I visit a Devon pub with a Thai flavour and the Beer Spill Rule (BSR) is ignored

We cycled home on the footpath next to the River Taw in the late-May dusk with bats circling overhead and moths flickering past our ears. What finer way to end an evening of serious journalism than with a straight empty path unfolding before you at speed under the powerful glare of a bicycle headlight in the North Devon countryside?

And the salty estuary breeze drying the spilled beer on your clothes....

A couple of hours earlier, we had arrived at the George Hotel in Braunton, where it had been a pleasant surprise to find half-a-dozen people who were originally from Thailand standing in the airy bar. In fact, it was a pleasant surprise to find a half-a-dozen people standing at a bar in North Devon on a midweek night, full stop, given some of the "Mary Celeste" alehouses I have visited and walked by during my odyssey in recent months.

But the Thais were workers, not customers; in common with a number of public houses, the George, which dominates a corner on the main road through the centre of Braunton, is heavily marketing its food, in this case, from Thailand, and it has clearly decided to do so as authentically as possible.

And this seems to be the trend at the moment: it's either "traditional English grub" or Asian cooking, and quite often a mixture of the two. (A smartypants - don't know any of them! - would here point out that what we call "Indian" food in England is in fact an English version of some types of Indian food which would be unrecognizable to the majority of the millions of people in that nation. Yes, but so what? My belly is still not convinced that real ale and curry are the best of companions, no matter how "authentic" it is).

I do love the spicy complexities, and subtleties, of Thai food and living in one of the least ethnically-diverse corners of the wild westcountry, it is always good to see and meet people from other countries and cultures. Unfortunately, we had already eaten, so did not sample the menu, although I am told by a reliable source it is good and also includes traditional English dishes, or examples of "fayre", as pubs will insist on calling them.

Apart from the Thai kitchen and bar staff, there were only four other punters and because the George is a big pub, it did feel a bit empty. I ordered a pint of the ubiquitous Tribute (very good) and we played a game of pool.

The George, an elegant inn which was built in 1929, has been recently refurbished. There are cushions on leathery sofas, a large screen showing sport, and those large-stems-in-vases things (you know, twigs and stuff) which seem so popular these days.

The bar room at the corner of the pub still has a pleasantly wooden old-fashioned feel, but there is a certain feeling of the place being modernised. I guess the pub is partly in line with the Victorian pub era, when homely chintz was the order of the day. I love those chaotic-looking Victorian pubs, with their collections of moths in frames and pictures of cricket players sporting handlebar moustaches; few of them have survived the corporate onslaught of the pubcos since the 1960s, even if bad facsimiles seem to be on every high street in the queendom. The men's lavs at the George, however, were pleasingly chipped and tatty, and very RED. I am disappointed to say there were plastic windowframes at the rear of the building.

Every now and then one of the Thai kitchen staff would emerge from the back room and anxiously check the football scores on the big screen. My friend sparked up a conversation; the chef didn't seem to speak much English but he knew which team he wanted to win (I'll give you a clue: they're from Manchester and they win everything).

While my friend and I were deciding once and for all that test cricket was the best sport because it is the most absurd sport, someone accidentally knocked over my friend's almost-full pint. The spiller apologised, not least for soaking me, but then did not offer to buy a replacement.

Now. I could write you 500 words on the finer details of pub culture and behaviour and the rights and wrongs of beer spillage, apologies, replacement pints and so on, but I always thought it was a given that you at least offer to buy a replacement, even if that offer is graciously refused.

But there was no offer. And that's just not cricket.

The George Hotel, Braunton

Adam's Ales rating: 3 out of 5

Drink this: Tribute

A pub with a "reward card"

I hear that Lacey's Ale and Cider House in Bridge Street, Bideford, North Devon, is offering a type of reward card to drinkers of the Country Life microbrewery's real ales (which are brewed by Mr Lacey). I haven't had chance to take part yet myself, or indeed to write about Lacey's, but I understand that the card is stamped each time you buy a pint of the real ale and a certain number of stamps means a reward. This sounds like a splendid idea and should help persuade people to sample the Country Life beers (brewed at the Big Sheep tourist attraction near Bideford) which I have found to be among the best beers I have tasted anywhere; the brews were star performers at the recent Ilfracombe beer festival and are becoming firm favourites at pubs in North Devon.

Landlords go to parliament for a "fair pint"

At a time when a revolt is seething over the MP expenses scandal, it seems appropriate that another system which seems to be designed to benefit distant men and women in suits, rather than local communities, is under the spotlight: the tied pub sector.

The landlord or landlady of a tied pub, of which there are many in North Devon, is in some ways similar to the franchisee of an American fast food chain; they work for a corporation who controls their everyday business from afar, purely for profit.

Yes, a tied landlord might have more freedom than a McDonald's manager to change some aspects of their business, such as decor for example, but, crucially, they cannot buy stock direct from wholesalers. And there is the rub: if you are in charge of a tied house, you are forced to buy your beer via the pubco you work for, who charge you a higher rate, and that will be on top of the "rent" which always seems to be rising well above inflation. And that's before we get on to the "pub" firms who, entirely legally, apply to have pubs demolished or turned in to flats.

Well, the system might seem ludicrous and unfair, but many businesses are like that and remain highly profitable and popular. But the tied sector does not seem to be working. Pubs are closing at record rates. A national institution seems in peril. Landlords are quitting because they can't make a decent living and local people are losing something which should be their birthright, not an optional extra. Not an extra because proper local pubs are much more than businesses; they are community centres, historical gems, nourishment for the soul and icons of English history: they are too precious and imperfect and invaluable (in all senses of that word) to be left to certain decisions by certain philistine corporations.

Publicans, usually a conservative tribe by nature, are so fed up they are planning to take their battle to parliament this week, to meet MPs and lobby for an end to the tie system. Brian Jacobs, a founder member of the Fair Pint Campaign, has said: "For too long the voice of tenants hasn’t been heard at Westminster." Well it will be now, and our luxury-loving MPs should find themselves in a listening frame of mind.

Strange times, but this problem is not a new one. By the mid-1970s, a contemporary book reveals, when the current tied house system was cemented, the number of brewers in the UK had shrank from thousands in the Victorian era to a mere dozens, following the natural business tendency to concentrate, rather than proliferate, variety. This is when the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) (I am not a member) started to fight back. It is only in the past five or ten years that the microbrewery boom has begun to significantly redress the imbalance which had been in favour of the giant brewers and pubcos; I think it is fair to say we are living in the best time for beer for many, many decades, while, paradoxically, many of our pubs are in crisis, for a variety of reasons, not just the pubcos.

Landlords of tied houses in North Devon have told me that they are being squeezed by the pubcos until the bottle corks squeak. Of course, the pubco suits wheeled on to national radio programmes disagree with the complaints and claim they provide the opportunity for landlords to make a decent living, and without taking on 100% of the risk of any business. I'm sure some pub managers do well out of the deal. There is disagreement about how badly tied landlords are paid; they claim it can be £12,000 a year for a 100-hour week, while the pubcos say it is usually more than double that amount, excluding free accommodation at the pub.

Other people connected with the pub trade have told me a fair-enough "shake out" is going on in the industry and some of the landlords who fail will deserve to fail, perhaps a small minority were incompetent, or even lazy, or simply providing a service nobody wanted to use, no matter how much they strained their sinews to succeed. I think it is fair to say we do not have an overall shortage of pubs in England; we do, however, in my ever-growing experience have a shortage of top drawer pubs. 

In the end I find it hard to argue with the landlords who say they should have the choice not to be tied to a pubco's every demand and whim. Why should they? And, after all, when it comes to fairness, and who owes who what, what have the pubcos ever done for us? Yes, I agree with the pubcos when they say they are not the entire cause of the woes of the English pub, but they are hardly the fountains of joy either. There are too many medicore or downright godawful pubs in all corners of the country, and the causes of their unpleasantness might well be many, but I can't remember the last time I went in to a free house that deserved to close.

Good news - fire ravaged pub will re-open.

Good to see that the Hoops Inn at Horns Cross will re-open in June, just weeks after the fire.

The 13th century North Devon thatched country pub was severely damaged by a blaze on March 23.

Well done to our firefighters for their quick and brave work - and good luck to owners Dee and Gerry Goodwin. If you're in that neck of the woods, why not stop by and have a look at the new roof before you have a drink or something to eat. I've not it made it there yet, but it's on my (admittedly long) list...

A modern pub for tourists on a busy roundabout inspires me go loco with commas

At the big roundabout, a sort of traffic island, if you will, there stands the public house Cook Island, which is dedicated to holidaymakers and daytrippers, who we love and hate, don't we?, even though how many of us have never been a holidaymaker?, if you will, where the emphasis is on food, like fish pie with lots of cheese, which people like, I saw them eating it, although I think cheese and fish should not be combined in this reality, it's an opinion, we're allowed them still aren't we?, or did I miss a new law, or a question for Bertrand Russell, or maybe Peter Cook, or a cab driver, or a combination of those people, and children are welcomed with a play area, but children, and I should know, like to use play areas as tactical planning rooms for wider assaults on the adult world, and go in those places like millionaire cigar fiends go in velvet-cloaked airport humidors in balmy south American airports, sunglassed eyes seamy with ruinous missions, maybe we should just lighten up, and maybe stop writing in sentences, let's see how it goes, well, like this, oh, yes, let's keep going a bit more, Cook Island, wasn't it?, and where there is an estate of wooden chalets next door, some of which seemed to be on sale for more than £100,000, which is more than I can afford to spend on a home for my family, like many people, I chortled as I 'tucked in' to my burger, it's always 'tucking in' with food journalists isn't it?, does anyone ever 'tuck in' in real life? apart from at bedtime, when it's vital, particularly in a chilly house, where the ice is inside the windows, a cliche, that once happened to me in my life, to almost misquote Morrissey again, which has happened before during this pub odyssey, so I was 'tucking in' and thinking about these wood palace chalets, and chortling, in a chippy sort of way, and thought is it time for a revolution?, maybe, does my son mind?, no he was plotting in the playroom, he likes throwing knives at the moment, tucking them in to passing innocents, like me, which I do not tolerate at home or in public houses, including in Cook Island, where the building is modern, in my view rather plain, not modernist like stream of consciousness writers, who can get tiresome, if they don't use full stops, people get narked, but anyway, sparking my prejudice against modern pubs, where does it come from, this prejudice?, people are more important than windowframes, you lunatic, although the windowframes didn't seem plastic, phew, I found myself staring, somewhat strangely, in both senses of the word, or maybe more, staring at the main road through a picture of the statue of liberty on the window, again a symbol, in one sense, of revolution, and sipping the Exmoor Ale, which was tasty, correct temperature, and the food was acceptable, and the staff who served it were extremely friendly, if friendliness can be extreme, a terrifying thought, and I started thinking about old Cook swinging around the world, stealing islands, that's what he did, wasn't it?, Cook, or Cookie as he soon became in my mind, as I took a stroll around the chalet estate, old brother Cookie who died 10 years before the storming of the Bastille, you're lucky I'm ending this now, I could go on all night, yes the end comma is deliberate, quite deliberate,

Cook Island, Mullacott Cross, near Ilfracombe, North Devon
Adam's Ale rating: 2 out of 5
Drink this: Exmoor Ale

A beer festival in Ilfracombe

By the time we got to the Ilfracombe beer festival at the twin-chimney Landmark theatre, a high, cool, breeze and spitting rain had sent the stragglers inside, where the bar had already sold 3,600 pints in a weekend.

Charmain Lovett, the festival organiser, poured us each a half of Golden Pig, a tasty product of North Devon’s superb Country Life Brewery. She was jovial — and wearing a crown of leaves from the earlier pagan parade.

The festival had started on Friday last week and when we arrived, late on Monday afternoon, the bar had already sold 50 barrels of beer and the 33 remaining barrels gradually emptied as the day went on. There was a Sunday-ish end-of-the-road feeling to proceedings when we arrived, which continued when we took a stroll around the town to get food; up the hill past the boarded-up social club and the almost-deserted streets.

Because real ale is a "live" product, it does not keep for long, and one of the features of the beer festivals I have been to is that the prices tend to go down towards the end of the event. So, when we arrived all pints were £3. Then, a couple of hours later that were £2. And when we leaving, they were £1. The morning after, I’m not sure my brain was entirely grateful for the ramifications of this price deflation.

Each of the beers we had was singular. An ale called Devonshire, also made by Bideford’s Country Life, had been the most popular beer, Charmaine said. Luckily for me, the Devonshire had all been drunk. Lucky because Devonshire has a challenging alcohol content of 10%.

Instead we had a try of Anniversary Ale, from the Branscombe Vale brewery in Seaton. The notes say it is a "well balanced amber-coloured bitter", which is, I have to say, quite true. I see I have scrawled "a splendid ale" in my notes.

Outside, a handful of people were bravely making the best of the dank weather, including some children on a bouncy castle, which was deflated and taken away while we were inside the Landmark theatre, in a slightly muggy room, listening to a musical folk duo called Fiddlebix.

We each enjoyed a glorious half of Golden Seahawk from the Cotleigh brewery in Wivilescombe while Fiddlebix — man with guitar and woman with fiddle — performed a version of the Dire Straits epic Romeo and Juliet. Then the guitarist said: "I’m going to play another Mongolian tune" and my friend appeared with two halves of Cavalier Ale, made by the Clearwater Brewery. He tasted it and said: "You can tell it’s from Torrington".

Unfortunately it was dark and "the burger man" had gone home when we buffooned out towards the bus stop. My friend fell asleep on the journey home while I was thinking of ways to describe beer that didn’t involve the word "splendid". The next morning, I was again faced with the strange fact that I had drank "only" "about" four pints ("about" eight halves) but felt like a million pain devils were stabbing miniature wands of misery in to the back of my eyeballs. William Blake said the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. Well if the palace of wisdom is a nausea-rocked place of mindless horror at 7am on a weekday, he was, in a way, spot on.