Exmoor gastropub gets another trophy for the cabinet

The already many-garlanded Masons Arms in Knowstone, Exmoor, has been named Pub of the Year 2010 in the Michelin Eating Out in Pubs guide.

The 13th century inn, with a thatched roof and beamed bar, was originally three cottages built to house the masons as they constructed the village church of St Peter’s.

Chef-owner Mark Dodson spent 12 years as Michel Roux’s head chef at the three Michelin-starred Waterside Inn, Bray-on-Thames.

When the lure of country life proved too strong, Mark and his wife Sarah – who heads the charming front-of-house team – relocated to Devon with their three daughters; achieving a Michelin star for the pub a year later.

Masons Arms website

Is this the beginning of the end for the pubcos?

Media report today that Punch Taverns has called last orders on 300 of its under-performing premises.

Many of the pubs up for sale are expected to remain as licensed premises, although a "significant number" could be turned into housing or shops, PA is reporting. Punch Taverns, which has around 8,000 pubs in total, said the premises to be sold were from its "turnaround" division of struggling businesses.

Camra has already expressed fears that the sale will attract speculators.

Pubs get it in the neck again from the constabulary while the cost-cutting ultra-cheap booze merchant supermarkets don't get a mention

North Devon licensees say police are unfairly blaming them for alcohol-related problems in towns - while the cost-cutting supermarkets avoid similar scrutiny, the Journal reports.

Many landlords blame cheap booze deals at supermarkets for an increase over the past decade in severe drunkenness in the street, particularly among underage drinkers.

But the police are targeting nightspots which offer cheap promotional drinks offers in a new campaign.

Paul Netherton, the assistant chief constable of Devon and Cornwall police, has written thus to licensees: “We will take the strongest action possible against premises where promotions encourage people to drink as much as they like for a nominal fee.”

Under the Licensing Act 2003 police can close premises and seek a review of their licence if they are seen to be contributing to crime and disorder.

Barnstaple nightclub Toko offers various promotions, including three-for-one and 99p a drink offers. But staff at the club say they are extremely responsible licensees. They blame cheap supermarket alcohol for most of the problems.

Steven Ridge, manager of Toko, said: “We have very few incidents here and the vast majority of customers behave well and are simply looking for somewhere to have a good night out.

"We provide a safe environment for this and on the small number of occasions where people have had too much to drink, we will refuse to serve them and offer bottles of water instead and where possible help them get a taxi home.

"Most people, especially during these tough economic times, will drink to excess at home having bought alcohol from a supermarket — and once they are in the club we have to deal with the mess.

"I think this police clamp down is a good idea and hope to work closely with them to promote its success.”

Kevin Constantine, owner of both the Queen’s Tardis Bar and Chinese Whisper’s nightclub in Ilfracombe, also believes cheap supermarket alcohol is to blame.

He said: “You can walk into any supermarket and buy as much cheap alcohol as you like. If someone wants to get drunk they will do so — price doesn’t make any difference. We are currently in the process of putting our prices up and as of next week, when new owners take over, the cheapest pint will be £2.”

Kirsty Cresswell is the manager of Quigley’s Custom House in Bideford where between 4pm and 7pm a pint of lager costs £1.79 and cocktails are on a two-for-one offer.

Kirsty also believes licensing restrictions should apply to supermarkets as well as pubs. She said: “For the price of a pint in Quigley’s you can get six cans of lager at a supermarket — why aren’t they being policed like this?

"The current generation of 18 to 25-year-olds have more of a binge drinking culture than previous years. Most will drink at home, necking a lot of alcohol in a short space of time, then come to us and we are having to turn more and more people away at the door for being too drunk. Our drinks offers are monitored closely by our staff and door men and we support this police clamp down.”

It seems November 1976 was a low point for beer drinkers in Devon...

I blogged here a couple of weeks ago about a fascinating old photograph I found in a 50-year-old book, of a beer brewer in Cornwall, and I went on to speculate about a possible lost golden age of ultra-local ale brewing in the Westcountry, admittedly with scant evidence to bolster my daydreaming.

The book suggested that a thriving beer culture had been wiped out between 1909 and 1959 and replaced by big breweries or nothing at all. The situation then, perhaps, was much worse than it is now, with a number of micro breweries in places like Devon, and new ones starting up all the time (Forge in Hartland, Wizard in Ilfracombe; both making fine beer).

In the same vein, this week I dug out my old paperback copy of Richard Boston's Beer and Skittles, a superb work of journalism about beer and brewing. It was written in the mid-1970s, just as Camra was starting to make noises about the vandalism of our pubs and beer. This was the era when keg lager and keg "bitter" was in the ascendency. Older readers than me might remember something called Watney Red Barrel, perhaps?

In Boston's "pubman's gazetteer", written in November 1976, he says that Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset is "cider country" and "the area as a whole is low in choice as far as beer is concerned." He says Devon does not have a single independent brewery and most of the beer is Courage, Whitbread and Devenish. He says North Devon is "Watney country" and there are few pubs in West Devon because of the influence of the temperence movement there. Some 30 years later, we are clearly far better served with breweries, many of which have been established in the past 10 years or so. We could well be entering a new golden age of local beer...

Boston mentions the Blue Anchor, which I saw in my picture book, and says this: "Geoffrey Richards represents the third generation of his family to brew at the Blue Anchor, which was bought by his grandfather more than 100 years ago. There are two very strong Spingo bitters, as well as special strong brews at Christmas and Easter."

I am delighted, and relieved, to find the following on the Blue Anchor's website:

The Blue Anchor is one of the oldest original Inns in Britain that continues to maintain a working brewery. Dating back to the 15th century, the Inn boasts 600 years of brewing. Originally a monks' rest house, which produced a strong honey based mead, it now produces a variety of 'Spingo Ales' to traditional recipes.  

The Inn still retains its original character and has no slot machines or piped music. However, live music is often performed in the skittle alley or main bars.  A major feature of the Inn, is the large garden to the rear, with its own bar and BBQ.

Landlords Simon and Kim Stone have been custodians of the Inn since 1993 and have sympathetically improved the brewery, kitchen, skittle alley and beer garden without changing the character or appeal of the Inn.

Blue Anchor website

Pub fanatics name their favourite boozers in North Devon and Torridge...

The best pubs in North Devon — according to the votes of local real ale fans — have been revealed in a new guidebook.

The pubs are contained in the Campaign for Real Ale’s Good Beer Guide 2010, which is published today.

There are 19 inns, alehouses and pubs in North Devon and Torridge in the guide, as well as five local breweries.

In Barnstaple, two pubs are singled out for praise: The Panniers, in Boutport Street, and The Rolle Quay Inn, on Rolle Quay.

The Panniers is a popular town centre Wetherspoon’s pub, whose landlord is Alan Young. Camra and Wetherspoon’s have a friendly relationship nationally.

The pub giant gives all new and renewing Camra members £20 worth of real ale vouchers to spend in its pubs.

The St Austell Brewery-owned Rolle Quay, next to the River Yeo, is described as a “spacious, well-run, two bar pub” which is handy for the local rugby and football grounds. The landlord there, Chris Bates, is a previous local Camra Pub of The Year winner.

Camra describes its guide as a “masterpiece of local democracy”, because the entries are chosen by local Camra groups.

The guide states: “We begin with the beer. Not roses round the pub lintel, Turkish carpets, sun-dried tomatoes, drizzled olive oil and the temperature of the oak-aged Chardonnay. The guide is committed to pub architecture, history, food, and creature comforts. But, for us, the beer always comes first.

“It has always been our belief that if a publican looks after the cask beer in the cellar then everything else in the pub — from welcome, through food, to the state of the toilets — are likely to receive the same care.”

In April the North Devon Camra branch announced that the Hunters Inn in Heddon Valley was its pub of the year, closely followed by the Castle Inn, in Combe Martin.

Some pubs have been struggling to survive in recent times, with many landlords complaining that the pub companies which own many pubs are squeezing them with higher rents and “tied” drinks prices far more expensive than normal wholesale costs.

There have also been dramatic changes in the pub industry in the past ten years, with the emergence of “gastro pubs” and the popularity of cheap supermarket alcohol.

Politicians, including North Devon MP Nick Harvey, have called for changes in the law to help save our pubs from decimation.

An unpretentious country pub offers hope

We headed east first, through one of Barnstaple's housing estates, with a fast-setting sun behind us, before wheeling on in to the crepuscular North Devon countryside.

Blocks of flats and prim lawns gave way to sheep-cropped hills, which were greenish then greyish, as a late-summer day turned into an early-autumn night. The thousands of people living in the pub-less housing estate were nowhere to be seen and the country lanes only carried people in motor cars, until we, two pub fanatic outriders, appeared on push bikes, catching flies.

I was keeping a quiet lookout for head-skimming bats, my favourite type, but the only wild beasts on the loose seemed to be unusually-gigantic black birds, which were flying low, indistinct and secretive behind the lowering hedgerows. I thought of a creature I had seen on the Taw estuary earlier that day which looked like a small dinosaur.

For what felt like the first time in months, no rain was falling from the sky. It's uphill as you go north east towards Goodleigh from Barnstaple on the road but the cycling was relatively easy, thanks to the never-ceasing westerly gale which has made the summer months such a joy in the Westcountry this year. My Adam's Ales friend had forgotten to put his lights on his bicycle, so I rode in the rear, illuminating him and the entire road with an unnatural white glow.

His bike was about 30 years younger and £300 more expensive than my old iron horse and he easily sped off on the downhill run. He must have topped 40mph at one point and I feared for his life as he took a sharp right bend without touching his brakes. I cooled it on the corner, having spotted a constabulary vehicle at the junction.

We went to Goodleigh specifically to visit the New Inn, which is listed in this year's Camra Good Beer Guide as a "traditional old village inn" where a "warm welcome" awaits. The New Inn is also know for its good food. So far in this beer odyssey I have been to more town pubs than country pubs, and have, in Barnstaple at least, not been overly pleased with what I have found. Stale corporatism and board room uniformity has infected our public house cultural treasures like woodworm burrows through an old village church.

Like many people, I often turn to the country pub for sanctuary. But the money wizards and pubco vandals, not to mention Taxman, have been playing merry hell with our rural pubs for decades; what good is left? Will places like the Goodleigh local offer any cause for hope?

We put out bikes in the beer garden, wiped the sweat off our faces, and went inside, thirsty as fat men on a merry-go-round. The pub was empty save for a handful of local people, including two well-behaved children, at the bar. The pub did not appear to have been modernised, or "ruined" as I prefer to say, so, like most good old pubs, it was unpretentious and comfortable.

You know you are in a good local when conversations start easily among strangers and the New Inn is that sort of place. There was no fruit machine, jukebox, piped music, or television. The windowframes were made of wood. I felt as if the pub had got to its current state by a long and friendly process of careful and intelligent use by human beings. When I walk in to a McPub I generally get the impression the pub has got to its current state by a brief and ruthless process of careless and shortsighted planning by beancounters emboldened by computer models.

The only small downside was a lack of Devon ale. We drank Cornish Jack, a light, thirst-quenching beer, which is made by Sharp's. This clearly did not fit the "local beer" category, but it was fine, robust, and supremely tasty ale, ideally suited for cyclists and all manner of professional outdoor sportsman. When I went to get the second round, two men were talking about keeping chickens and growing vegetables. If the New Inn was my local, I would be delighted and, more importantly, would make the effort to spend my beer money there.

It is wise to avoid drawing hyperbolic conclusions about the fact that such a very good pub was almost empty on a clear-skied Saturday night in early September; maybe it was just a quiet night. As I later hurtled home through the dark lanes, I hoped the villagers hadn't gone to the Wetherspoon's in Barnstaple, which I knew would be crammed, and which also features, as the vanguard of corporate mediocrity and local dominance, in Camra's Good Beer Guide 2010.

A couple of ales apiece refreshed, and after a discussion about the psychological implications of seeing UFOs, it had been time to leave, with no small sense of reluctance. When we took our pint pots back to the bar, everyone said goodbye.

New Inn, Goodleigh, North Devon

Adam's Ales Rating: 4 out of 5

Drink this: Sharp's Cornish Jack, 3.8%

Wilshaw stumbles on an intriguing suggestion of a "hidden beer history" for the Westcountry...

Leafing through a book called Devon and Cornwall in Pictures, which was published in 1959, I found an interesting photograph of the Blue Anchor Hotel in Helston, Cornwall.

The picture, apparently of a man in an apron in a beer cellar, caught my eye because it gives one viewpoint of how breweries were faring in those counties at that time, a full half a century ago.

The entry from the book, which was published by Odhams Press, London, reads: "Beer brewing as a local craft was once a feature of life throughout the Duchy of Cornwall.

"There are records of many inns which brewed their own beer, and scores of big farmhouses from end to end of the county were similarly self-sufficient.

"During the last 50 years (that is: since 1909) almost all the inns serving home-brewed beer have been taken over by the big breweries or have at least ceased to make their own brews, until now it is said that the only remaining house of its kind is that in which the picture on the left was taken, the Blue Anchor Hotel at Helston.

"The brewer is drawing off a sample from one of the great vats in which the beer is brewed at this old inn."

If this summary is accurate, and I can't be 100% certain it is, then by the early 1960s, say, an entrenched and highly localised beer culture was obliterated in Cornwall. It follows that if it happened there, it probably happened in Devon too. I find this an extraordinary and intriguing suggestion, not least because an entrenched and highly-localised beer culture is my idea of an idyll on planet Earth, which could be splendid for tastebuds and the environment alike.

I, a bitter-drinking northerner by birth, had always been led to believe that this was cider country, which, to some extent, it certainly was, and still is.

But I do very much like the idea of this "hidden history" of beer brewing and I'd really love to find out more. What type of grain did they use? And what about hops? Wild hops? No hops?

Whether or not any of this farmhouse beer was anything but revolting, of course, is another story. But it can't have been much worse than the can of sweet Marston's Pedigree I had last week.

Pub landlord celebrates new boozer - by getting baptised

A pub landlord has marked the start of his new life in Appledore with a baptism in the River Torridge, the North Devon Journal reports.

John Tompkins was baptised by the vicar of St Mary’s Church, Rev John Ewington.

John, a former chartered accountant has, with his business partner, just taken over The Champion of Wales pub in Appledore after moving to North Devon from Sussex.

He said: “I’m new to these parts and have had a bit of a journey in the past year. I was about 70% Christian before but am going the whole hog now.

"I thought the baptism would be a way to celebrate my new life in the village. I’m just over 60 and want to spend the rest of my life doing good things."