Posts Tagged ‘Greene King’

Evening Pub Crawl of Lewes – Part 3

Dec 9th, 2009 | Author: The Beeralist

This is the third post in a series featuring a pub crawl that Jon and I undertook recently around Lewes in East Sussex. It features the last couple of pubs we visited – the Lewes Arms and the Brewers Arms. You can visit the previous two posts:

The Volunteer and the Elephant & Castle

Back across the river bridge and then to the right we came to the Volunteer on Eastgate Street.

It’s an attractive welcoming pub, but was selling just Sharp’s Doom Bar and St Austell Tribute. These are both fine beers but we decided we hadn’t come to Lewes to drink cornish beers so we decided to press on.

Next potential stop was the Elephant & Castle up the hill on White Hill. We decided that this pub didn’t look that inviting and as time we short we passed on that one too.

Retracing our steps slightly and then up a side street we came to the Lewes Arms.

The Lewes Arms (Backstory)

The Lewes Arms in Mount Place has some notoriety in that it was the setting for an extraordinary boycott some years ago by the regulars. At the time the pub was a Greene King pub and like every pub in Lewes it stocked Harvey’s Best. GK went through a stage a while ago of purging their pubs of all but their own beers and the Lewes Arms was no exception.

Only here the locals didn’t take too kindly to it and organised a campaign to get GK to change their minds. When Greene King wouldn’t, the boycott was born. All the regulars stayed away and the pub was apparently deserted most nights. I believe Greene King tried all kinds of tricks to convince people that the boycott wasn’t really working – including bussing staff in for quizzes etc from towns nearby.

Eventually though GK threw in the towel and began stocking Harvey’s Best again. After a while GK sold the pub to Fuller’s and now the Harvey’s Best rubs shoulders with London Pride and the other Chiswick-brewed regulars.

In retrospect Greene King argument that Harvey’s pubs tended to stock only Harvey’s beers and that they were only doing the same was a fair one. It is interesting now that the Royal Oak in Borough which is Harvey’s only London pub always carries one beer from the Fuller’s range – usually (but not always) the seasonal guest. It is rumoured that this is a reciprocal arragement for the Lewes Arms carrying Harvey’s Best but that was denied recently by the landlord of the Royal Oak. Incidentally the Fuller’s pints in the Royal Oak are always on top form.

In another recent move many GK pubs now regularly carry guest beers from other breweries – most notably in my experience the Fulflood Arms and the Green Man in Winchester which seem to stock hardly any GK beers. Perhaps GK learned from the Lewes Arms experience – perhaps the two occurences are unrelated.

Anyway I hear you cry, what is the Lewes Arms really like?

The Lewes Arms (Review)

This was my first trip to the Lewes Arms and I really had no idea what to expect. It’s located on a small backstreet and is quite a tiny pub inside. It reminded Jon and I of the Charles Lamb near Angel tube station in London – a larger room with small areas off.

The pub seems friendly and we weren’t treated like outsiders at all. The barstaff were chatty and the atmosphere overall was very good.

Inside the Lewes Arms, Lewes, East Sussex

Beer-wise the selection reflects the Fuller’s ownership plus of course the Harvey’s Best’ Disappointingly the Gales HSB (one of my favourites) was lack-lustre and I thought the Red Fox to be not much good either. Ironically the best pint here was the Harvey’s Best but that wasn’t superb either.

It was a shame that such a nice pub should be let down by the beer quality.

After some hasty but tasty chips in the street from the chippy opposite the Lewes Arms, Jon and I headed off for our last pub of the evening – the Brewers Arms.

The Brewers Arms

The Brewers Arms in High Street, close to Lewes Castle, is quite large when you get inside and has two distinct halves – a subdued dimly lit front bar and a lively bright back bar.

We had no stranger-phobia that you get in some places and the barstaff were very friendly and efficient. They even let me take away a Harvey’s glass for a contribution to their charity box so I’ll always be well disposed to the pub.

The Brewers Arms is advertised as a true free-house and the selection was quite eclectic. I tried a Hammerpot brewery beer (forget which one – oops) which was OK but the Harvey’s Best was very, very good. And so that beer bookended our trip to Lewes. All that was left was our synchronised dash to the station to pick up the train back to London.

A Summary

Our evening in Lewes was great fun despite the rather gloomy October weather. The pubs on a map don’t seem very concentrated but Lewes is quite a small town and it doesn’t take long to get between them. Lewes itself looks interesting and is worth a visit for more than just the beer.

There’s a map of our Lewes Pub Crawl here.

Other Winchester Gems

Sep 4th, 2009 | Author: The Beeralist

On my recent pub crawl round Winchester I managed to visit most of my favourite pubs in the city. However it’s just impossible to fit in all the good ones in an evening as they’re so spread out so some of them got missed.

This post mentions the ones that I didn’t get to but that in my view are still worth a visit.

The Fulflood Arms

A recent addition to my Winchester favourites, the Fulflood Arms is situated in Cheriton Road on the west side of the station – ie away from the town centre. I believe it’s been refurbished fairly recently and it’s now a friendly, welcoming pub in a residential street.

The Fulflood Arms is a Greene King pub, but like the Green Man on Southgate Street you wouldn’t guess that from the eclectic beer selection. I’ve seen Triple FFF, Itchen Valley, Cheriton and Bateman’s beers here as well as a couple of GK ones. The food’s good too.

There are games in the corner including a bar billiards machine, and I believe they have quizzes mid-week.

St James Tavern

This Wadworths pub is at the bottom of the Romsey Road – just up from the West Gate. It’s a small cosy pub with a triangular frontage. Despite its size there are two distinct areas inside.

The beers are much as you’d expect for a Wadworths pub and usually seem well-kept.

Bishop On The Bridge

The Bishop on the Bridge is a large pub at the eastern end of the High Street – near the King Alfred statue. It used to be an Eldridge Pope pub many years ago, but became a Fuller’s pub about 10 years ago.

I like the interior as it’s light and airy. The vibe is very relaxed although the barstaff are efficient. The beer selection is what you’d expect from a Fuller’s pub including a tasty Gale’s HSB – a personal favourite.

The food menu contains few surprises but the food itself is tasty and good value.

Out the back there is a patio area – attractive because it’s away from the traffic and next to the fast flowing river Itchen. However it was threatening rain on my last visit here so we stayed inside.

So that’s about it for my write up of Winchester pubs – except to refer you to the previous posts concerning the ones that I visited on my recent evening out:

Also you can see a Google map with all my favorite Winchester pubs. And the Pizza Express is good too…

An Evening in Winchester (Part 1)

Jul 23rd, 2009 | Author: The Beeralist

Geoff and I had a good evening out in Winchester the other night. Here is my first report of the pubs visited.

I arrived in the city before him so this post covers those that I did on my own before meeting him from the station. This enabled me to visit practically all the pubs on my shortlist – see my previous post on planning the Winchester evening.

My first port of call was an unexpected extra.

The Albion

The Albion is the closest pub to Winchester station since the South Western was shut many years ago. It’s situated at the town end of Stockbridge Road by the busy junction there. I’d visited the pub once before earlier in the year and although the pub was itself a small and friendly establishment, the beer quality wasn’t the best. However as I walked past I noticed the Daleside ‘England’s Pride’ pump-clip – a beer I enjoyed greatly the week before in London. So I decided to go in.

The first thing I noticed was that the beer selection had increased since the time before. The Albion was now offering 6 draught real ales – 3 handpumps and 3 casks sitting on the bar.

Apart from me, I noticed one other couple drinking real ale – everyone else seemed to be on lager. The ‘England’s Pride’ was OK but not as nice as I’d had before – a very slight vinegary feel to it. It’s always good to see pubs with a great selection of beers, but does this pub sell enough real ale to justify having 6 on? I’m not sure.

So on to the next.

The King Alfred

My next was going to be the Hyde Tavern but on the way I decided to pay another visit to the King Alfred.

The King Alfred (11 Saxon Road) used to be a favourite when I lived in Winchester 20 years ago. At that time it was a Marstons pub (as were most of the pubs in Winchester) and the Pedigree was always superb. Lots of games were available in the pub for the punters too.

After Marstons sold their southern pubs to Greene King in 1999 the beer selection in the King Alfred became GK IPA and Abbot – neither of which I like much. So I stopped visiting the Alred on my occasional trips back to Winchester.

The King Alfred is still a GK pub and I could see through the open door that the beer selection was still the same. There was a third pumpclip turned round and I read on Beer in the Evening that they do carry a guest beer. But in the absence of anything else I decided not to stay for a pint – maybe another time.

So back up the road to the Hyde Tavern.

The Hyde Tavern

The Hyde Tavern is a wonderful little two-room pub tucked away north of the city centre at 57 Hyde Street. It was my original choice for first pub on this crawl and was another old favourite that I’d written off after Greene King acquired it. When I found out that GK had sold it (about three years ago I believe) I started coming again. It’s now a free house with a good selection of beers.

The pub was almost empty, but it was still only 6pm. There were 5 beers on – Ballard’s Midhurst Mild, Cheriton Pots Ale, Ringwood Best, Hogs Back Summer Ale and Harvey’s Sussex Best. A real cider was also available but I can’t remember what. I had the Ballard’s Mild and Pots Ale and they were both delicious. The mild had an amazingly powerful flavour given its strength (3.4%).

Interestingly, the handpumps here still have Marstons stamped (moulded?) on the handles which becomes visible when the pints are pulled. This is a hangover from when the Hyde Tavern was also a Marstons pub. The old Marstons brewery was nearby at the southern end of the road – on the corner with North Walls. The brewery later became a Marstons distribution depot and was demolished some years ago for housing.

My last two visits to the Hyde Tavern were in wintry evening darkness so I hadn’t appreciated that there is also a garden on a lower level at the back of the pub. If the sun had been shining I might have strayed into it.

So after some good conversation with a photographer and his missus I headed back up to the station to meet my friend Geoff.

(Added later) Read about the ones we got to:

And the ones we didn’t get to:

Other Winchester Gems

This Google map shows my favourite pubs in Winchester.