Guest Post - Peter Bland - Hartlepool and the best pub next to the station!

Real ale, real football and real good company

The 12.30pm train from Middlesbrough to Hartlepool pulls in to the station and we board in high spirits, the Westwood Wanderers are marauding again!

The Wanderers are a close knit local community whose neighbourliness on this occasion extended to indulging the passion of an expat from New Zealand for football and fine ales who, starved of experiencing both in their purest form, needed a fix before returning down under.  

Conversation on the train revolved around the delights likely to be served up on the football pitch, given Hartlepool’s recent poor form, and the stark contrast likely to be served up in the pub before the game.  We had prior knowledge of our chosen destination and the “little gem” known as the Rat Race Alehouse had, due to a previous expedition to Victoria Park, provided our beer taste receptors with sufficient memory to have us salivating in expectation.  For those who have not had the pleasure of visiting the Rat Race in Hartlepool and wish to do so and experience the full surprising effect, then read no further as this text contains spoilers. The experience will have best effect if you visit the place blind but safe in the knowledge that if you do and like real ales, you are in for a treat.

The Pub, if you can really call it such, is a converted waiting room accessed directly off the station platform at Hartlepool.  From a small hut, in the corner of one average sized living room, the barkeep serves real ale of exceptional quality given the cramped nature of his facility. On one wall beermats ingeniously fixed to plastic pipes act as place holders to the multitude of choice in real ales either as past, present or future delights. You can’t help browsing the array and saying to yourself “I’ve sampled  that, hmm that one was nice, that one sounds good.”

On the opposite wall the menu for the day was proudly displayed on a traditional chalkboard with the following on offer :-

1. Great Heck - Life Begins - 4.0%Pale ale with Nelson Sauvin hops from New Zealand (believe it or not given our company) , brewed specially for the York Beer Festival 15^th 17^th September 2011 Organiser’s 40^th birthday. Went down very swiftly!
2. Gundog - Gundog - 4.5%

Described as a traditional bitter, amber in colour with a crisp bitterness and spicy aroma to finish, Nice!

3. RCH - East Street Cream - 5.0%

Full bodied and fruity chestnut bitter with a good combination of malt and hops. All the way from Somerset to Hartlepool, well-travelled! 

Plus but no description notes

4. Bartram's - Captain's Stout - 4.8%

5. Oliver's - Medium Cider - 6.5%

6. Broadoak - Premium Perry - 7.5%

An evening (or afternoon in this case) visiting a real ale establishment is much more than a visit to the pub and this trip to the Rat Race did not disappoint.  Sampling new ales, finding a new favourite or revisiting an old favourite brew, always makes for a memorable occasion. Sharing first thoughts on your chosen tipple, having a sip from a neighbour’s glass, discussions of colour, texture, flavour and smell ensure worthy homage is paid to craft of the brewer and make certain the ale and conversation flows. 

There’s another trip across the water in the offing but I have asked if we can stay in the “pub” rather than going to the game!

Blandinio

Guest Post - Curtis Radcliffe - St. Bees

St.Bees is a small quite village located on the coast of West Cumbria. It's probably most famous for being the starting point of the Wainwright Coast to Coast walk or maybe for being the place Edmund Blackadder himself Rowan Atkinson was educated, but more importantly it has 4 pubs which all serve real ale and it's this last fact which helped me decide to choose the sleepy little town as the subject of my post. So last Saturday me and my good friend Chris headed down to St.Bees to try a couple of choice ales from a couple of the local pubs.

The first pub we went to was the Queens. The Queens used to be somewhat of a regular haunt for me and my friends during our sixth form days, it was a little run down, but always had friendly atmosphere and good ale to spare. The Queens is now under new management and they seem to have done a reasonably good job of renovating the old pub, while still hanging on to the traditional feel of a real ale pub. We did note however the flower vases on tables, which were clearly not in the dining area and a rather cheap looking coffee print which looked like it was bought in Wilkinson’s were a bit out of place in a real ale pub. The Ordinance Survey maps and walking guides on the wall along with the roaring fire more than made up for those shortfalls though.


Anyway onto the ale, we both decided to start with a pint of Banks's Fine Fettle. It was a light, fresh ale that you wouldn’t normally associate with winter, it certainly seemed an ale more suited to a summer afternoon than a cold winter evening. On first taste we both agreed on a citrusy flavour, not that of lemon or lime, but something a little sweeter more like orange and a strong woody finish, something akin to walnut. At this point I feel I should point out, neither of us have any experience or knowledge of ale tasting so we might be talking complete rubbish, but I can safely say it was one tasty pint.

The next pub we visited sits across the road only 7m away from the first. The Manor House unlike the Queens has not been recently renovated and in all honesty is all the better for it. It has a much more traditional pub feel, you know the exposed beams, copper wall ornaments, beer mats hanging behind the bar and all that. The atmosphere in the Manor was notably more friendly as soon as you stepped through the door, which is why we stayed for two pints rather than the scheduled one.

For our second drink we both went for a pint of Adnams Explorer. It was a less complex ale than Fine Fettle and lacked the depth of multiple flavours, it was also slightly stronger than any of the other ales we had that day. One notable flavour we both detected was honey. Not the runny, syrupy stuff you normally see in bear shaped bottles on American tv, but real old man honey. The hard kind, which you have to dig out with a knife and although its undeniably sweet, there is a slight bitter taste that comes with it.


ooking back on our notes for the last two ales, I think the conversation had begun to flow quite freely and we had become slightly distracted from our task at hand as or analysis had become a little lightweight. I chose to end the trip with Thwaits Wainwright which I thought would be quite fitting considering our location. It was far lighter in colour than the previous two ales I tried and was notably bitterer, almost tart. Chris went for a pint of St. Austall's Tribute Premium Cornish Ale, no doubt chosen for the brilliant name. Looking back at his notes all he managed in way of a description was “creamy” but having checked back with him for clarity he assured me it was a delicious pint.

After our three ales we decided to head back home, both thoroughly satisfied and reasonably amused as we read through our attempts at describing the alcoholic beverage that we both love.

Guest Post - Martin 'Me Da' Deacy - Car free day

So after giving up alcohol for the month of January I wanted to keep the post coming in. So I've asked a few family members, friends and family friends in fact to doing me massive favour of going out...having a pint or 5 .... then writing a little bit about it! As you can imagine friends have already voiced their jealousy about my perfectly good excuse to go have a swift pint for research purposes (not that you need a reason!). So I thought I would lend the excuse about for a month, so first up my Dad's submission!  

Organising to get to Whitby on the train and taking in the wonderful Birch Hall Inn at Beck Hole sounds complicated, but in the end it was a “walk in the park “ or should I say a walk on the Moors . Leaving Middlesbrough at 10.38 and arriving at Grosmont at 11.44, then walking the 2 easy miles along the old cinder railway track gave us plenty of time to build up a thirst. A herd of 15 deer crossed our path and made a great start to the New Year. At the Birch Hall Inn we got the usual friendly welcome from the bar staff and the locals. A pint of “Beck Watter” from North Yorkshire Brewery kicked the day off. It reminded me of Cameron’s No 3 (If you can remember that far back) but with a lighter, less “darker” taste as the other half described it. Young’s Winter Warmer (5%) soon followed, a more complex and fruiter offering with a bitter aftertaste but just as distinctive and well kept. The dogs and the locals came and went and soon it was time for us to retrace our steps back to Grosmont and finish our outward journey to Whitby.

Decisions, decisions, decisions, where to drink in Whitby.? Local or tourist, new or old, off the beaten track or hidden gems? After the ubiquitous fish and chips we opted for the Award winning Black Horse on Church St and refreshed ourselves with a Whitby Abbey, a light and tasty beer from Black Dog Brewery. The easy drinking nature suited everyone till the Winter Tyne, a darkish bitter ale from the Mordue Brewery called out to be sampled. This full bodied nature didn’t suit the better half who returned to the Abbey (if only).

Over the market square to the spacious Shambles with the best view of the Esk in all of Whitby. Loads of seats as it’s out of season, so we sat with a 5 Wold Rings, from the Wold Top Brewery, an easy, citrusy drink with bags of taste.

Oops look at the time, the trains due in 25 minutes, and just enough time to visit one more pub.? Our local Sam Smith's pub doesn’t sell real ale, so when we saw Old Brewery Bitter hand pulled in the Jolly Sailors on the harbour side we had to have a go , and it was well worth it After that rarity we raced for the train making it with ease in the end. After a strange game of cards with floating rules we arrive back home, a stress free day with no driving and lots of great memories. Looks like it’s going to be a yearly fixture now.