Those of you who thought we'd seen the last of Salisbury are going to be disappointed, although some of you might relish a final look at the city. But before returning one last time to the second largest settlement in Wiltshire I first want to tell you about a real gem of a pub I discovered, when I arrived back in London.  On the train back from Salisbury, I had been flicking through What Pub, the comprehensive, CAMRA hosted guide to every pub and bar in the United Kingdom. I was looking for something a little bit out of the ordinary that wasn’t too far away from where my train home woul ..read more

Continuing the account of my recent visit to Salisbury, you left me, in the previous post, at the legendary Wyndham Arms, the original home of the Hop Back brewery. Capacity constraints at the pub led to the brewery relocating to an industrial unit in Downton, just to the south of Salisbury, in 1992. This left the Wyndham Arms free to concentrating on serving Hop Back beers at their best, to beer lovers from both near and far, drawn to this pleasant, back street local, just a short walk from the centre of Salisbury.  I had planned on a bite to eat at the Wyndham Arms but looking on the p ..read more

As many of you will probably have gathered, I've been spending some of the free time between my part time job and family commitments along with working on house and garden projects. Every now and then I like to take a trip out somewhere further afield, although the furthest I've managed this year, was a visit to the Black Country. However, if you've read the posts I wrote, you'll know it was one of the best trips so far as classic pubs, good beer and equally good company are concerned, that I've enjoyed for a long time. I've been meaning to travel further north with perhaps a visit to Leeds o ..read more

Earlier in the week I finally finished reading Cask - the story of Britain’s Unique Beer Culture. Researched and written by top beer writer Des de Moor, and published by CAMRA Books – hardly surprising, given its subject matter, Des’s book sets out to be the definitive work on the complex subject that is cask conditioned ale. Along the way the author takes a look at the ingredients and brewing processes that go into the beer which CAMRA likes to describe as, the “pinnacle of the Brewers art,” along with the cellar practices associated with looking after it. That latter statement is rather a b ..read more

In this second installment about the pubs, I was happy to regard as a “local,” we start off with the house move I referred to in the previous post. That relocation took place in 1985 and was a move from the county town of Kent to Tonbridge a smaller market town in the south west of the county. I’d been working in the town since late 1979, which was just a few months after moving to Maidstone, because it hadn’t taken me long to discover the high cost of commuting daily from Maidstone into London. After moving to the capital in March 1978, I secured a position with Hedges & Butler who, at t ..read more

Back in February I reviewed one of the best books I have read about pubs, for a long, long time. This followed The Local – A History of the English Pub, researched and written by historian Paul Jennings, finding its way into my Christmas stocking. Author, Paul Jennings is a history tutor at the University of Bradford, and his book deserves to be recognised as one of the best, and most accurate volumes on the unique institution that is the English Pub. Rather than repeat what I wrote just a few months ago, I will refer you back to that review, so you can make your own minds up on the claims I ..read more

Last Friday I made my second visit to the coast this month, to the appropriately named Bexhill-on-Sea. I’d spent a considerable amount of time the previous evening, mulling over where to go on my Pub Friday day out. The intention was to visit a pub on CAMRA’s National Historic Pub Inventory and working on the basis of easily reached by public transport and having an historic or characterful interior worth seeing, I’d drawn up a short list of eight pubs, in destinations as diverse as Dulwich, Beckenham Junction, Chelsfield, Crawley and Bexhill-on-Sea. I opted for the latter seaside town, wit ..read more

It’s been over two months since my last cross-country ramble, and to say I was getting itchy feet would be an understatement. Incessant rain and waterlogged fields, both of which would have made cross-country walking perhaps not quite impossible, but certainly down right miserable, finally came to an end as the calendar changed into April. So last Friday, after a week and a half of dry weather, it was finally time to dust off my trusty walking boots, wrap up warm and head off out, back on the trail. The trail concerned is the Tunbridge Wells Circular Walk (TWCW), a 26-mile footpath encompass ..read more

So, just a couple of posts after my disclosure that I wasn’t a massive fan of Cellar Head beers, news broke that the company, had ceased trading, with immediate effect, and would be going into administration. Founders Chris & Julia McKenzie posted the news on social media, thanking their team, their supporters and everyone who, over the years, had bought a pint of Cellar Head over the years, or spent time with the team at the brewery tap room. According to the statement the pair put out, they had spent time over the past few weeks trying to find a buyer for the business, but whilst there ..read more

I’ve been having a bit of a clear out of my beer stash recently, and as reported in a previous pot unearthed a bottle of Sam Smith’s Yorkshire Stingo. I also uncovered another of Humphrey’s beers, in the form of a bottle of Winter Welcome which, despite being nearly six months past its BBE date, still drank exceptionally well.There will probably be a write-up later about this seasonal winter special, but for now I want to describe a couple of craft beers that I picked up on last autumn’s cruise, in Cagliari – capital of the large Mediterranean island of Sardinia.   On a blisteringly hot ..read more