No Food at the Inn

After an excellent pub meal, on Saturday night, at the King’s Head in Laxfield, Suffolk, my son and I were to be disappointed the following evening. We were staying at my father’s former bungalow in the Norfolk village of Swanton Morley, and had spent the day sorting through piles of possessions which my parents had accumulated over the course of several decades.

It was never going to be an easy task, and at times we had to be quite ruthless in deciding what to keep and what to dispose of. By late afternoon, we’d had enough for the day. My sister and her two daughters, who had been helping us, also felt the same, and they departed in search of something to eat. Matt and I drove over to the care home to spend some time with dad, and by the time we left, we too were feeling famished.

I knew that the Angel in Swanton Morley does not serve food on Sunday evenings, so instead we decided to head down to Darby’s; the pub at the other end of the village. We sensibly left the car at the bungalow, so I could enjoy a few bevies, and set off down the road on the half-hour walk to Darby’s. I was feeling rather tired after the day’s exertions, so was glad when we reached the pub. I ordered us both a beer and then asked about food. “Sorry”, the barmaid replied, “we’re fully booked.” Well you could have knocked me down with a feather as, apart from two chaps sat at one of  the tables enjoying a meal, plus a group of three lads sat drinking at the bar, there was no-one else in the place.

The time was just after 7.15pm, so I asked surely you can squeeze a couple of hungry customers in. “No, sorry”, was the reply, and with no further word of explanation the girl behind the counter walked off. Cursing for not enquiring about the food before getting the drinks in, we went and sat at one of many vacant tables. I did spot a couple of reserved signs, but they were presumably for later on. Not long afterwards, a family with two children came in. They asked about food, only to be told the same thing; the pub was fully booked. Unlike us, they had not ordered drinks, so did a swift about turn.

We sat and finished our pints, dismayed at the prospect of a walk back in order to pick up the car, so we could drive elsewhere in search of something to eat. Apart from the aforementioned family, on-one else came into the pub; in fact the three lads sitting at the bar left. We too departed, shortly before 8pm.

Matthew thought I was a bit rude by only grunting a half-hearted response to the barmaids farewell “goodnight”, but in truth I was well cheesed off. Now the pub may have had good reason for not serving casual customers on a Bank Holiday Sunday, but from what we saw I very much doubt they were fully booked. I was left wondering as to why people enter the hospitality business when they don’t know the first thing about looking after customers, or how to run a business, for that matter.

The strange thing is I have eaten at Darby’s on several occasions; in fact the last time was in February when the pub was far busier than it was last Sunday. Then, the staff had gone out of their way to squeeze me in at a small table in the restaurant area at the far end of the pub. It would not have taken the kitchen long, last weekend, to have rustled us up a couple of burgers and chips. Not only would they have taken payment for the food, but we would also have stayed for several more rounds of drinks. The same would have been true for the family who were turned away.

I am left wondering as to whether the pub might have changed hands, but there is no evidence to support this idea on either the pub website or CAMRA’s WhatPub. Perhaps we caught the place on a bad day, but it’s not really what one expects on a Bank Holiday Weekend, when there are bound to be more people out and about than usual; some of whom might possibly be looking for something to eat.

Obviously it is up to the people running the business as to whom and what they serve, but you can imagine the same owners bemoaning the fact that trade is slack and no-one uses the pub. The answer is obvious, but until business owners wake up and smell the coffee, and up their game, pubs across the country will continue to lose custom and eventually close.

Footnote: Matt and I walked back to the bungalow, picked up the car and drove into Dereham. We went to a recently built Marston’s pub, called the Greenstone, on the edge of town. The place was heaving, but the staff found us a table, and not long after we were tucking into a fine chicken tikka masala. It wasn’t gourmet food, but it was served piping hot, was well presented and good value for money.

I didn’t have a beer with my meal, as I’d had one earlier and was driving, but the Marston’s beer range looked perfectly acceptable. The following day my sister, who lives locally, told us we were lucky to have got a table, as the pub is usually full. Now contrast that with the first pub we went in that evening, and ask yourselves why?

The King's Head - Laxfield

Over the Bank Holiday weekend I made another trip up to Norfolk, not only to see dad, but also to assist my sister and my two nieces in clearing out my parents’ bungalow. We have found a buyer for the property, as it seems senseless keeping on a place which stands empty for most of the time. Dad’s condition is unfortunately worsening, so there is no chance of him being able to return and live there independently on his own.

The sale of the family home will go towards keeping dad safe and comfortable in the care home, where he has settled in nicely, but  it was still a heart-wrenching couple of days, having to rake through our parents possessions, deciding what to keep and what to dispose of. I travelled up on the Saturday evening, with my son, having first collected him from work, and with an arduous weekend ahead, it seemed a good idea to stop for some sustenance on the journey up.

Where better then than to cross another pub off CAMRA’National Heritage list, and looking at the map, the unspoilt King's Head at Laxfield seemed the ideal stopping off point. The pub might have taken a bit of finding, but this time we had the benefit of my recently acquired Sat Nav, and this device saved countless stops to look at the map and potentially several wrong turns.

The King's Head is also known as the “Low House”, probably on account of its long low profile, which is topped by a thatched roof. It is a timeless, multi-roomed pub, and is one of two hostelries in this attractive, mid-Suffolk village. It takes a bit of finding, as it is tucked away down a narrow lane, at the back of the church, but fortunately modern technology took us straight there.

We arrived, shortly before 8.30 pm and found the car park, and most of the lane outside already full with parked vehicles. Fortunately we managed to squeeze the car in just below the church, and soon discovered the reason for the pub’s popularity; the King's Head was hosting its annual May Bank Holiday Beer Festival. Featuring over 35 Real Ales, Craft Beers and Ciders, together with food and live music, this would have been a great place to spend the evening (or possibly even the weekend), had we not had further to travel. 

The high-backed settle, designed to keep the draughts away.

It seemed that most of the village thought likewise, but as the festival was taking place in the secluded garden, at the rear of the pub, we made our way inside, keen to see for ourselves exactly why the Kings Head had made its way onto CAMRA’s Heritage Pub list. According to the website, “The main room at the King’s Head, features listed high back settles set around a small fireplace.”  The pub also has the added attraction of gravity served beer, which is kept in a small tap room to rear.

We found our way into this room, pausing for a look at the high-backed settle which takes up much of the space, before proceeding to the aforementioned tap room, at the end of the corridor. Here we could see a row of casks racked ready to dispense a range of Adnams beers. We asked about food, only to be told that all tables were booked, but fortunately there was some space in the smoking shelter, out in the yard adjacent to the tap-room.

We grabbed a couple of spare seats then I went off to the serving hatch to order our beers and also our food. As I was driving I opted for the ordinary Adnams Southwold Bitter (NBSS 3). Matt on the other hand, opted for a pint of Adnams Dry- Hop lager. To eat we both went for the steak and ale pie option, served with chips and peas. Service was quick, despite the crowds, and our food arrived promptly. The pies were not “proper” pies, but the steak was juicy and tender, and the gravy filling was suitably thick and tasty. After a two and a half journey, the end part of which was through a series of winding lanes, we were both famished, and our meals were gratefully appreciated.

Whilst we were eating, we could see people coming and going to the beer festival. Entrance was £5 a head, with a wrist-band for re-admittance, and most of the customers seemed to be people in their 20’s or 30’s. It was pleasing to see a significant proportion of them were women; something which soon caught the attention of my twenty-something son; although I confess I gave several of them more than a passing glance as well.

As I said earlier, it would have been nice to have stayed longer. Had we been better prepared, we might have found somewhere to stay in the village for the night, and then made more of our time at the King’s Head, but having found it, and experienced the pub first hand, I know I will be making a return visit sometime in the not too distant future.

Apologies for the quality of some of the photos; particularly the interior shots. My phone doesn’t really do justice to the pub; although in mitigation it is not easy taking photos “on the hoof”, when there are people scattered all around you.

For some proper “professional” photos, take a look here on the Heritage Pubs website, although it must be said, their photographer had the benefit of an empty pub, plus time on his side!

The Demise of the Local Pub Guide

About a week ago, Essex-based beer writer, Justin Mason wrote an interesting piece bemoaning the disappearance of the local beer guide. Once an essential tool when visiting an unfamiliar part of the country, and a vital piece of pre-planning, prior to any trip, whether it be business or pleasure, local pub guides have all but disappeared.

In an attempt to look a little deeper into this, I checked out the CAMRA website, but could find no specific town or county guides listed at all. To be fair, the Campaign has recently launched an excellent series of guides detailing pub walks in popular tourist areas, such as the Lake District, the Peak District, Yorkshire and, surprisingly, London. However, these guides though are aimed at people like me, who enjoy a lengthy walk in the countryside before arriving at the pub, and are not the same as the old-style local guides, which tended to be comprehensive publications, listing all real ale pubs in a specific locality.

There are several reasons for the disappearance of local guides, not least of which is the amount of work involved in their production. The number of boots on the ground needed to carry out surveys of all the pubs in a given area is beyond the reach of many CAMRA branches, and on top of this is the significant amount of man hours necessary to complete the various stages involved with the design and layout. And all of this is BEFORE the guide even goes to print!

Then there is the often horny issue of finance. CAMRA HQ will normally provide a loan, but branches need to submit a proper business plan and then wait for approval. Given the often complex committee structure within CAMRA, this can sometimes take longer than you think, as my CAMRA branch discovered seven years ago.

It doesn’t end there of course, as once your guide arrives back from the printers; you’ve then got to get out there and start selling copies! West Kent CAMRA produced a guide in 2009, in conjunction with two neighbouring branches. It was a massive undertaking, and I’m pretty certain at least one of the editors came close to being divorced by his wife, due to the inordinate amount of time spent on the editing, layout and design of the guide!

On the plus side, the Gateway to Kent Guide won best local CAMRA guide for 2010, but there are still some outstanding accounting issues to be dealt with before a line can finally be drawn under the project, and a number of guides remain unsold. It is highly unlikely that the branch will be producing a follow on, as the will and the drive necessary for such an undertaking just isn’t there.

On the subject of editing, a couple of CAMRA colleagues involved with entering the Good Beer Guide survey information have told me what a thankless and at times soul-destroying process this is. There are considerable variations in the standard of written English used by surveyors, and it is not unusual for what is written to make little sense. Information such as telephone numbers, website addresses, opening times often needs re-checking as well; so remember this next time you’re thumbing through your copy of the GBG, as the guide owes its freshness and appeal to a small handful of unpaid volunteers, rather than the paid staff at St Albans who claim all the credit!

As if the above reasons were not enough, the rise of electronic guides is undoubtedly responsible, more than anything else, for the demise of paper and ink ones. The ease by which virtual or e-guides can be created and distributed, knocks spots of the printed version, and the beauty of electronic guides is they can be updated, without the need for a full re-print.

CAMRA’s WhatPub has probably got the whole e-guide market sewn up now; even though the system, and the associated database, involved a massive amount of work to begin with. However, now WhatPub is up and running, it is easily updated, and is thus far more current than any printed guide – including the GBG, which is surveyed in December and January, before hitting the book shops at the back end of September. It is not uncommon therefore for pub entries to be at least six months out of date by the time it is launched.

Contrast this with WhatPub where, should I find some changes have occurred to one of our local pubs, I can fill in the new details on-line knowing the system will pass then straight to our guide webmaster, who will then update the entry for the pub concerned. Yet again electronic guides win hands down compared to printed versions.

Of course CAMRA doesn’t have a monopoly on pub guides, and other organisations, such as “Which” and the Good Pub Guide publish their own version, usually annually. Brewers, such as Greene King and Whitbread – in the past, have also published guides, but these only featured pubs tied to the company concerned.

I still miss local printed guides though, as there was something special in choosing and ordering one and then waiting for it to arrive. If it was a good guide, and most tended to be, it helped set the scene as to what the visitor could expect. Our own Gateway to Kent Guide contained features on local breweries, cider, hop-picking, brewery history and beer festivals, as well as essential tourist information such as how to reach many of the pubs using public transport, on foot or by cycling. It was also lavishly illustrated with dozens of colour photos of our most striking pubs, scenic views and other items of local interest.

Justin ended his article with a plea for guides which would complement the Good Beer Guide in its championing of real ale. The national guide is, by nature, limited for space, so a series of more local guides could point visitors to other successful pubs which stay the course, and continue to thrive and grow year on year, alongside places which are up and coming. He claimed these guides could direct visitors to the best places today, whilst serving as reference guides for the next generation of drinkers, who, might look back and wonder what all the fuss was about.

Things sometimes end up going full circle, so there may still be a possibility of local guides re-appearing sometime in the future. If they do, they will probably be in electronic form, rather than traditional pen and ink, but at least they will be there pointing people in the right direction to find that elusive combination of the perfect pint in the perfect pub!

Tonbridge Cider Festival 2016

Tonbridge Old Fire Station

As I mentioned in the previous article I popped along to Tonbridge’s Old Fire Station last Sunday afternoon, following a quick look around the Tonbridge Food & Drink Festival which was taking place in the grounds of Tonbridge Castle. To coincide with the event an enterprising group of individuals banded together to run the town’s first ever Cider & Perry Festival, and where better to hold it than Tonbridge's renovated Victorian fire station?

The festival kicked off last Thursday evening, and ran through until late on Sunday afternoon. There were around 40 different ciders and perries on sale; the majority dispensed from either “bag-in-a-box” type containers or the ubiquitous poly-casks. The event was run on similar lines to a CAMRA festival, with tokens in lieu of cash the bar, plus a rather attractive plastic tumbler, with a frosted appearance, which visitors got to keep.

Poly-casks with internal cooling

Although I am no cider buff, I do know a little about this historic old drink, but I have to say I have always been a little wary of both cider and perry. This is chiefly because of their often deceptively high alcoholic strength. Both drinks are packed full of rich mellow flavours, and because most of them are served flat, rather than sparkling, they slip down just that little bit too easily.

As I was on my bike I limited myself to just a couple of halves, but the second of these weighed in at 7% ABV, and went to my head far quicker than I realised. The ones I tried were Oliver’s Perry 5.5%; a medium-sweet perry from Herefordshire, plus the previously mentioned seven percent job - a medium-sweet cider produced by Gwynty Ddraig in Wales. The latter was served on a stall manned by the well-known gentleman who looks after the cider bar at the Tonbridge Juddian’s beer festivals. He is normally dressed the part, complete with an old farmer’s smock and a straw hat!

The extensive list of ciders and perries

He told me that him and the other organisers were pleased with the turnout at the festival, but the thinking was the majority of them were not drinking that much. Consequently, there was a fair amount of stock left, but the un-opened containers could obviously be kept back for another time. Having said that, the photo posted opposite, indicating which ciders and perries were available, does show a lot of “striking outs”, so I think they probably still sold quite a bit.

One of the main festival organisers was Phil Turner of locally-based Turners Cider. Turners is a family business based in the village of Marden, in the Kent Weald, which makes a range of craft ciders in the "Eastern counties" style. For the uninitiated this is cider made from only dessert and culinary apples, rather than the traditional “bitter-sweet” cider apples, used in traditional West Country cider-making counties, such as Devon, Somerset, Hereford and Worcester plus, of course, Wales.

The comment about people not drinking much did make me laugh though, as how many people can neck more than a few pints of 6-7% ciders and still be left standing? I bumped into three friends from CAMRA who, like myself, “just happened to be passing.” After a catch up on what had been happening, I left them to try a few more ciders and perries. They were on foot, whilst I was on two wheels and I wanted to get home in one piece!

"Bag-in-a-box" dispense

It is early days yet, but I imagine the Cider Festival will be repeated, although with perhaps a little less stock. A spokesman for the Old Fire Station,  quoted in the local press, said: “The festival just came out of a conversation we had with Phil Turner and it has turned out to be a really popular event. We’ve found that around 90 per cent of people say they are not actually cider drinkers, but this festival has proved that people do like it once they have had the chance to try it.” This bodes well for the future, although next time I will make sure I arrive and leave by shank’s pony rather than on two wheels.

Tonbridge Old Fire Station is a renovated late Victorian building which, as its name suggests, was formerly the town’s fire station. The last fire engine departed back in 1986, when the Fire & Rescue Service moved to a modern and purpose-built facility on the town’s industrial estate, and now, following extensive renovation work, the iconic building has been given a new lease of life as a multi-purpose venue which can be adapted for a range of different purposes. The philosophy behind the Old Fire Station, is to provide space for a variety of pop-up bars, restaurants and shops; thereby giving businesses which are new to the area the opportunity to trade in the town.

The Old Fire Station is tucked away in the streets behind Tonbridge’s imposing 13th Century castle. There is no website for the building, at present, but it does have its own Facebook page.

Tonbridge Food & Drink Festival

Festival overview

The weekend just gone, saw Tonbridge holding its first ever Food & Drink Festival. The event took place on the lawns of the 12th Century Tonbridge Castle and was designed to showcase some of Kent’s best food producers, alongside items from further afield. The festival was spearheaded by the Tonbridge Town Team; a group established as a result of the Portas Review published in 2011. The team’s aim is to help make Tonbridge a vibrant and exciting place to live, work, visit and do business.

A spokesman for the group said, "The whole thing is about promoting Tonbridge as a great food location. We have this ambition to make Tonbridge like a modern market town." He added that, “Town traders and borough producers were the team's priority, but businesses from throughout the south-east would be invited to ensure there was something for everyone.” The event’s aim was to bring in people from across the district and south-east London to see what Tonbridge has to offer.

The River Medway approaching Town Lock

Like most towns-people, I was pleased to see something positive happening in Tonbridge, as for too long the town has lived in the shadow of its larger and better known neighbour, Tunbridge Wells. I was unable to attend the event until the final day; due to the combination of a busy weekend on the house and garden front, plus a concert by the excellent tribute band, the Counterfeit Stones, which my wife and I attended on the Saturday evening.

Come Sunday afternoon I decided it was time to show my support for the event and take a look at the Festival. Consequently I cycled down to the Castle, after a quick detour along the bank of the River Medway, primarily to take a look at recent improvements carried out around the Town Lock area.

The event was in full swing when I arrived, and was busy; mainly with families. After a quick peruse of the beer tent, and deciding to give it a miss because of the lengthy queue, and plastic glasses, I made my way along the aisles to see what was on offer at the various stalls. Despite the publicity, there didn’t seem to be many local traders present.

Aptly named?

I noticed a large stall selling French Cheeses, a stand titled “Samovar Foods”, selling Russian fayre, albeit made from Kent-grown produce, plus the ubiquitous German Sausage stand, but apart from a stall specialising in home-grown and homemade chilli products, there was nothing which struck me as particularly local, and certainly not Kentish.

I did see a stall selling cider, but the only beer I saw, apart from the bar, was a stand selling bottled beers under the banner, “Giving Good Beer a Bad Name”. With juvenile names such as Old Fart, Grumpy Git, Cat Pee and Big Cock, this  seemed little more than a novelty (and a rather poor one at that), designed to part people from their hard earned cash; although at £4.50 a bottle, the stall unsurprisingly wasn’t doing a lot of business! At least the people behind this were honest with their banner, but gimmicks like this have as much appeal as the poor-taste sexist and xenophobic T-shirts which used to be on sale at GBBF. The company has its own website; which you can check out here, but there is no indication as to who actually brews the beers.

Gatehouse - Tonbridge Castle

With nothing in the way of food and drink to tempt me, and no take-away bottles to persuade me to part with my cash, I headed instead for the nearby Old Fire Station, where there was a separate Cider Festival taking place. Now this was more like it; but to find out more, you will have to wait until the next post.

Footnote: I may have come across as rather churlish and somewhat dismissive of the Tonbridge Food & Drink Festival, but only because we have been spoilt here in Tonbridge by the town’s excellent Farmers’ Market, which takes place on the second Sunday of each month. Here, you will find a much wider range of local produce ranging from organically-raised meat to vodkas flavoured with locally-grown fruit. There is at least one cider stall, plus Sussex brewers, Hepworths, normally have a stall. I usually buy sufficient stock of their excellent bottled Old Ale to see me through the winter, but their entire range of bottles is normally available.

I would imagine that given this is the first such event, the organisers of Tonbridge Food & Drink Festival will have taken note of what worked and what didn’t, and that next year’s event  will see a few changes and an overall  improvement. Full marks though to Tonbridge Town Team for their vision and determination in getting this year’s festival off the ground.

Toad Rock Retreat - Rusthall

It was a disappointing turnout for last Thursday night’s CAMRA social, with just three of us making the trip over to the village of Rusthall, near Tunbridge Wells, for a visit to the recently refurbished Toad Rock Retreat. Later on we were joined by two other members, one of whom lives locally; but it was still a poor show for a branch which can boast over 500 members!  However, the bulk of West Kent CAMRA members who, for whatever reason, couldn’t be bothered to turn out missed a really good evening, in a nice pub whose appeal is added to by its unique setting.

Rusthall is located approximately 2 miles to the west of Tunbridge Wells, in what is really a continuation of Tunbridge Wells Common. Much of the village is hidden among trees and is surrounded by some quite impressive sandstone outcrops. The latter became quite a tourist attraction in Victorian times, when visitors were brought up from the station in coaches or “charabancs” to see the rocky outcrops.

The most famous of these outcrops is the “Toad Rock”, a natural rock formation which looks like a sitting toad, resting on an outcrop of sandstone, and what makes the “Toad Rock” appear even more impressive is its setting in the natural amphitheatre created by the surrounding rocks. The rock formation is not man-made, but was eroded into its current shape by action of both wind and frost during the last Ice Age. The first known record of the rock's name is in a guide published in 1823; although the rock itself was first popularised in a local guide published a decade earlier. The fencing around the rock's base was first installed in 1882 and was renovated in 1993-94.

The Toad Rock

The Toad Rock Retreat is literally just a short hop from the famous rock formation which gives the pub its name, and whilst I have been there on several previous occasions, I hadn’t realised quite how close it is to the main A264 road out of Tunbridge Wells.  The 281bus provides a convenient half-hourly service into Rusthall from the centre of Tunbridge Wells, and just one stop along Rusthall Road is a footpath which leads down to the area known as Denny Bottom, where the Toad Rock is situated.

The Toad Rock Retreat was refurbished at the beginning of 2016, and has taken on a new lease of life under the stewardship of experienced licensees, Nick and Shelley, who were previously in charge of the Dovecote at Capel. I am unsure as to the age of the pub, as it was completely rebuilt, after being destroyed by a disastrous fire in 1998, but it is an attractive-looking building, nevertheless.

The pub was re-constructed in a style which matched the original, and consists of a brick structure, which is part tile-hung. Internally there is a double open-sided wood burning fireplace which separates the spacious main bar area, from a peaceful snug section containing comfy leather seating set around the fireside. There is a dining area to the left, which includes cosy tables lit by fairy lights intertwined around internal branches attached to the walls.

Local scenery

There were three cask beers on sale; Harvey’s Sussex Best, Taylor’s Landlord, plus a slightly unusual guest ale from Hartlepool-based Camerons. Sleeping Brew Tea is a 4.4% amber coloured pale ale, infused with “Sleeping Beauty Green Tea”. This, according to the pump-clip, gives the beer a gentle raspberry and rose taste and aroma. Two of our party tried it; I stuck with the Harvey’s which was in such excellent condition that it stood out as the pint you could drink all evening (NBBS 4).

We spent around two and a half hours at the Toad Rock Retreat, chatting and enjoying the beer. The pub had been quite busy when we arrived, but towards the end of our stay, people (mainly diners), began to drift off. The food on offer looked good, which is no surprise as Nick and Shelley were well-known for providing good fayre at the Dovecote. Nick was genuinely pleased to see us, but it was a shame there were so few in our party. Still, the couple are happy with the way the pub is developing; as are I’m sure the locals, after the period of uncertainty under its previous tenants.

A few of the beers available at the Bedford

We departed just before 10.30pm, this time walking up the aptly named, Harmony Street to the bus stop. We had around half an hour to wait in Tunbridge Wells for our connection back to Tonbridge, so we nipped in the Bedford for a “quick one”. My drink of choice was Pig & Porter, Slow Black Stout, which turned out to be a cracking beer and just right for ending an excellent evening’s supping!

Footnote: There is another part to Rusthall which is distinct from the Victorian era tourist resort created around Toad Rock. The other section lies to the north-west, and is set around Lower Green; the oldest part of the village and said to date from around the 8th century. There are many attractive walks across Rusthall Common, towards either Speldhurst or Southborough; both walks completely avoiding the built-up areas of Tunbridge Wells. 

It is quite easy to get lost around here though; even with the aid of a good map, as my friend Eric and I found out when we were walking the Weald Way, six years ago.

Ideal (for the) Home

My last post, about drinking at home, was an attempt to inject a sense of realism into the argument that enjoying a few beers in the comfort of one’s own house, is one of the main reasons that pubs are dying on their feet.

I don’t wish to go over the ground already covered in that article but instead, as I sit here in front of my computer bashing away at the keys, I want to tell you about the beer I am drinking, and really enjoying. It is a beer which has become my beer of choice for drinking at home, and it may surprise you to learn that it is a well known brand, and one which is becoming much more widely available.

The beer I am talking about is Pilsner Urquell, and it is the world’s first golden lager. It is brewed in the Czech Republic, in the Bohemian city of Plzeň (Pilsen).  In Czech, the company and its beer are known as Plzeňský Prazdroj, but the brand is better known by the German name of Pilsner Urquell.  The words "Prazdroj" and "Urquell" both mean “original source" in their respective languages, and with a history dating back to 1842 Pilsner Urquell really can justify its claim to be as the “Original Pilsner”.

Pilsner Urquell Brewery

In 1840 the burghers of Plzeň had had enough of the dark, cloudy and often inconsistent top-fermented beer, which was pretty much the norm in Bohemia. The city council had already ordered 36 casks of poor quality beer to be dumped, and frustrated by this state of affairs they invested in a new, state-of-the art brewery, the Bürgerbrauerei (Town brewery: Měšťanský pivovar in Czech).

They commissioned a Bavarian brewer called Josef Groll, to develop a better beer for them, using the bottom-fermenting techniques which were common across the border in neighbouring Bavaria. Groll set to work and the beer he came up with was set to revolutionise not just Plzeň and Bohemia, but the whole world. The new beer was first served at markets held to celebrate the feast of Saint Martin, on 11th November 1842. The beer’s eye catching golden colour and clarity was immediately successful, and became the inspiration for more than two-thirds of the beer produced in the world today. In homage to the original, most of these beers use the names pils, pilsner or pilsener.

The beer has an ABV of just 4.4%, but it drinks like one of a much higher strength. A peppery hop bitterness, derived from the prize Saaz hops, is to the fore, but lying underneath is the most delectable toffee maltiness. As well as imparting bags of flavour the malt gives body to the beer. With this sort of combination it really is one of the most satisfying and thirst –quenching beers around.

The prominent maltiness is a direct result of the triple-decoction mashing regime still practiced at Pilsner Urquell. Most continental breweries still employing the decoction mashing system, practice the less intense double-decoction version, and many have now abandoned decoction mashing altogether, in favour of the more energy efficient (but less intense, flavour-wise) infusion mash – as traditionally practiced in the British Isles.

I won’t go into the technicalities of these different systems, but essentially decoction mashing evolved to cope with continental strains of barley and their associated high levels of nitrogen (essentially protein). If used with the simpler infusion mash, the nitrogen would carry over into the finished beer, resulting in unacceptable levels of haze. Pilsner Urquell claim they are one of the few breweries still using this system, and as if this was not enough they still use wort kettles constructed out of traditional copper.

Today, for the moment at least, Pilsner Urquell is owned by global giant SAB Miller, and although the old system of fermentation in open-top wooden vats followed by a long maturation period deep underground in huge, pitch-lined wooden barrels, has long been abandoned in favour of more modern methods, it is still a first class pint.

Most of the major supermarkets run a promotion on Pilsner Urquell from time to time, meaning it is normally possible to pick up a 500ml bottle for around £1.50. This is a real bargain for such an excellent beer, but I hinted above that SAB Miller might not be the owners of the brewery and the brand for much longer.

Yours truly enjoying a beer with Brewmaster Václav Berka

In November 2015 the world’s largest brewer, Anheuser-Busch InBev agreed the terms of its £71bn takeover of SAB Miller, in a deal that will combine the world's two largest beer makers. The deal is still to be approved by regulatory authorities in Europe, the US, China and South Africa, despite the companies agreeing deals to sell several SAB businesses such as Peroni and Grolsch, in order to satisfy competition worries. Pilsner Urquell are reported to be amongst these disposals as well; something which will bode ill for the beer as SAB Miller have proved to be good custodians of this iconic brand, and have invested heavily in both the brewery and the beer.

It really is a case then of watch this space, and keep your fingers crossed that whoever ends up as new owner of Pilsner Urquell leaves well alone, so that beer lovers across the globe can continue to enjoy this pioneering, world classic beer in its present form.