Winter 2015/16 Issue 28 www.soxoncamra.org.uk

Your FREE guide to real ale and pubs in South Oxfordshire

MILLERTHE

OF MANSFIELD • GORING

OPENING TIMESMonday - SaturdayLunch 12 - 2.30 Dinner 6 - 9SundayLunch 12 - 3.30 Supper Club 6 - 8

CAMRA Pub of the Season 201518th Century Coaching Inn with 13 Individual Rooms

Local Discounts & Corporate Rates Apply.

Miller of Mansfield High Street, Goring, RG8 9AW t: 01491 872 829 m: 07702 853 413email: mary.galer@millerofmansfield.comwww.millerofmansfield.com

Miller-of-Mansfield TheMillerofMan

WineDinners 21st January

..with Chef Nick Galer& wine supplier Pierre

to answer questions.

£39.00

Contact Mary for any further enquiries

WeeklyChanging

Lunch Menu2 courses £15.003 courses £17.50Sunday SupperClub £12.50

main course & drink. Nibbles menu now available.

New Years’ EveLocal musician & talent Andy Taylor, Keith & Gordon return tohelp us see in the

New Year.Spaces Limited

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Published every threemonths by the SouthOxfordshire branch ofthe Campaign for RealAle © CAMRA 2016SoxonAle is producedand distributed by

members of the branch in their own time. Views expressed in SoxonAle are not necessarily those of the editor, publisher orof CAMRA.

Edited by:Paul DixonEmail: contact@soxoncamra.org.uk.

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Got a short pint? If you believe that you have been treated unfairly in a pub, club or bar, you should contact the Trading Standards service by writing to them at Oxfordshire Trading Standards, Graham Hill House, Electric Avenue, Ferry Hinksey Rd, Oxford OX2 0BYor call them on 0845 051 0845.

A wide range of consumer information andadvice is also available online from the Consumer Direct website at www.consumerdirect.gov.uk

LOCAL NEWS

All CAMRA branches select a Pub of the Year for entry intothe national championship. Many branches also make otherawards to recognise pub excellence: SOX is no exception.Four times a year we make a Pub of the Season award; thewinner being selected by Branch members at an open meet-ing. So the Autumn Pub of the Season 2015 is the Packhorse,Mapledurham. If you’ve not been in the Packhorse, it’s a fineold rambling pub on the A4074 just north of Chazey Heath. (Toconfuse non-locals there’s another pub nearby, also on theA4074, called the Pack Saddle!)

Since 2011 the Packhorse hasbeen leased from the Maple-durham estate by the Brunning &Price/Home Counties chain of pubrestaurants and since then hasdemonstrated a firm commitmentto quality cask ales. The generalmanager is Sarah Livesey who hasworked in the restaurant trade fornearly twenty years, joining thePackhorse in 2008. Helping Sarahlook after the cellar and the alesare deputy manager Tom Mead,assistant manager Rick White andsupervisor James Wren.

The pub has four pumps with only one a permanent fixture,usually Loddon’s Hoppit. The other three often change by thecask with the pub sourcing its ales from a variety of breweries,micro-breweries and distributors from all over the country.They’ve had ales from as far as Scotland and Cornwall as wellas more local, familiar beers. It’s sometimes a case of blinkand you’ll miss the brew! There’s good eating to be had in thePackhorse. Food is available all day, every day. The menu isdesigned in-house by head chef Carlos, and changes every sixweeks.

The Packhorse holds regular food and drink events. It fact thePub of the Season award was presented to Sarah at the pub'sbi-monthly ‘Meet the Brewer/Distiller’ evening. This was aparticularly appropriate event because the evening’s talk wasgiven by Chris Hearn of Loddon brewery. Chris is a very ex-

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CAMRA, the Campaign forReal Ale is an independent,voluntary organisation campaigning for real ale,community pubs and consumer rights.

Sarah Livesey receiving theaward for Pub of the Season for the Packhorse

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m: 07702 853 413

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perienced brewer and a fine speaker and hekept a packed bar enthralled for over twohours as we enjoyed a tutored tasting sessionof Loddon’s main beers.

Chris started Loddon in 2002, just around thetime when progressive beer duty was intro-duced. This suddenly made brewery start-upsa much less risky proposition and has directlyresulted in the explosion in the number of UKbreweries. One of Loddon’s first beers, Hoppitat 3.5%ABV, was introduced to compete directly with Brakspear’s Bitter and remainsLoddon’s top seller. Hoppit was the first beer wesampled at the Packhorse. The others were:

Reading Bitter (3.7%ABV), a recent beer featuring two new pilot hop varieties.Hullabaloo best bitter (4.2%ABV) uses Fuggles, Goldings and Cascade hops. Ferryman’s Gold (4.4% ABV). This is Loddon’s best-selling bottled beer and second biggest

seller in cask. It uses Slovenian Stryian Golding hops which impart a zesty lime flavour, andthe mix of Cara malt and wheat malt give a smooth, creamy body to the beer. Bamboozle (4.8%ABV) is a strong pale ale, heavily hopped with English Goldings. Russet (4.5%ABV) is red beer brewed with barley, wheat, oats and crystal rye and hopped

with Fuggles and Styrian Goldings. Finally, the heavy hitter – Forbury Lion (5.5%ABV), a real IPA.

One interesting point made by Chris (among many) was that the yeast that Loddon uses wasobtained over 12 years ago from Bedford brewer Charles Wells. But over the intervening years,as it continually reproduced, the yeast has mutated and is now unique to Loddon.

Moving on to pub news ..... In the summer edition of SoxonAle we commented on Didcot’sdeteriorating pub situation and noted how under-pubbed it has become. Well, since thenthere have been several developments, mostly not good:

Planning permission to demolish the Sprat and replace it with housing was granted wellover a year ago. Since then the pub stayed open, thoughin an almost comical state of disrepair. Then at the endof October it was demolished. Our photo (left) catchesit part-way through its death throes.

During the summer a planning application was submit-ted, and approved, to demolish the Crown; again to bereplaced with housing. This time the end came morequickly. Coincidentally, or not, it was demolished at the

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Local News - continued

Chris Hearn of Loddon Brewery

same time as the Sprat. The SoxonAle photographer wasjust too late: by the time he got there it had already beenflattened (right).

The Wallingford Arms remains closed, with a sign encouraging someone to come along and take it on.Since it’s been allowed to fall into a similar state of decayas the Crown and Sprat and occupies a large plot in thecentre of town, it would not be surprising to see it suffertheir fate.

Broadways has been put on the market by the owners, Enterprise Inns. At the time ofwriting it remains unsold. Hopefully, when a purchaser does appear they will put some investment into what is a fine building, positioned in a prime town centre site.

Didcot now has six open pubs, in a town with a population approaching 30,000 and set torise still further. That’s a ratio of 5000 residents per pub. In comparison, there are 48,000pubs serving the UK’s population of 60 million – one pub to 1250 people! Quite how a pros-perous and rapidly expanding town managed to get into such a dire position is a bit of amystery! Not all bad news for Didcot though. Greene King recently sold

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Local News - continued

Continued on page 6

Henley’s all-year-round pub on the river.

Mulled wine, Fabulous Sunday roasts, local Hambleden Gameand classic home-cooked dishes.

Don’t miss our whisky tastings, the Shanty Man or our regular livemusic events. We have ample seating throughout the pub.

Please check our web site for events and menus or call for details.

the Ladygrove to Marston, who have refurbished it and opened it as part of its ‘GenerousGeorge’ chain. The formula remains largely unchanged: a family-friendly pub with a strongemphasis on food. On a recent visit an impressive six real ales were available, all of coursefrom the Marston stable. One unusual thing of note is the huge armchair that sits outsidethe main entrance.

Good news elsewhere in South Oxfordshire: the Half Moon, Cuxham, has reopened. Thepub has been bought by Vaska Battley and her business partner Artur Foltah. They’ve redecorated and installed a pizza oven, but otherwise left it pretty much as it was. The foodwill have an Italian theme, including pasta dishes and salads. SoxonAle readers will recall thatthe Half Moon was closed by the previous owner, Brakspear, over a year ago. It is an Assetof Community Value (ACV), which meant that the villagers had six months to raise themoney to buy it before Brakspear could put it on the open market. After a valiant effort thevillagers managed to raise only £90k of the £350k asking price.

What? More good news? In the last SoxonAle we reported that the owner of the Lamb,Satwell, had applied for planning permission to turn it into a dwelling. Happily, South Oxfordshire District Council (SODC) refused it. We await further developments.

The Greyhound, Whitchurch, has a new landlord. Nick Baker has many years’ experiencein the licensed trade, most recently running a pub in Basingstoke. He has redecorated andthe pub reopened in October with around 100 people celebrating its new look. Again, SoxonAle regulars will recall that the owner, Punch Taverns, had put this pub up for salelast year advertising its ‘residential and commercial’ potential. Whitchurch Parish Councilapplied to register the Greyhound as an ACV, which would have restricted the pub owner’sability to change its use. However, the application was rejected by SODC on the groundsthat there is another pub nearby.

Peter and Helen Bland recently retired from theMaltster’s Arms, Rotherfield Greys, afterrunning the pub for an impressive 17 years. The new team is George Thomas (previouslymanager of the Unicorn, Kingwood Common) and Calum Miller.

In a break with tradition (i.e. the ever-present threat of pub closure) South Oxfordshire hasa brand-new pub: the Milton Gate, part of the Harvester chain. It is sited right next to thebusy Milton interchange on the A34, presumably to attract hungry travellers. Somewhat unusually for a Harvesters it sells real ale – on a recent visit Doombar and Brakspear OxfordGold were available.

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Local News - continued

The SOX Branch holds a meeting on the first Wednesday of each month and a socialevening on the third Thursday. We vary the venues to cover as much of the Branch’s(quite extensive) territory. For news and events take a look at the Branch website:www.soxoncamra.org.uk. Alternatively email us at contact@soxoncamra.org.uk.

NATIONAL NEWS

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CASK ALE SALES IS THE FASTEST GROWING SECTOR OF THE BEER MARKETThis year’s Cask Report – how pubs can profit from cask is supported by Cask Marque, CAMRAand many of the country’s brewers and pubcos. It finds that cask ale is in sustained volumegrowth, significantly outperforming the on-trade beer market. According to the author PeteBrown, cask is forecast to hit 20% of on-trade beer by 2020, hugely significant when beeraccounts for 64% of the average pub’s wet sales.

Cask ale gives people want they from pubs – a premium experience that can’t be replicatedat home. Cask ale drinkers visit the pub twice as often as the average person. Cask drinkerssee the quality and selection of cask ales as a reflection of the overall quality of the pub. Andreal ale drinkers are keeping pubs’ tills ringing: the cask ale drinker spends £967 a year inpubs, almost double the average person’s spend. However, the report recognises that peoplehave a range of leisure experiences to choose from and are going to the pub less. But whenpeople do go to the pub, they’re looking for something they can’t get at home or from thesupermarket. Cask ale can’t be replicated at home, so it’s part of the less frequent but morevalued pub experience for a growing number of people.

THE BENEFITS OF BEING AN ASSET OF COMMUNITY VALUENew CAMRA research in England has found that pubsbenefit from being listed as an Asset of CommunityValue (ACV). More than nine out of ten licensees ofACV-listed pubs said they wanted a window sticker touse the status to attract new customers and increasetrade. In addition, more than four out of five licenseesof ACV-listed pubs believe it has benefited them. People prize their local being listed too and are morelikely to feel loyal to their pub and use it regularly. Andnow pubs can show their listing by displaying CAMRA’sThis Pub Matters sticker.

There’s an article later in the magazine that explainsACVs and lists South Oxfordshire’s protected pubs.

WHITE SHIELD’S BACK!Good news for fans of the great White Shield IPA. Burton on Trent’s Worthington breweryhas been idle for 18 months but is now to reopen under a new owner. Molson Coors in-stalled the equipment in 2010 but has now sold it to Planning Solutions (PSL), the companywhich operates the National Brewery Centre museum on the site. PSL’s acquisition meansa return to brewing for former Bass brewer Steve Wellington, famed for saving the iconic,bottle-conditioned Worthington White Shield. Wellington will once again be brewing bothWhite Shield and Red Shield under licence from Molson Coors. Here’s hoping we see itback on sale pretty soon!

TOP 16 PUBS REVEALEDCAMRA has named the top 16 pubs in the country and one will go on to be its National Pubof the Year, announced in February. The 16 include rural, town and city-centre pubs, andare as follows:

CENTRAL SOUTHERN Rising Sun, Berkhamsted, HertsEAST ANGLIA White Horse, Sweffling, SuffolkEAST MIDLANDS Old Poets Corner, Ashover, DerbysGREATER LONDON One Inn the Wood, Petts Wood, OrpingtonGREATER MANCHESTER Crown and Kettle, Manchester City CentreKENT Yard of Ale, BroadstairsMERSEYSIDE Cricketers Arms, St HelensNORTH EAST Steamboat, South ShieldsSOUTH WEST Sandford Park Alehouse, Cheltenham, GloucsSCOTLAND and NI Stockbridge Tap, Stockbridge, EdinburghSURREY Surrey Oaks, NewdigateWALES Bunch of Grapes, PontypriddWESSEX Plough Inn, Little London, HantsWEST MIDLANDS Hail to the Ale, WolverhamptonWEST PENNINES Drovers’ Rest, CarlisleYORKSHIRE Kelham Island Tavern, Sheffield

NOTTINGHAM’S ROBIN HOOD - FROM ALMOST OUT TO CHAMP IN 18MONTHSA Nottingham pub which was derelict 18 months ago has been named National Cider Pubof the Year. The Robin Hood and Little John dates back to 1750. Closed in 2013, the pubwas reopened in 2014 through a partnership between Hucknall’s Lincoln Green BrewingCompany and Leicestershire’s Everards brewery. Since reopening under the managementof Mark and Lorraine Swain, the pub has won Nottingham branch’s Pub of the Year 2015 aswell as being named the East Midlands champion and the region’s Cider Pub of the Year.The pub has become famed for its eight ciders and perries which are always from smallerproducers.

How often have we heard from pubcos ‘this pub isn’t viable and has to close, to be a convenience store/housing/whatever’? Here’s clear evidence that with the right tenants apub can revived and come from nothing to a champion in only a few months!

A BUSINESS DEAL BEYOND HUMAN COMPREHENSIONAfter the usual ‘will they, won’t they’ dance, the world’s largest brewer AB InBev has hadits offer accepted for the global number two, SABMiller.

National News - continued

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Continued on page 11

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Wising all of our valued customers

a very happyChristmas

The ArgyllPub & Kitchen

Come and visit our famous pubwhere two episodes of the tv

series ‘Midsomer Murders’ havebeen filmed. Join our friendly localsfor a drink or enjoy a fantastic meal.

On offer is top quality homecooked food, including rib eye andsirloin steaks, old English sausageand mash along with homemadevegetarian options, sea bass andtraditional fish and chips. Sunday

roasts are a specialty.

The Argyll Public House 15 Market Place, Henley-on-Thames, RG9 2AA.

For bookings call: 01491 573 400www.theargyllhenley.co.uk The Argyll Pub & Kitchen

Keen pub quizzers will know that SABMiller started in 1886 when Charles Glass began mak-ing Castle beer for South African miners. It became the biggest brewery in South Africa, butplans to expand overseas were scuppered by the trading restrictions imposed during theapartheid era. However, in the 1990s apartheid ended and the company started buying upoverseas rivals and moved its headquarters to London. Among others it bought Grolsch,Foster’s and the Miller Brewing Company.

AB InBev was formed in 2008 by the merger of Annheuser-Busch (the US maker of Bud-weiser) and InBev, itself a merger of Belgium’s Interbrew (owner of Stella Artois) and AMBevthe Brazilian maker of Brahma.

The deal is not expected to have any immediate impact on UK real ale brewing since neitherfirm produces cask-conditioned beer here. But it’s interesting just to consider the enormousnumbers involved. Together, the two companies are worth something like £275bn. Themerger is the biggest in UK stock market history and means, if successful, that one in threebeers drunk in the world will be made by the new company. This leaves the next largest,Heineken, trailing with a paltry 10% of world sales.

How all this will pan out is anybody’s guess - huge mergers often come unstuck eventually.And there is a definite desire in many parts of the world for something better than anonymous over-priced watery lager.

GREENE KING – BIG IN CHINAWhen Chinese president Xi Jinping visitedthe UK last month, David Cameron invitedhim out to the Plough at Cadsden in Buck-inghamshire for a quiet pint – presumably infront of several hundred press photogra-phers. But the contrived photo-op had anunexpected consequence. Cameron’sfavourite beer is, we are led to believe,Greene King IPA. The picture of Xi drinkingit appeared across China and resulted in anexplosion in the demand for anythingbranded Greene King. Normally around6,000 bottles of IPA are imported into Chinaeach month - at least 80,000 bottles areplanned for next month.

National News - continued

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The Lord of Misrule is the main character in medieval Christmas celebrations. Wearing a papercrown and motley garments, for his appointed time the Lord of Misrule turned the ordinary ruleson their head. His role was to organise and encourage others to subvert the accepted ordersand let off steam. This led to all sorts of goings-on, including over-indulgence in what was, andremains, the national beverage.

While mostly known as a British holiday custom, like a lot of things the Lord of Misrule can be tracedback to Roman times. The winter solstice was celebrated by Roman as the ‘festival of the birth ofthe unconquered sun’. During the feast of Saturnalia from the 17th - 23rd December a prototypeLord of Misrule was appointed who represented the god Saturn. During this time the ordinary rulesof life were turned upside down as masters served their slaves and slaves held offices of state. Militarydiscipline slackened and laws and the government were ridiculed. This upset of accepted norms included gender-reversal too as many men went around dressed as women.

In later Roman and medieval times the Lord of Misrule is a figure of fun and no more than that. Butin the early years of the empire Roman soldiers would choose a man from among them to be theLord of Misrule for thirty days. At the end of that time his throat was cut on the altar of Saturn.

In the medieval and Tudor period the Twelve Days of Christmas actually began on ChristmasDay and went on to the 6th of January (the origin our tradition now of taking the decorationsdown on that day). The season began with the appointment of the Lord of Misrule. This Lordwas generally a peasant, appointed by the local parish. He led the celebrations and presided overlarge drinking parties and feasting, including the Feast of Fools.

THE LORD OF MISRULE

The Lord of Misrule

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There were variations between places and across time - another format for the Lord of Misrulerevolved around Twelfth Night Cake which was eaten during the festivities on the Twelfth Nightof Christmas. A dried pea or bean was baked in the cake and whoever got it was king or queenfor the night. There are records of this practice going back to the court of Edward II in the early1300s. In wealthy households the bean was sometimes a silver ring or small crown. The firstcoins used were a silver farthing or penny. After WW1 it became a three-penny bit and then asilver sixpence. The person who found the bean became the Lord of Misrule and presided overthe banquet. At midnight, the Lord of Misrule's reign ended and the world returned to normal.

The Lord of Misrule is mentioned a number of times by contemporary documents referring toboth revels at court and among the ordinary people. At court, the Lord of Misrule mocked theking and ‘ruled’ in his place for 12 days. At the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas his rule cameto an end and the King resumed his duties. After the death of Edward VI in 1553, the Englishcourt ceased to appoint a Lord of Misrule. When Mary I came to power, she reinstated the tradition but Elizabeth I abolished it again.

As the early modern era drew to a close the Lord of Misrule disappeared along with his riotousbehaviour (well, to a degree anyway!) and we moved into the Victorian Christmas that we essentially celebrate today. But echoes of these earlier days persist. For instance it is the customin the Royal Navy for officers to serve Christmas dinner to the ratings. And let’s face it, manyBritish men are only too keen to go to a party dressed as a woman!

Paul Dixon

Traditional Family Run Village PubFour Cask Marque Beers

Award Winning Restaurant7 Station Road, Lower Shiplake,

Henley on Thames, Oxon. RG9 3NYTel: 01189 403332

enquiries@thebaskerville.com www.thebaskerville.com

Although in SOX we tend to look east to the capital for our crawls, the lovely city of Bath is equallyaccessible by train. We had been thinking about a pub crawl around Bath for a while when, during ourannual visit to the Great British Beer Festival, we got chatting with David Carter, a CAMRA memberand Bath resident. We kept in touch and after extensive planning and consultation came up with aplan. The city has a wide range of interesting pubs most of which are very close to the railway station.

So it was that on the second weekend in November a motivated, and thirsty, group kicked-off at theBath Brew House, the local CAMRA branch’s City Pub of the Year in 2015. This was previously theMidland Hotel but was converted in 2013 with the James Street Brewery inside the pub behind a glassscreen. Anna, the brewer, organises twice-daily brewery tours for £5 and brew days for £60, includinglunch. The bar had a pleasing seven real ale hand pumps and another four top pressure. Four in-housebeers were available on our visit: Big Red, 4.5% ABV; Emperor pale ale, 4.4% ABV; Ostiarous porter5.7% ABV; and Escape which was described as pina colada flavoured. We tried a sample and most ofus agreed that the smell was indeed reminiscent of pina colada but the taste was much less sweet andprobably not for us. The Ostarous porter was a great porter with lovely chocolate and coffee flavour.(Ostarous was the Latin name for servant or guard posted at the entrance of a building.) Also availablewere: Pendulum Pale 3.8% ABV from nearby Castle Combe brewery; Neigh from Aylesbury’s AnimalBrewing Co, a pale lemon and lime and tropical fruit brew; and Visual 4.4% ABV Amber. Food is avail-able here, including locally produced spit-roasted chicken and sharing platters.

Our second pub was a short walk away: the Griffin Inn in Beauford Square, a Grade II listed buildingwhich has been given a very modern feel. Electric Beers’ Infrared 4.2% ABV, Elemental and MoorBeer of Bristol’s Nor’hop 4.1% ABV were on the hand pumps with a further ten top pressure includingMeantime Stout 5.7% ABV.

A short trot from the Griffin was number three: the Garrick’s Head (top of opposite page) in StJohn's Road and which is described as a theatre pub, reputed to be haunted and originally the townhouse of Beau Nash, Bath’s 18th century master of ceremonies. On offer was Gaucho Ale from the

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Beers around Bath

Twisted Brew Company, Otter Head (sadly gone off during our visit), and Garrick’s Head 4.5% ABVmade for the pub by Stonehenge Brewery. Artisan peanuts, crisps, wasabi peas and pork scratchingswere displayed in glass jars to accompany the beer.

Another short walk took us to our fourth pub of the crawl:the Raven in Queen St which is where local CAMRA repDavid Carter joined us together with some other friendsfrom Bristol. This 18th century freehouse was voted CAMRACity Pub of the Year in 2010 and has been in every Good BeerGuide since 2006. Selling their own Raven at 4.7% ABV,Raven Gold 4% ABV, Tournament 4% ABV, plus 30.8 a milkstout at 4.5% ABV, Native Storm 4.4% ABV, and Resin DelBelgica 5.7% ABV. Four draught ciders were also on tap. Thepub is well known for its large range of Pieminster pies, artisan ploughmans, and sausages.

Number five was the Salamander (left), a very busy pub a mere 30metres from the Raven in John St. The Salamander is a Bath Ales pubselling their Festivity Porter 5% ABV, Bounders 6% ABV cider, Barnsley 4.5% ABV, Spa 3.7% ABV, Conversation 3.6% ABV and thewell-known Gem, 4.1% ABV. There is a separate dining room onthe first floor, which continues the tradition of being Bath’s oldestSteak and Chop House.

At this point, the rain was really closing in and we were consideringmissing out the Star Inn, but local guide David Carter persuaded usotherwise. Good advice, since the 16th century Star Inn is a throwback to traditional pubs where conversation and beer rule.Bellringer 4.2% ABV, Jail Ale 4.8% ABV and Porter 4.3% ABV sithappily in a bar alongside Thatcher’s Cheddar Valley. They are proudto have no games machines, no TV, and no food choices to distractyou from the excellent range on offer. Chatting to a couple of localsnear the bar they mentioned that for the World Cup they were per-mitted to bring in a small TV, but that was a rare event. And neither

of them looked at all unhappy about it. This is a pub where, as we did, striking up a conversation witha lady from New Zealand is a normal and happy event and new faces are as welcome as the localswho love this pub.

As is usually the way with an extended crawl, the group split with some going off to check out theItalian restaurants and another off-piste pub, whilst we pressed on to what proved to be the final pub,the Coeur De Lion in Northumberland Place. Four hand pumps offered Brewer’s Gold 4%ABV, Bell-ringer 4.2%ABV, HDS 5%ABV and Cotswold Way. Sadly the weather was getting worse, so we de-cided to finish to our crawl at this point.

We made our way back to the station for a happy journey home, knowing that the Huntsman, Graze Bar and others would be waiting for us for another day.

David and Janet Humphrey

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Beers around Bath

We’ve talked about micropubs before in the pages of SoxonAle. They are the back-to-basics pubs thathave appeared in a former butcher’s shop, pet grooming parlour and even undertakers. The businessmodel demands that fixed operating costs are kept to a minimum, so this requires small low-rentpremises with no restaurant and none of the associated waiting and kitchen staff that require payingeven when there are no customers in. Just a bar selling real ale and cider and maybe a few snacks.

The first British micropub opened in east Kent in 2005 after the licensing law was amended to makeit simpler to sell alcohol. The Butcher’s Arms near Herne Bay, housed in a former butcher’s shop,showed what could be done with a small (4.3m × 3.6m) room, a landlord that loved ale and a back-to-basics desire for conviviality and community. Martyn Hillier had the insight to start this revolutionand he was named CAMRA’s campaigner of the year for 2015 for his work launching the MicropubAssociation and encouraging beer lovers to open small pubs in empty premises.

Growth is such that there are now around 200 micros which have since spread from their originalhome territory in Kent and now exist as far north as Northumbria, across into Lancashire, in Walesand the West Country. There are even two in the home of brewing, Burton upon Trent, which is notexactly short of traditional pubs.

The reality ....Kent is the birthplace of the recent phenomenon that is the micropub and now has over 20 with morebeing opened. Many of these can be easily reached by train or bus and a tour of some the best can be un-dertaken in a day using Canterbury or one of the towns of Thanet as a base. What follows is a record of arecent tour starting and ending in Canterbury and taking in Deal, Minster-in-Thanet, Herne and Whitstable.

Just Reproach, 14 King Street, Deal, CT14 6HXDeal can be easily reached by train travelling either via Dover or Ramsgate and this small family-runmicro-pub is a short walk from the station. It has a welcoming, convivial atmosphere which encouragesconversation between customers. Four ales are on offer, usually from Kent breweries, alongside ciderfrom the Kent Cider Company, wines and soft drinks. With its high benches and table service, the pubtakes everything back to the absolute fundamentals: no keg, no spirits, no fruit machines and no music.Fines are levied for using a mobile phone. Snacks include pork pies and some unusual local cheeseswith home-made pickled onions. Dogs and children welcome. It is believed that the owner Mark Robson has also acquired premises in Northgate Canterbury and will be opening his second micro-pub called the "Thomas Tallis" - if so, this will be Canterbury's first micropub.

Hair of the Dog, 73 High Street, Minster-in-Thanet, Ramsgate, CT12 4ABReturning from Deal by train may require change in Minster and gives you the opportunity to visit oneof the few micropubs in a village location. This is a suitably named conversion - the premises had pre-viously been a hairdressers! Bright décor and furnishings incorporate a lot of recycled wood. Beersand ciders are served on gravity dispense from a cooled room accessed via a door behind the smallbar counter. Return to the station and travel by train to Sturry.

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Micropubs, the beginning

Butchers Arms, 29A Herne Street, Herne, CT6 7HLThe remaining pubs can all be easily reached from the number6 Canterbury 'Triangle' bus - be sure to purchase a multiplejourney ticket. Catch the number 6 from just north of Surrystation to Herne Church; the stop is opposite the pub. This isthe prototype micropub which is also reputedly the smallestfree house in England, and a true gem. Once a butcher's shop,it still has the original chopping tables with hooks and otherimplements. There is seating for ten customers and standing

room for about 20 - the compact drinking area ensures lively banter. An ever-changing variety of guestbeers are offered and customers can buy beer to take home. The pub has won five CAMRA awardsand was the East Kent Pub of the Year in 2009. Arrive early to get a seat!

Tankerton Arms, 139B Tankerton Road, Tankerton, CT5 2AWAlso on the number 6 bus route this micropub is situated among Tanker-ton's small shops. The single roomed ‘Tank’ is lined with high wooden tables which encourage good conversation among customers. Mobilephones are banned! The walls are adorned with hop bines and picturesfeaturing Thames sailing barges and the sea forts. Food is restricted to localAshmore cheeses and Scotch eggs from the butcher's shop opposite.

Black Dog, 66 High Street, Whitstable, CT5 1BBWhitstable is a 20 minute walk or a short bus ride from Tankerton and theBlack Dog is on the High St. The interiorcould be described as Victorian gothic and Continued on page 18

has many interesting features and artefacts around the walls. The five handpumps on the bar counterare for decoration only, though they do show the beers available which are gravity-dispensed fromthe cooled cellar room. Food is limited to Scotch eggs and pies from local producers.

Handsome Sam, 3 Canterbury Road, Whitstable, CT5 4HJA short walk south of the Black Dog this pub is named after the owner's cat whichdied exactly four years before the pub’s opening in November 2014. It is oftenreferred to as the ‘Dead Cat’, much to the owner’s dismay. The high-ceilingedroom retains some original beams. High tables, bench seats and stools providethe seating, and hops adorn the two front bay windows. There is a temperature-controlled cellar room, the Beer Tent, from which beers and cider are dispensedby gravity. There is always a pale/light ale, a copper ale and a stronger one, as well

as local ciders including fruit-flavoured ones. Return to the stop opposite the Black Dog for a bus toCanterbury.

This is a small sample of the thriving micropub scene in East Kent and many more can be easily reachedin a day by bus and train. Plan your timings carefully; many have restricted hours, particularly on a Sunday.

Hugh Steele

The future? South Oxfordshire’sfirst micropub is on its way!At the time of writing, a planning application has been submitted to SODC for South Oxfordshire’sfirst micropub, in Wallingford. The decision is due in mid-December. Provided it is successful and thepremises license is agreed the pub will open in March, skipping dry-January and quiet-February.

This will be a partnership between two local chaps, Sam Smith and Rob McGregor. Any readers whohave been in the Bear, North Moreton, will know Sam who has worked there for seven years. Thisis a great grounding for learning how to handle real ale and which beers are popular. Rob has alsoworked in many pubs and bars, and he's also been a BBQ chef for a pig-roasting company. So bothpartners have plenty of experience working at the sharp end of the licensed trade.

The pub will be on Castle Street next to Wallingford Castle, so appropriately it will be called theKeep. A keep is 'used as a refuge of last resort should the rest of the castle fall to an adversary.' Samlikes the fact that a keep is where you cram all your settlers in to one small place and this is what heand Rob plan to do, plus selling them beer at the same time! The pub will be only a minute’s walkfrom Wallingford market place, opposite the Lamb Arcade. It has been a failed retail property for yearsso this is a chance to revitalise an area of the town that gone off the radar.

Sam’s favourite brewery is XT, whose XT3 and XT4 have always proved extremely popular in theBear. Their pump clips are simple but have a very positive effect on customers at they enter. Beersfrom West Berkshire, Loose Cannon and Marlow Brewery will feature regularly. But the partners aimis to get as many different brewers in as they can. The Keep will also sell a range of craft beers thatwill constantly rotate just like guest beers. Eventually they aim to have 4-6 beers on at once; but thatdepends on sales, so to start with there may only have a couple. They plan to sell bottled lagers suchas Boston and Brooklyn, together with wine. Food may be an option in later months but they want toget settled and make sure the beer is kept at its best, so to start with there will only be light snacks.

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Micropubs, the beginning - Continued

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BRINGING THE PUB BACKThe Queen’s Head has been restored to its glorious self as a British Pub & Kitchen at the heart

of Crowmarsh Gifford, a short walk from Wallingford and The Thames, and easily accessible fromthe A4074 by car. Enjoy fresh British seasonal food, a superb choice of wine from around the worldand an enviable selection of well-kept ales boasting London Pride and Gale’s HSB and particular

favourites and guests from Fullers and further afield.”

PUB OPENING TIMES: Mon-Thurs 12:00 – 23:00, Fri & Sat 12:00 – 00:00, Sun 12:00 – 22:30SERVING FOOD: 12-3 and 5-9 Mon – Fri & 12-9 Sat & 12-8 Sun

72 The Street, Crowmarsh Gifford, Near Wallingford, Oxon OX10 8ERTel: 01491 839857 | talktous@queensheadcrowmarsh.pub | www.queensheadcrowmarsh.co.uk

If you fancy a weekend away somewhere, drinking beer, you can do a lot worse than hop on theShuttle and drive across to Belgium. Flanders is barely an hour from Calais and is home to manybeery delights, all within easy reach. Being close to the border with France, the town of Poperingeis a good spot for a base and a favourite with Brits. It is in the centre of a hop-growing area and hasthe added advantage of holding a two-day beer festival at the end of October. So a crack team ofSOX beer-hounds travelled over there to see what it’s all about. (Incidentally, an essential purchasebefore you go is the top guide book Good Beer Guide Belgium by Tim Webb. This is published byCAMRA and can be bought through the CAMRA website.)

The best place to drink and stay in Poperinge is the Paix, situated in the square in the centre oftown. The menu has over 100 beers. The first one to go for is Hommelbier from the van Eeckebrewery, just down the road in Watou. This is, of course, a hoppy beer, very well-balanced and at7.5%ABV deceptively strong. The Paix has an excellent restaurant too. So we filled up there on theThursday evening and the next day took the train to Bruges.

Bruges is a very popular tourist destination, probably one of the most-visited cities in Europe. Thereare a number of bars well worth visiting and, although pretty full, they tend to be off the conven-tional tourist route. Brugs Beertje is a real gem and where the idea for the Good Beer Guide Belgiumwas hatched back in 1985. The Garre is pretty tricky to find – it’s located down a small and unre-markable alley. But the effort is repaid by the excellent house beer. We finished in the Niew Mu-seum. This place has a well-deserved reputation for its steaks and enormous rack of ribs, cookedover an open fire in the restaurant area. I had an excellent bottled beer, clearly a small productionrun since the label was hand-written. It turned out that the guy cooking the ribs is also an aspiringbrewer and it was one of his!

The plan was to visit the Poperinge beer festival on Saturday, the day after the Bruges expedition.Mindful of the need to pace ourselves we first of all took a short trip to Westvleteren, one of the sixBelgian Trappist breweries. You can drink beer in the cafe there and enjoy a simple excellent lunch.The monks haven’t bought into the market economy: if the brewery shop has some beer in stockyou can buy a six-pack. If they haven’t, then you go away empty-handed.

British beer festivals are usually run by an organisation (say, CAMRA) which buys in a range of alesand sells them out of what is effectively a single bar. A couple of years ago SoxonAle carried a de-tailed report of the Munich Oktoberfest and noted that half a dozen breweries each ran their own(immense!) bar selling only their beer. The Poperinge beer festival operates on a similar principle,

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Poperinge beer festival

though on a much smaller scale. This being the 20th festival it had moved to larger premises (possi-bly a leisure centre, just off the main square) and had 26 breweries represented each selling its ownbeer, and there was of course no real ale. The strength was mostly around 6-8% ABV, with a few inthe 10-12% ABV for real hard cases. The previously mentioned van Eecke brewery was there and Iguess the others were mostly micro-breweries; anyway, I’d never heard of most of them! The placewas pretty much at capacity, and judging by the accents a fair proportion were Brits. I particularlyliked the Dunekin blond – mainly because of the spaced-out hare on the pump-clip.

Sunday was for returning home, so after a bit of shopping we drove to Iepres (Ypres, or Wipers ifyou prefer) for beef carbonnade and a reviving beer to sustain us on the journey.

Paul Dixon

Assets of Community ValueSome people are saying that the war to re-establish real ale’s pre-eminence is effectivelywon and that the battle has shifted towards fighting to make sure that there’s somewhereto drink it, i.e. to resist pub closures. There may be an element of truth in this, though itnever pays to get complacent: so-called ‘craft’ beer is frequently just keg beer with morehops and a cool-looking pump clip. But undoubtedly the threat to pubs is a real and presentdanger.

Along with many other CAMRA branch magazines, SoxonAle bangs on about Assets of Com-munity Value (ACV) quite a lot. Why is this? Well, the Localism Act 2011 created the Community Right to Bid. This gives eligible organisations like Town and Parish Councils alongwith other defined community groups, such as CAMRA branches or a group of 21 local in-dividuals, the opportunity to nominate an asset such as building or land, which they believeto be important to the community. If accepted it is listed by the Local Authority as an ACV.

When a listed asset comes up for sale or leasethe ACV Regulations provide for a delay in thesale process to allow local community groupsto prepare and make a bid for it on the openmarket. This does not apply where a pub issold as a going concern, i.e. where it continuesto operate as a pub. The Regulations do notgive the community group any rights otherthan to delay the sale so it can prepare a bid;it is not entitled to preferential treatment inthe sale process once the six months are up.To be considered as an ACV it must be shownthat current or recent use of the asset furthersthe social wellbeing or social interests of thelocal community.

The benefits are that this can lead to major de-lays in the owner completing sale, be of con-cern to finance provider(s), increase holdingcosts, delay development and extend the timea site is vacant. These factors may deter someowners from attempting to close or changethe use of the pub.

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Assets of Community Value

Even better, since April 2015 additional measures have been introduced that require planning permission to be granted for any change of use or demolition of a public house registeredas an ACV. This covers change of use to a shop, restaurant or café as well as demolition ofthe building. This is another big step forward since many pubs have been lost because ofthe loophole that previously allowed a pub to be turned into a supermarket with no planningrequired at all.

But it doesn’t stop there. The new rules introduced by Government set down further obli-gations for owners/developers of pubs not listed as an ACV. A written request must nowbe submitted to the local authority prior to carrying out any development (such as convertingit to a convenience store) to determine whether the building has been the subject of anACV nomination. This forces the owner to write to the council stating his intentions andrisking local community groups finding out and nominating it as an ACV.

CAMRA is taking a very active role in en-couraging any group to nominate pubs asan ACV. Anyone interested in doing socan contact their local CAMRA branchor email CAMRA directly atacv@camra.org.uk. Currently over 800pubs are protected and the target is3000 by the end of 2016. At the time ofwriting there are 20 pubs in the SOXarea that have ACV protection: aboutone in six pubs. Your Branch is activelypursuing the nomination of certain pubs,but most of these have been madethrough the quickest and easiest route ofnomination by the local Parish Council.

Three applications have been rejectedso far. The Four Horseshoes, Check-endon, because the pub had not tradedfor 22 months prior to the application.The Queens Arms, Goring: In this casethe pub had not traded for 19 monthsprior to the application, plus there are

other pubs within walking distance. The Greyhound, Whitchurch, because, as noted in theLocal News section, the Ferryboat is so close.

If we seriously want to keep developers’ hands off our pubs (and we do!) we need to stayvigilant. Communities have never been in such an advantageous position and we must beready to use the tools we have been given.

Town NameBenson CrownBenson Three HorseshoesBerrick Salome ChequersBinfield Heath Bottle & GlassBlewbury Red LionBrightwell-cum-Sotwell Red LionChilton Rose & CrownClifton Hampden PloughCrays Pond White LionCuxham Half MoonDorchester Fleur de LysEwelme Shepherds HutGreat Milton BullLong Wittenham PloughLong Wittenham Vine & SpiceLower Shiplake BaskervilleNorth Moreton Bear at HomeSouth Stoke Perch & PikeUpton George & DragonWhitchurch Hill Sun

Pubs in the SOX area that have ACV protection