February pub ratings

After a thorough rooting for the Fran filing system, records suggest that I drank in 28 pubs in February, one for every day of the month. That’s well within government guidelines isn’t it Matron? (I can see her shaking her head now and shouting “Increasing risk, increasing risk” in my direction).

 This month’s selection of pubs mostly come from Oxford, Ryegate & Redhill in Surrey, That London and a whopping two whole pubs from the Shire (and one of those was the Chester FC bar, which just scrapes in as pub although it does do a nice pint of Spitting Feathers). Commiserations to the Farmers’ Arms in Kelsall, under the new stewardship of Landlord Pete of Cherry Orchard in Chester fame, it came in second place in the atmosphere category. So close to a Cheshire pub actually winning something.

Best pub - The Fir Tree in Oxford.

Remarkably the Fir Tree managed to win the title of Best Pub despite not coming first in any individual category. In terms of décor it’s a hodge-podge, multi-layered affair full of nick nacks. In terms of atmosphere it’s bathed in redlight and has a residential pub that stays open to three in the morning rock vibe, with a juke box consisting of 80s hair metal and 90s indy. Booze lets it down slightly with everything falling under 5% and we were left drinking Cotswold Cider on tap. Clientele contains a mix of Goths, South Africans and a classic alkie old man at the bar in a mac muttering to himself about the state of the world and the crimes it has bestowed on him.  The bar staff helped me work out the antiquated juke box and even advised me on pubs in Oxford to go to get some proper cider and folk. A great all rounder.

Best decor – The Half Moon, Oxford

Following on from the Circus in the Manchester last month, the décor category is won by a small snug pub that remains unspoilt. Let that be a lesson to you pubcos, no more REFURBS! The Half Moon in Oxford is a small two roomed Irish Pub, with seating around the side with the centres cleared for folk performances. There’s a real fire at one end with a large mirror over it. It felt small and cosy, like Britain did during the Cold War. A slight mysterious quality was added by the addition of coloured bulbs, adding green and red pockets of light to its postwar gloom.

Best atmosphere – The Garland, Ryegate, Surrey

The Garland wins best atmosphere for its excellent pub rock band, which Smitdawg described as like something out of Phoenix Nights. All in their forties or fifties they played Ian Dury and the Blockheads covers mixed with Madness to a crowd of aging rockers and guys in tapout t-shirts. Periodically an old man in the crowd would open his mac and pretend to flash the barmaids. My notes are sketchy but the band were called ‘the Brotherhood of…something’ and are presumably stalwarts of the Surrey pubrock circuit.

Best booze – The Bree Louise, Euston, London

Considering all the tepid pints of homesick Timothy Taylor I’ve endured in the Euston area, it’s a mystery it’s taken the BM lions (the hated enemies of C4Lf) so long to find the Bree Louise. Especially as it’s so close to the Summertown Cage Arena. Blame must surely be placed on Hockenhull’s shoulders for hoarding this place to himself for years, like some kind of CAMRA miser. Nowadays, in Londonshire there’s a fair old quantity of pubs that have over twenty different beers on. However, these tend to be Craft beer rather than Real ale pubs and often what looks like an exciting Craft Brew from a valley in Nevada turns out to be another mass of fizz and coolant that tastes like everything else on the blackboard. Then if there are multiple real ales on tap, (say the Mill Hotel In Chester) often they only have one that’s >5%. And as we all know Tone’s mantra is: over 5% acceptable but over 6% preferred and barley wine compulsory. The Bree Louise had about four beers over 5%, some in the lofty 7% plus range. And then there are the eight ciders all with some variation of pig in their name. It’s as if the Euston Tap and the Cider Tap merged and got rid of all the craft. It would certainly have gotten 5s all round if only it had Dudley based Beygum’s (sp?) mild, the only beer that can achieve a full 5 star rating according to Hipster Chris’ criteria.

Best Clientele – The Half Moon, Oxford

 Another one for the Half Moon. The clientele here was minimalistic but each one contributed to the pub’s rich eco-system. The centre piece was a vain ponytailed 50-something Scottsman, who interspersed  gazing longingly at his own reflection in the mirror, with advising a young Italian student he’d just met to quit his studies and get a job at the Morris car factory up the road. The Italian student responded by showing him pictures of his girlfriends (plural intentional), who he said were ‘stoopid girls’ but had very nice mothers. In the corner by the fire a trio of bearded types in body warmers huddled waiting for the long promised folk night, while at the bar a lone gent diligently worked his way through the Times crossword.

Courtesy of Bar Staff – The Garibaldi, Surrey

“What’s the percentage of your strongest ale?”

“No strong ales here lad. Can’t sell em, they just sit in the barrel. And if you do sell em, you don’t want the person in the pub whose drank em. Have a pint of London Pride.”

Despite, or perhaps, because of this response we warmed to the landlord at Smitdawg’s new local, the Garibaldi in Surrey. He initially thought we were on some sort of collective mass pub crawl for some reason (I wasn’t in fancy dress, well no fancier than usual). When we told him Smit had just moved in next door, he had a lengthy chat about the area and its history. A very friendly chap he also owns a small terrier.

Thanks to my drinking companions this month: Tone, Ed, Weaver, Ben, Amy, Smitdawg, Lazars, Hipster Chris, Hockenhull, Sascha, Gomez, Anna, Rachel, Dawn and The Guys!

Full pub ratings for Feb – as always the categories are Décor (D), Atmosphere (A), Booze (B), Clientele (C), Courtesy of the Bar Staff (COB) and the Mean for all the scores (M)

	Pub	Description	D	A	B	C	COB	M
1	The Fir Tree, Oxford	Classic rock juke box & bearded bar staff	4.6	4.3	3.6	4.3	4.8	4.30
2	The Isis, Oxford	Uncertain impala decor with Cotswold cider	4.9	4.5	4.1	3.7	4.3	4.28
3	The Half Moon, Oxford	Irish pub with pockets of green light & mirror enamoured Scott	5.0	4.5	3.5	4.5	3.8	4.25
4	The Far from the Madding Crowd, Oxford	Real ale and white walls. Students, odd balls, and eccentrics	4.0	4.4	4.3	4.3	4.3	4.2
5	The Plough, Ryegate	Brown and white collies and Falkland Island airstrips	4.4	4.0	3.8	4.2	4.0	4.1
6	The Garland, Ryegate	Ageing Ian Dury Tribute Act with dancing, flashing locals	3.7	4.8	3.4	4.1	4.3	4.1
7	The Marsh Harrier, Oxford	Slightly gutted but not spoilt	3.9	4.0	4.1	4.0	3.8	4.0
8	James Street Tavern, Oxford	Mellifluous, melodious, mellow, lazar light show	3.8	4.5	3.5	3.6	4.0	3.9
9	Bree Louise, Euston	Beer Mecca in the backstreets of Euston	3.2	4.0	4.8	3.5	3.5	3.8
10	The Bear, Oxford	One lone Celtic fan amidst the academics. Unpleasant aroma of urine.	4.8	2.5	3.7	3.9	4.0	3.8
11	Farmer's Arms, Kelsall, CHESHIRE	New Landlord but return of the classic T’House	4.0	4.6	2.8	4.3	3.0	3.7
12	The Garibaldi, Ryegate	Big windows, weak ales, chatty landlord	3.4	3.8	2.8	3.6	4.9	3.7
13	Lamb and Flag, Oxford	Good until the stagdo arrived.	4.5	3.9	3.8	2.9	3.5	3.7
14	King's Arms, Oxford	Scotland vs. England, Chocolate Double Drop, studenty but pleasant	4.1	3.6	3.6	2.5	4.0	3.6
15	The Duke (of York), Bloomsbury	Classic 1930s interior with stonefaced landlord	4.1	3.6	3.2	3.8	3.1	3.6
16	The Red Lion, Barnes, London	Well-heeled Brian May hangout	3.6	2.7	3.6	3.1	3.7	3.34
17	Blue's Bar, Chester, CHESHIRE	Spitting feathers and chubby Chester chaps	2.5	3.8	3.8	3.5	3.0	3.32
18	The Red Lion, Ryegate	Archie the boxer lying in front of a St George's flag	3.9	3.6	2.9	2.8	3.4	3.31
19	The Museum Tavern, Bloomsbury	After work haunt, original glasswork	3.7	3.3	3.8	2.7	2.9	3.3
20	The White Lion, Ryegate	Good beer, but none of it on. African trinkets.	4.1	2.4	3.1	2.5	3.4	3.1
21	The Hatch, Ryegate	Obsessive master barman knows all the percentages.	3.2	2.2	4.3	1.8	3.8	3.1
22	The Joshua Tree, Redhill	U2 themed Yurt	3.4	2.3	3.6	2.1	2.8	2.8
23	The Marquis, Covent Garden	Friendly barstaff fall on deaf ears	1.7	2.5	2.1	2.5	3.3	2.4
24	Bat1, Shoreditch	Shoredick-filled all male Coyote ugly	3.0	2.8	2.7	1.0	2.5	2.4
25	The Duke, Covent Garden	Generic theatre pub	1.8	2.0	2.5	2.1	3.5	2.4
26	The Cat and Mutton, Hackney	Epicentre of the Hipsterverse on a Sat night. Genuinely unpleasant.	3.4	2.3	2.8	1.3	2.0	2.3
27	The Duke's Cut, Oxford	Not the real ale pub we were promised	1.6	1.5	2.0	2.0	2.9	2.0
28	The Lemon tree, Covent Garden	The barmen served us a pint, then turned on the lights. Fuck you!	0.8	0.8	1.5	1.5	0.0	0.9

Farmers Arms, Kelsall - refurb news

The Fishpool at Cotebrook – what lies beneath?

Listening to my old CB radio tuned into transmissions from the Shire, all the talk during Feb was of the newly-reopened Fishpool Inn. After being practically demolished and rebuilt again to the tune of nearly three million Cheshire poooonds, the Delamere pub was finally ready to reopen. The chattering classes of Cheshire love nothing better than the opening of a new gastro pub, much to Lumpman Joe’s disgust, especially by the folk who run the vaunted Pheasant at Burwardsley. Indeed, according to reports from the Francis family they’ve been attending in droves. When my sister tried to secure a table on a Wednesday night, she was told the 140 capacity venue was already fully booked for the evening. My dad fared somewhat better and managed to get a table on a Monday night. But while he admitted the Beef and Weetwood ale was delectable, he did feel some regret that the old Fishpool’s warren of small rooms had been gutted to maximise the number of gourmands through the door. On the Weetwood front there were three pumps with Weetwood clips (naturally Cat, Bitter and Eastgate), only the Cat (or Lady Weetwood as it is known) was on though, while the rest of the ales came from Congleton-based Beartown brewery.

I haven’t been to the Fishpool in years but apparently according to our old neighbour Mrs Mills, Old Farrell the farm labourer who once lived in our house, used to cycle to the Fishpool most nights cross country through Primrose Wood. He sounds like a kind of proto-Fran and I’ll have to see if the route still exists.

The panopticon that is facebook tells me that comrades Nehrman and Baldwin managed to book a table on a Friday night. I presume they did a full review complete with ratings and it’ll be shortly winging its way in the post to me.

T’House – T’refurb

As one pub re-opens another one is set to close for refurbishment...but this is no ordinary Cheshire boozer but the legendary home of C4Lf – the Farmer’s aka T’House at Top. You can imagine the dread that filled my heart when this news was reported to me by Bobby D, who’s always good for a bit of reconnaissance. So without further ado, I high-tailed it back to Cheshire, putting my attempts to end London-rule from the inside on hold for a while, to pay a visit to T’House and the find out the truth behind these rumoured refurbishments.

As I entered through the back door on a Friday night, past the Tiki-Smoking hut installed during the Craig and Debbie years, my mind was filled with monstrous visions of the like experienced by legendary Cheshire Prophet Robert Nixon. What would the newly refurbed T’House become? An Alpine ski lodge theme (with Little Switzerland so close it seems appropriate), a Chicago pizza joint themed around the 1930s gargantuan gangster Colossomo, a white cube expunged of all atmosphere (aka the Crown in Tarporley) –  the horror, the horror!

My fears were not allayed by the beer selection. When I asked “What Weetwood have you got on?” the young chap behind the bar replied, “The Best!” And he didn’t mean it in a Keith and Linda 2001, ‘the Best means Old Dog and the Second Best means Eastgate’, kinda way. He meant that the Best in a, ‘you’ll be drinking 3.8% bitter for the rest of the evening’ sense. If Tone had been there she’d have punched me in the face for putting her in such a predicament.  

I then asked the youthful gent, who I presumed to be the landlord (it’s the T’House anything is possible), what the plans for the fabled renovation were. He said the best person to answer that was the silver-haired gent who had just come into view at the other end of the bar – Pete the new landlord.

After being joined by Ben, Amy and a tardy El Presidente, who’d been out earlier in the day getting his BCG redone, and after several pints of Best (which despite being 3.8% was starting to have an effect), I ambled over to Pete and asked him what his plans were. Turns out Pete has worked around the Chester Pub circuit for many a year and is most famed for the Cherry Orchard near the Peacock in Chester, which according to my dad was renowned for its hearty home-cooked food.

From what I could gather Pete plans to brick up the bar in the backroom and serve beer through a hatch. The pool table will then be moved into the backroom and a real fire will be installed in the snug. They’ll also be new carpets and curtains. Although this will almost certainly getting rid of some of T’House dank (“You ain’t thinking of getting rid of the dank are you Mo?” “What if I am?” “Oh but Mo – the dank! The dank!”), it doesn’t sound too bad.

In some ways restoring T’House to how it was originally built, and not thankfully whacking in a load of pineflooring and gastrophying the place like the Oak or the Binning could be a good thing. To fill Pete in on the Farmer’s noble past I give him a copy of Weaver’s completely factually accurate article on the history of the T’House, which he seemed generally interested in. Of course he hadn’t read it at the time and probably as I write this a list of barred names including – D. Hodcarrier, Breechies Wherries and the Iron Giant is pinned up beside the bar.

However, the more immediate change that Pete has brought about, which I’m pleased to report, was that on Friday 23.02.2013 the Farmers was the busiest I’ve seen it in years. And it wasn’t just filled with scooter-riding hoodlems high on goof balls and dog bombs (although they of course have their place in T’House’s rich ecosystem). The bar area was two rows deep with a crowd of good old Cheshire boys, who have seemingly returned to T’House in droves now that a fellow silverback is in charge. And it made for quite an atmosphere, just look at those ratings:

	Ben	Amy	Fran	Weave	Mean
Decor	4	2	5	5	4.0
Atmos	4	4.5	5	5	4.6
Booze	2.5	1	2.5	5	2.8
Clientelle	3.5	3.5	5	5	4.3
COB	2	2	3	5	3.0
				Overall	3.7

Even the ever cynical eye of pedantic Ben giving the atmosphere a mighty four. And why not as it was quiz night at the T’House. For those keeping track, once again C4Lf lost to the deceptively named Village Idiots by 33 to 35. One day we will beat them (shakes fist at the sky), one day!

Anyway, here’s to the New T’House hopefully same as the Old T’House when it re-opens at the end of March.

Also according to my book, note to pass onto Smit and Weave ‘definitely avoid Hep C, but Hep B can be tolerated’ [shrugs].

Fasten's Eve (aka pancake day)

Happy Pancake Day C4Lferati,

Or as we in Cheshire call it – Fasten’s Eve. This day is now largely known because of the catchy Pancake Day song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj_aHCpZl4k

But it was once one of the most important days of the year in the Cheshire Calendar.

On Fasten’s Eve (also known as Shrove Tuesday) AD 905 an army of Vikings sailed from Dublin and travelled up the Dee to rape and pillage the City of Chester. However, when the Norsemen tried to pillage and rape the shrine of our blessed St Weburgh ‘The Goose Healer’ the Vikings were driven insane by here mystical saintly powers. The people of Chester then poured boiling water, ale (!) and finally beehives from the Chester city walls onto their besiegers. When the Viking Thane in charge of the attack was beheaded, his head was kicked around the large area of flat silted flood plain outside the Chester City walls known as the Roodee.

Every year from then on this momentous occasion was re-enacted by the Guilds of Chester who played a wild and unruly game of football on the Roodee on Fasten’s Eve to celebrate the defeat of the Danes and the kicking about of their leader’s head. This is one of the oldest football games on record but it’s not like the football you or I know. No one refused to celebrate when they scored against a Guild they’d formerly played for, or built a shark pool in the floor of the kitchen of their barn conversion, or tried to pass the ball. It was proper football before formations and any kind of rules ruined the game for ever. Up yours prawn sandwich eaters.

Anyway, the Shoemaker’s Guild donated a wooden football for the game, while the Drapers brought a silver arrow which was used as a prize for which the Chester’s famous archers competed. The Saddlers gave a ball of silk which was thrown to the crowd, causing many of the local WAGs to be hurt as they desperately scrambled for it. Many people were injured playing the game and the silk ball freeforall as the monk Henry Bradshaw comments: ‘Much harm was done, some having their bodies bruised and crushed, some their armes, heads, legges broken, some otherwise maimed and in peril of their life’. The Mayor eventually banned the Fasten’s Eve football game and replaced it in 1539 with the Chester Races on the Roodee, making it the oldest races in the country. Rather than a silver arrow “one faire silver cupp”, valued at eight Cheshire pooonds, was offered to the winner.

The race was held every Fasten’s Eve but as people in Cheshire at the moment will testify, early to mid-February can be a snowy time in the North West and as a result it was not uncommon for many a horse and jockey to slip to their icey deaths on the frosty track. As a result the race was eventually moved to St George’s Day (23^rd April).

Fasten’s Eve was so called because it was the day before Lent when people fasted. The faithful were expected to abstain from eating meat during the whole forty days, and butter and eggs were also forbidden. Consequently, if the housewife (or house husband as they used to have in those days) had any of these things left in the house they had to be used up before Ash Wednesday, and from this comes our modern tradition of pancake day.

Fasten’s Eve was one of the few days of the year that the agricultural worker had off. A bell was rung in the morning, at some places at eleven in others much earlier. The people were then free to enjoy themselves until the ringing of a second bell at night. The main forms of enjoyment tend to be chicken based. There was the obligatory cock fighting, but also more unusual games like Shying the Cock and Thrashing the Hen. While Shying the Cock was like a rooster-based form of the still popular coconut shy, Thrashing the Hen more-closely resembled a Cheshire version of the Mexican Piniata. In a typical Thrashing the Hen session a man with bells on his clothes would have a live hen attached to his back. Then two blind-folded men would try and thrash the hen to death with sticks but would inevitably sometimes hit the bell-wearing man and from thence the hilarity arose. Why there should be so much chicken-based violence on Fasten’s Eve remains a matter of conjecture. It might be because the eating of meat and eggs were banned during Lent this was the last opportunity you’d have to take out your Feudal-system induced rage on poultry for 40 days. Which would have required an incredible amount of willpower for even the most god fearing Christian.

Thankfully we live in more humane enlightened times, and the practice of Thrashing the Hen has not occurred in Cheshire for nigh on 50 years. However, research suggests that a version of Thrashing the Hen did continue as late as the mid-2000s in the Wimbledon area of South London. This cruel spectacle, usually conducted by an athletic Spanish or Swiss man, would be carried out with almost ritualistic repetition in late June or early July and was greeted with much mourning/schaden freude from the British public.

As for Shying the Cock, we encourage C4Lf members to keep this grand Cheshire tradition alive by starting a conversation about the urethra-dwelling Amazonian catfish the Candiru with the next bloke who comes to stand beside you at the urinal.