter final.
I grabbed a seat by the fireplace and settled to watch the first half of the match, supping a  decent pint of London Pride.  The other cask options were familiar Fullers pub fare: ESB, Hophead and Seafarer.

Loving the bottle collection.

Upon leaving the Victoria, the bus that I aimed to catch didn't materialise.  During a chilly sub-zero wait as the sky began to get dusky I conceded that plans to pop into Wokingham or out into more housing estates to the Canny Man would have to be curtailed today. (I'd promised to get back to Oxford at a sensible hour).

But there was still time for one last pint thanks to a delayed train.
The Market Inn sits handily across the road from the bus and train stations and nowhere near a market.

Market Inn (Station Road, Bracknell, RG12 1HY - web)
This is a one-time Firkin brew-pub, now a Stonegate boozer, offering drinks promo's, good value food, and TVs for the football in every direction. 
Not a great deal of choice on the real ale front...

That'll be a Landlord then.

This pub seemed to be doing a good Saturday afternoon trade, with most tables occupied, leaving me with a choice of sitting conspicuously under one of the TVs or on a bench between the entrance and Christmas tree.
It was never likely to be my favourite pub of the day, but the 'Landlord' was passable and I was comfier sat in here than spending half on an hour on a freezing station platform watching a departure screen.

And just to show I'm not a complete Grinch at this time of year, here's a picture with the Christmas tree in it to bring the post to a close... 

The Kent Pub Tour Continues

 

Sunday brought with it dull grey skies and persistent rain which would stay with us all day long as we continued pub explorations on the eastern side of Kent.
The rotten weather shortened my morning constitutional along the seafront at Margate - I only made it as far as the Gormley statue, just past the harbour arm.

We were happy to see our minibus pull up at 11:30, setting off to transport us the short distance to the town of Sandwich.
Our first stop of the day was at The Mermaid's Locker...

The Mermaid's Locker (8 Cattle Market, Sandwich, CT13 9AF)

From initial impressions outside - a handful of seats under a wet gazebo and a chunky wooden door which took some opening - I expected this to a be a tiny ramshackle micro.
So what a surprise to find it was something completely different. There were three distinct sections within, tables laid out for lunch with reserved signs on them, logs crackling away in an enormous fireplace, and an unusual collection of furniture and curios throughout.

Available on the bar were two brews from Canterbury Ales: 'Winter Gold' or 'The Pardoner's Ale'.  I took a tasty pint of the winter ale on a tour of the pub, checking out the collections of fossils, the trinkets in a display case by the door, and the wall-sized artwork in the back room, the sound-track provided by Jackson Browne playing on a retro hi-fi. 

I ended up settling for a spot stood by the roaring fire, straddling a fine line between drying my coat and setting it alight.

  

It was a short walk around the corner toward the Guildhall to reach our next port of call...

The Red Cow (12 Moat Sole, Sandwich, CT13 9AU)

The town cattle market was once located across the road from the Red Cow, making this the pub of choice for the farmers trading their wares.  The snug once doubled as the cash handling room where deals would be settled, presumably over a pint or two.

The Red Cow proved to be a fine, characterful place: big wooden beams, hops hanging overhead, the comforting smell of an open fire as soon as we opened the front door.

Two rooms either side of the entrance were open-plan with timber frames still in place from walls that would have divided them in the past.  The bar itself was to the rear of the pub, serving up Harvey's 'Sussex Best', Gadd's 'No.5' or Gadd's 'She Sells Shells'. 

I don't think I would have been very comfortable taking a seat in the front room where a couple had become very 'attached' on the sofa.  Their drinks were lasting a long time as they barely came up for air.

Our group drank their last drops of beer, returned glasses to the bar, and boarded the bus for the short trip along the A257 to Canterbury.
Where our first point of call was a brewpub in an impressive setting...

This time, the canoodling couple in my picture are a little less obvious!

Foundry Brewhouse (77 Stour Street, Canterbury, CT1 2NR)
Canterbury Brewers have set up home in part of what was once the Drury & Bigglestone Foundry, who shipped metalwork for railways, lampposts and torpedo's around the country from this site.
The brewery has been based here since 2011, winning awards and drawing in the crowds.

Personally I was put off by the 'Please Wait to be Seated' signs - I waited to be seated quite enough in 2020 and 2021, thank you very much.
I just wish there'd been a drinkers corner next to the bar, allowing me to peruse the pump clips and prop up an old beer barrel, rather than being led through to the barn-like building at the side and seated amongst the Sunday lunch crowd. 

That's not to say the beers weren't enjoyable though - at another time I may have come away with a completely different impression of the Foundry.
Some of our group hung around to eat, whilst a few of us paid our bills and wandered out in search of The Bell & Crown.

The Bell & Crown (10-11 Palace Street, Canterbury, CT1 2DZ)
A pub which looking marvellous outside, with an overhanging tiled second storey, old Trumans Brewery signage and lamps.
And it was wonderful inside too, with a wooden floored L-shaped room, the great feel of a 'proper pub' being helped by the Sunday afternoon folk session in full swing.

Ales on the bar offered a good local choice from Old Dairy, Longman, Canterbury Ales, and Tonbridge Brewery.
In hindsight I maybe should have picked the Old Dairy, whose future is now very uncertain - one of an alarming number of cost-of-living crisis brewery casualties.
As it was I opted for the Tonbridge 'Coppernob', a lovely very drinkable 3.8% session beer.

Darkness descended, the rain became heavier, and it was almost time for us to be homeward-bound.  Just time to get wet making a walk to one final pub of the weekend...

The New Inn (19 Havelock Street, Canterbury, CT1 1NP - web)
Canterbury's 2022 Pub of the Year is a charming small back-street terrace affair, which was somewhere I could have happily settled down for the evening: cosy, good beer, and a live band set up in one corner.

The main bar was as small as a fair few of the micro pubs that we'd visited the previous day, with a conservatory extension to the rear expanding the space.
The keg lines looked mighty tempting, next to Thornbridge, Oakham and Musket beers on cask.  I finished the trip on the dark stuff: Musket Brewery 'Powder Burn', a tasty Kentish stout to send me to sleep on the back seat of the bus on the journey home.

 

As usual big thanks go to those who organised the itinerary and to Tony ("5-minute warning folks - we're moving on") for driving a bunch of tipsy passengers around the pubs of East Kent.  
Cheers! 🍺🚌👍

Little By Little - Kent Micropub Tour Part 2

The previous post left us four pubs into our micro pub explorations of North Kent, ready to see what else we could find between Herne Bay and Margate.
Our next stop, in Birchington-on-Sea, was at the Wheel...

The Wheel Alehouse (60 Station Road, Birchington-on-Sea, CT7 9RA)
This alehouse is nautically themed - ship's wheel in pride of place on the wall, nautical lamps and other bits 'n' bobs dotted around.
A giant flag covering the ceiling and a TV looked rather out of place by the window, set up for the world cup, which I trust no-one was watching as I parked myself on a high stool right in front of it.

On the beer board were two casks (McCanns 'Janet Street Porter' or Isla Vale 'Comet') and three kegs, plus a tempting selection of cans and bottles on a shelf at the side of the room.

What really made this pub was the cheery and chatty locals, who seemed quite entertained by this party of tourists from Oxfordshire invading their previously peaceful micro pub. 
They suggested we add a visit to the Old Bay Alehouse, just down the road, to our itinerary.  So - not wanted to shun a local recommendation - that's where we went to next... 

Old Bay Alehouse (137 Minnis Road, Birchington-on-Sea, CT7 9NS)
This micro opened on the site of an old general store and post office in 2017, a modern L-shaped room with beer barrels stored in a temperature controlled room behind the bar.

Two beers on offer came from opposite ends of the country: Harbour 'Hollow Days' and Swannay 'Scarpa Special'.  But I stuck with the dark local stuff - a Gadds 'Dog Bolter', bringing back memories (or lack of 'em) of youthful days in Firkin brewpubs.

The place was decorated with tropical fruits and flowery garlands, the lady serving us wearing a grass skirt.  It transpired it was her birthday - "Hawaii 5-0", she explained, "it seemed a good idea at the time", she added, not looking fully immersed into party-mode just yet.

We just had time for one more micro before we hit Margate on a Saturday evening. 
Bussing it a short way to Westgate-on-Sea, the Bake & Alehouse was hidden along an alleyway alongside the Carlton cinema...

Bake & Alehouse (21 St Mildred's Road, Westgate-on-Sea, CT8 8RE - web)
This was a contender for most satisfying 'tick' of the weekend, due to the limited opening hours to scupper the midweek visitor...

The Bake & Alehouse is currently using the following opening hours -

Friday (12:00-9:30ish)
Saturday (12:00-9:00ish)
Sunday (12:00-4:00ish)

'ish' added to closing times to potentially scupper evening visitors too.

The Bake & Alehouse was a bustling little place, pretty much full once we'd all piled in.  It's from this point on that things get a little hazy...I have no idea what I ordered from the gaffer who came around taking our drinks orders, there being no bar counter in this pub.

The lack of note-taking is coupled with my poor night-time photography, as demonstrated here as we arrived at Margate's Ales of the Unexpected, after checking into our hotel for the evening.

Ales of the Unexpected (105 Canterbury Road, Margate, CT9 5AX)
This micro, a 10-minute walk from the harbour, just past the train station, is located in a row of shops and was once the local fishmonger.  The front room had some fine bench seating at long tables, assorted pub clutter on a high shelf around the wall, old pump clips on display, and a nice line in world atlas wallpaper.
The bar was located in the back section with beers served straight from the barrel.

The local crowds are out in force for the visit of Prop Up the Bar.

With members of the group electing to take a break from micros and head out to restaurants, it was just five of us who were foolhardy intrepid enough to hatch a plan to travel a few miles to an outlying beer guide tick.

We caught the Loop bus from Margate to suburban Princess Margaret Avenue in Cliftonville, making the short walk to a micro in the middle of a 1960's housing estate.

Have a look at Retired Martin's blog to see what the pub looks like in daylight and the brilliant laughing barrel pub sign which I missed entirely.  Then shake your head in despair at yet more dodgy after-dark photography from me...

The Laughing Barrel (35a Summerfield Road, Cliftonville, CT9 3EZ)
This was once a pretty standard red-brick 60's estate pub called the Northdown, adjacent to a small shopping precinct.  When the pub closed, half of it was converted to a pharmacy, with another section of the ground floor reopening as a micropub in 2018.
There was something I really liked about the Laughing Barrel - maybe just the fact that creating a micro in part of the building had kept a supposedly unviable large estate pub alive.  And the locals seemed a happy bunch.

When one of us mentioned the chippy next door, the chaps at the bar told us it was closing soon so we'd better pop round now & we were welcome to bring our food back to eat in the pub.  So we left Mrs PropUptheBar guarding sofas and drinks, heading to the Palm Bay Fish Bar on a mission.

Beers on offer at the Laughing Barrel came from Wantsum, Parkway, Koomor and North Down breweries, with seven boxed ciders also on offer.
As I'd made the foolhardy switch from beer to cider earlier, I picked the fine Dudda's Tun 'Bone Dry'.

I planned to stop at the Banks Ale House on the way back to town, but this turned out to well and truly shut with the lights off just after 9pm on a Saturday evening.

Instead, we ended up back in Margate in Fez.
We visited this quirkily decorated micro back in 2019 on a Sunday lunchtime.  What a contrast to see it in full swing on Saturday evening - busy, lively and great fun, with a soundtrack of rock 'n' roll standards and classic hits eliciting singalongs and dancing.

Reports that I was involved in some of that singing and dancing are surely fake news!
Although dusting off the cobwebs next morning and trying to remember how much cider I'd drunk, it could just be possible.
Next up, our bus takes us to Sandwich and Canterbury.
Cheers 🍺 

Small Talk - Kent Micropub Tour 2022

It was May 2019 when a contingent from Oxford CAMRA trundled down the M2 to Kent in a minibus on a micropub mission.
And we must have enjoyed ourselves, because we set out to do it all over again this November.

Making good time, we parked the bus in Herne Bay at 12:30, then strolled down the High Street in search of a venue for the first beer of the trip.
And the first micro which we found open was simply called 'The Pub'...

The Pub (73 High Street, Herne Bay, CT6 5LQ - web)
With twelve of us on the weekend trip, we could do a pretty good job of filling the smaller venues.  And by prancing around outside taking a picture, I ensured that I ended up at the back of the queue.
"I'm not used to having a queue", said the landlord.

Queue

Hang on a minute...
Matter-of-fact name; retro hi-fi, draft Time & Tide beers...this was looking very familiar.  We were in a micro called 'The Pub' in Broadstairs in 2019, which now appears to have closed.  Any connection? I'm not sure - with a name like that they're a tough search on the internet.

Furniture comprised of high tables and stools which I couldn't get comfortable on along one side of the room, plus regular tables painted blue with metal canteen-style seating at them.
The blackboard advertised a good selection of Kent ales at £3.50 each, from best bitter to porter.  I opted for Shivering Sands 'Maunsell Bitter', a crisp malty bitter, named after the WW2 forts which were built nearby on the Thames Estuary. 

"Feel free to put some music on", we were told.  I'd just about looked what was behind Dark Side of the Moon before being unceremoniously barged out the way by Tanya, who took charge and selected Led Zep's Houses of the Holy to entertain us during our visit.

Finishing beers at the Pub, we wandered a short distance down the road to The Firkin Frog...

The Firkin Frog (157 Station Road, Herne Bay, CT6 5QA)
Always trust a pub with Firkin in it's name...maybe.
We were welcomed by a great little dog who came to see what all the commotion was about as we traipsed into the bar.  Three handpumps dispensed two beers from Herne brewer Goody alongside a Milestone 'Maid Marion' from Notts.

The comfy front room contained the bar and three tables; guitars decorated the wall of the corridor, which in turn led to a snug that looked a bit like someone's sitting room.

 

The 'Firkin Good', brewed especially for the pub, was a decent enough pint, whilst the Milestone was a bone of contention, returned by one of our group and sampled by a pub local who turned his nose up at it.  I noticed that our judgement on beer quality wasn't quite trusted as it remained on sale with the boss insisting it was a new barrel and should be okay. 

In a day of disappointingly plain WCs, the Firkin Frog won the award for best toilet decor with its saucy seaside postcard smut... 

Mild smut in the gents WC. 

With a schedule to stick to and a minibus that I didn't want to drive off without me, there wasn't quite enough time to explore Herne Bay properly.  I was sorry to miss out on a stroll along the pier.
But I did get a pic of the clock tower in the sunshine - the world's first freestanding clock tower, built in 1837...

Our group headed to a third micro, the Bouncing Barrel. 
As I'd been to the Bouncing Barrel previously, I decided to break ranks, abandoning the micropub theme for half-an-hour to check out the great looking Rose Inn...

The Rose Inn (111 Mortimer Street, Herne Bay, CT6 5ER - web)
This is every bit the proper pub: red cushioned bench seating around the sides of the front room; a fine carpet; award-winning hanging baskets; meat raffle on a Sunday.

So busy was I boldly asking the locals propping up the bar if I could squeeze in and take a picture of the pump clip, that I neglected to get any photo of the pub interior.
It was the kind of pump clip that you can get away with snapping a pic of...

"It's not coming home though, is it?" commented the chap who'd made space for me.
Or is it?!

There were three cask ales in total from Britain's oldest brewery: Shepherd Neame 'Master Brew' and 'Late Red', alongside the football special.
The 'It's Coming Home' was a decent 4.2% golden ale which I thoroughly enjoyed, sat in the back room where the lunchtime World Cup fixture was showing on a big screen. 

We caught up with the rest of the Oxford group at
Parkerville (219 High Street, Herne Bay, CT6 5AD)...

This one-time musical instrument store had a fair few customers for mid Saturday afternoon, from the local ale drinkers to the G&T ladies sat at the bar.

Four cask ales were on offer, all served on gravity from a temperature-controlled room behind the bar: Goachers house bitter, another appearance for Shivering Sands 'Maunsell Bitter', an amber ale from Langton, and a Northdown 'Tidal Moon'. 
The Tidal Moon was advertised as being a port-infused stout, leading us to pick it straight away then complain, nice as it was, that we couldn't taste any port.

As our minibus pulled up outside, orders to drink-up were issued and we departed from Parkerville, on our way to the next stops on the micropub excursion.
More on that in the next post, as we head from Birchington-on-Sea to Cliftonville and the quality of my pictures deteriorates in line with how much Kentish cider I consume.