v' ~,~~~ ~ E'E'/ v' - dover-kent.com · The Local News s 4 DOVER NEWS Onedoor closes,anotheropens....

28
v' Great Ales from Kent's best mlcros and others v' Always a cask mild v' Quality selection of wines from Europe and New World v' Fresh home-cooked food 6 days a week v' Clean air throughout - no smoking allowed! v'. NO pool table, jukebox, fruit machines or other nonsense to distract you from the food and drlnkl 40p 8 pint oH real ales and Kentish Cider ForCAMRA members from Spm Sunday tiU clomng on Wednesday The: Yew T Y8e/ I nNl/ 'BarlY~&n£/ DOS CA~'RA Puh-oft:hfvYe.ar 200Lf Fi¥~t;o1;~ wnoke-free- puh-w--vt:hfv CU"'Ul/ OpeningHoW"9varysreagonaDy Foodsrervicehoure: -pleasrephone to check current Tue$day-Sat12-:2. and 7-9prn boure or vigit the webgite Sunday 13-:2.:$Oprn NB ClosedMontlayg NBNo FoodonSunday evening WeJYl!/W~~!!! A mile SDd a hsllf F70m Gheph8NkweD. £ythol'De & NoningtoA oH t:he A2 oppodte Lydden Motul'Racing CbcrJitbetween Cant8rbu1y & DoveI' Booking strongly advised for meals, especially Friday, Saturday and Sunday Come to our Sunday Accumulator Draw - phone or e-mail for details!! Call Peter or Kathryn on 01304 831619 I Fax 01304 832669 or e-mail [email protected] visit .bari •.estone.eo.uk lo•.luaothe•.details, di•.eetions and up-to-date Rlenus Printed at Adams the Printers, Dover ,~~ ~ ~,~~~ ~" E'E'/ ~ . THE MOGUL CLOSES DOWN The Newsletter of the Deal Dover Sandwich & .Dlstrict branch of the Campaign for Real Ale CA~~~IGN Issue 21 Autumn2004 REAL ALE

Transcript of v' ~,~~~ ~ E'E'/ v' - dover-kent.com · The Local News s 4 DOVER NEWS Onedoor closes,anotheropens....

v' Great Ales from Kent's best mlcros and othersv' Always a cask mild

v' Quality selection of wines from Europe and New Worldv' Fresh home-cooked food 6 days a week

v' Clean air throughout - no smoking allowed!v'. NO pool table, jukebox, fruit machines or other nonsense

to distract you from the food and drlnkl

40p 8pint oH real ales and Kentish Cider ForCAMRAmembers from Spm Sunday tiU clomng on Wednesday

The:Yew TY8e/ I nNl/

'BarlY~&n£/DOS CA~'RA Puh-oft:hfvYe.ar 200Lf

Fi¥~t;o1;~ wnoke-free- puh-w--vt:hfvCU"'Ul/

OpeningHoW"9vary sreagonaDy Foodsrervicehoure:-pleasrephone to check current Tue$day-Sat12-:2.and 7-9prnboure or vigit the webgite Sunday 13-:2.:$OprnNB ClosedMontlayg NBNo FoodonSunday evening

WeJYl!/W~~!!!A mile SDd a hsllf F70m Gheph8NkweD.£ythol'De & NoningtoA oH t:he A2

oppodte Lydden Motul'Racing CbcrJitbetween Cant8rbu1y & DoveI'

Booking strongly advised for meals, especially Friday,Saturday and Sunday

Come to our Sunday Accumulator Draw - phone or e-mail fordetails!!

Call Peter or Kathryn on 01304 831619 I Fax 01304 832669 ore-mail [email protected]

visit .bari •.estone.eo.uk lo•.luaothe•.details,di•.eetions and up-to-date Rlenus

Printed at Adams the Printers, Dover

,~~ ~

~,~~~ ~" E'E'/~ .

THE MOGUL CLOSES DOWN

The Newsletter of the Deal Dover Sandwich &.Dlstrict branch of the Campaign for Real Ale

CA~~~IGN Issue 21 Autumn2004REAL ALE

r:;...::: __)Channel Draught Issue 21 .~

Autumn 2004 ~

As you will have seen from our front cover this edition of our newsletter is a rathersad affair. The Mogul, Chapel Place, Dover, for four or five years very much our

branch's "spiritual home" is in the process of being sold, and the prospective purchas-ers, who own the adjoining Battle of Britain flats, want to use it as manager's accom-modation rather than a pub. Outgoing owners, Frank and Charlie Franklin, finallyclosed the doors on August 21 st, having provided us with a regular supply of many ofthe country's best real ales. We wish them the best of luck for the future. Branch Pubof the Year four times, East Kent Pub of the Year twice and Kent Pub of the Year once,it will be sorely missed. Further on in the newsletter, a long-standing Mogul user giveshis reflections on the pub over the years.

Elsewhere the Chequers at Hougham has re-opened, the Chequers at Selsted has closed- for good we believe, and the Primrose, Coombe Valley Rd. is boarded up, though itis some time since real ale was seen there. Meanwhile concern over smoking has ledthe Hare and Hounds, Northboume and the Yew Tree, Barfrestone to go completelynon-smoking. See Local News for details of all these, and any other changes and al-terations to local pubs, that we know about.

By the time you read this, the 2005 edition of the Good Beer Guide will have beenlaunched, and, as we point out every year at this time, there are far more pubs in ourBranch area selling good real ale, than the 17 places available in the guide. We there-fore have some difficult decisions to make. After a substantial survey and much con-sideration, our final selection, we hope, gives an accurate reflection of the locallyavail-able choice of real ale.

If however, you are interested in a more comprehensive guide of real ale pubs in thearea I would point you in the direction of the Branch's own publication, Real Ale inWhite Cliffs Country (price £2), available from pubs across the area, or direct fromBranch members (see advert on page2l).

..Mmdin lltIiin6 {Edito«]

~ Channel Draught is Published ""d © 2004 by the Deal DoverbJ Sandwich & District Branch of the Campaign for Real Ale.

Please note that views expressed herein are not necessarily those of~ this branch or CAMRA Ltd.

CAMPAIGN Please drink sensibly!FOR

REAL ALEPage 2

I CONTENTS I3 Events diary 31 Good Beer Guide 20054 Local News 32 Kent Small Brewery14 The Mogul - A Phoenix News

from the Flames 35 Cider Matters18 Beery Bat & Trappers 37 Beer Across the Border -20 A Pub Walk through East Dublin's Micro

Kent Breweries.23 Pub Profile 48 Last Knockings

- The Bohemian, Deal 51 Local Information26 National News 53 Editorial/Advert Info28 Channel View 54 And Finally .

I EVENTS DIARY I2nd October 2004Pub Walk - 'The Tree Walk' - Royal Oak to theYew Tree.For details contact John Pitcher on 01304 214153 or bye-mailjohn. [email protected] October 2004 Branch Meeting, King's Head, Kingsdown15th November 2004 Branch Meeting, Fleur De Lis, Sandwich

Note - Branch Meetings now start at 7.30pmUpdates to the diary are available on the branch website

http://www .ddscamra.org.ukThe branch normally meets on the third Monday of each month.

If you are interested in joining CAMRA come along to one of our meetings!Please consult 'What's Brewing' to confirm venues, especially if travelling to meetings/

events.Events marked with * are not organised by CAMRA but by the venue indicated

Page 3

The Local News

s 4DOVER NEWS

One door closes, another opens.

Overshadowing all else is the closure ofthe Mogul, final day being Saturday 21st

August. Charlie and Frank Franklin hadowned and run this genuine free housesince 1987, and for the last four or fiveyears had concentrated whole-heartedlyon real ale.

However, some time ago they decided totake a complete break, and effectivelyretire from the trade. We thank them forall their hard work through long hours atthe bar and wish them well for the fu-ture. Locals and visitors alike will havemany happy shared memories. Efforts tosell on as a going concern eventuallycame to nothing and its purchaser, thehousing association next door, are plan-ning to convert it to manager's officeand living accommodation. For a fullerportrait of the pub please see JimGreen's article "Phoenix from theflames" in this issue, but here followsthe final beer report.

Right to the end there was the ever-rotating selection from old favourites tonew and one-off brews from placeswhich most of us had never heard oflThus Summer Lightning struck regu-larly, along with Goacher's (Maidstone)Mild, Brewster's Hophead and almostanything from Oakham of Peterborough.On the last day there was just enough to

keep everyone topped up until quite latein the evening with every last drop sold.

N.B. The Mogul appears in the GoodBeer Guide, and should therefore be de-leted. DDC planners were duly granted"change of use" on 9th September.

A few days before closure we heard thatthe six-berth stillage had been sold toCoos and Roger of Blake's, and it wasquickly dismantled and transferred intothe cellar bar. Thus the good news is thatBlake's, which is also free of tie, has ef-fectively taken on the mantle (and thecustomers!). To begin with, just three ofthe auto-tilts are being used individually,in tandem with the existing handpumps,but the intention is to rebuild the full rackin the corner. This will involve alteringthe bar counter which requires officiallicensing permission - hopefully grantedwhen the bench sits in October. The cellaris now open all day serving a "Mogul"mix of around three ales from microbrewssupplied by a well-known Kent-basedbeer agency.

Bombardier has proved popular in theRed Lion, alongside London Pride -there is a possibility of a third pump ap-pearing here. Along the road the LouisArmstrong takes a selection of ales fromacross the country, in addition to its longestablished Bass. From Hopdaemon,Skrimshander often appears, whilst otherregular suppliers include Burton Bridge,Nelson and Grand Union, whose singlehop ales have proved quite a hit. Recent

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Page 5

weeks have seen Jennings Crag Rat andElgoods Pageant, a dark, malty brew. Aleading local music venue, live bandsfeature most weekend nights, plus spe-cial events - see advert. At the nearbyEagle availability of real ale is not guar-anteed but recently there have been beersfrom Hog's Back of Surrey includingHair of the Dog.

The White Horse has four pumps, usu-ally with three regular brews but thefourth appears to be a genuine guest.Last winter there was Young's WinterWarmer followed by the upgraded Hob-goblin from Wychwood. Since thenthere has been Woodfordes Wherry andalso the long-awaited Brakespear Spe-cial, now brewed at Wychwood. The SirJohn Falstaff usually has Courage Best- there were reports of St.Austell Tributea few weeks back. Nothing real now inthe Prince of Orange, but the GoldenLion can be relied on for a guest ale ortwo, whilst Renaissance usually hassomething from Nelson.

The Park Inn's beer range has settleddown to Spitfire and Courage Best asstandard with a varying mix on the otherpumps. Recently two Cornish brews,from Sharp's and Skinner's, were on

Park Inn - Dover

together plus Thwaites Thoroughbredand Adnams Regatta. As promised, thebeer policy now is essentially the sameas at the related Jackdaw (Denton - seevillage news) with everything from well-known big brands to microbrews. ThePrince Albert has Black Sheep Bitterfrom the breakaway side of the Theak-ston family and the new-look Bodding-tons which is still hard to find locally.EKB, a brew similar to Tolly CobboldOriginal, and now brewed by Ridleys isoften available but may sometimes giveway to Tetley's.

With Autumn underway, the EightBells is working on a new guest ale list -this includes Brakspear Special (seeabove) which I have asked the manage-ment to order. Guest ales still come fromEast/West Ales but a review of the regu-lar range means the arrival of two Mar-ston's brews - the relaunched Bitter,now badged as Burton plus the familiarPedigree. De Koninck Original fromAntwerp has reappeared, but the bigevent is to be a (nation-wide)"Oktoberfest" running for a fortnight.Still no further news on the Lloyd's N°tproject in Castle Street, already over ayear behind the original schedule and thepremises still unused.

At Maxton The Prince of Orange isadvertising London Pride (not yettested), while in London Road agents forthe Cherry Tree, who have been tryingfor ages to find new tenants, have nowresorted to the local papers as well as theusual trade press. Further along the OldEndeavour is in temporary managementwhile "Sheps" endeavour to attract atenant, and the Primrose, Coombe Val-ley Rd. is currently closed with some

(Bra~s of iDooer52 Castle Street Dover. Telephone 01304 202194

www.blakesofdover.co.ukFullers London Pride plus Guest Ales

52 Malt Whiskeys and Fine PortsLocally caught fish and an extensive menu is available daily

except Sunday

Open 10.30am - 1l.00pm Monday-Saturday& 12.00 -10.30pm Sunday

Double en-suite accommodation available from £40Chris and Roger extend a warm welcome

to customers both old and new

~tJTCHERSARMSAshley nr Studdal

Dover 01304 825925

Shepherd Neame MasterbrewAnd Guest Ale

Patio to rear - Car Parkr------------, ~"""""'"

12-2a.:~~~~~l~o;:n-Fri,IIIfii12-3 & 7-11 Sat, 12-5 Sun '

Page 7

I.'THE LBITIIOUSE

." . ,,' & IESTAIIRIITOpen All Day Sat - Sunday.

; . Moo - Friday 11-3.00 lunch,, 5.30 - 11.00 evening

• Real Ales• Large comfortable bar area

• Extensive bar snacks• a la carte menu

• 40 seater main restaurant• Separate 30 seater restaurant

• Business lunches and functions• 30 seater family dining area with

separate indoor play area• Ample parkingY- B&Brooms

I Book now for Christmas I• Full disabled facilities

Old Dover Road, 15:Capel-Ie-Ferne VTelephone 01303 223300www.lighthouse-lnn.co.uk

impressive metal shuttering to deter anymiscreants. Finally, Premier Lodge (t/aMillers) has gone, with all the rest ofthat chain, to ....Whitbread!

DEAL NEWS

Last month's report on the Clarendonwas a bit premature! Work was still go-ing on when I looked in, but appears tohave reached the decorating stage. TheJolly Gardener reopened with Bass, but

it has since come off, "due to lack ofdemand". At least, though, it's a pubagain with a big catchment area to callon. The Prince Albert, Alfred Squarehas recently sold a genuine Sussex bitter(Harvey's) and a former one (BadgerK&B), with the true origin of the latterbeing highlighted. Gadd's summer wheatbeer was a treat during the hot spell.

Beer range at the Ship is unchanged (allfive) but John at the Bohemian has rungthe changes whilst staying loyal to hismain supplier. Woodfordes Wherry isusually on plus one or two others, re-cently two Grand Union brews:"Amarillo" which is a single hop brew inthe modem, lager-pale style and Centen-ary Honey Ale, a very sweet-toothedoffering, which celebrates BrentfordFe's lOO-year tenure of Griffin Park.Given the name of the ground, surely the"Bees" could have turned to Fullers -some say they play as if sponsored by abrewery anyway! The Bohemian'sfourth pump is now devoted to cider.Weston's Organic is the same strength(7.3%) as Old Rosie but crystal clear inthe glass (See 'Pub Profile' on Page 23).

In addition to their regular brews, theDeal Hoy takes the seasonal ales fromSheps (now Late Red) whilst the Wal-mer Castle has settled on London Pride.Meanwhile Draught Bass and Worthing-ton 1744 still battle it out on the bar atthe New Inn.

Finally, we hear that Wetherspoons (andMcDonalds) have been looking at retailpremises in the High Street, in the vicin-ity of the Middle Street "Pay and Dis-play". When I arrived there late in Au-gust a professional-looking chap was

n

71te 'P~ 11t#t~~,1)tJfIeIt

Tel 01304 203300www.theparkinnatdover.co.uk

Victorian Freehouse & RestaurantOpen All Day 7 Days a week

Restaurant and Snack Menu available all day5 en-suite letting rooms

Live Entertainment

Six Real Ales including Shepherd Neame Spitfire& Courage Best plus four Guests

~~_Io!I.~_ All the essence of a villagepub in ~l!ik~ "ff'L - Dover TownCentre - -ee~

Coa~JgHf1fSlWIrIIW.thecoostgoord.colJk

Between the bottom of the hill and the deep blue seaIn a location renowned across Kent for its beauty, The Coastguard lives

up to its reputation for excellent food and drink served with a pleasing informality,complemented by breathtaking views out to sea

- Britain's nearest pub to France - Ramsgate Brewery,Great food and Kentish Guest Ales Old Kent Brewery,

Hopdaemon,

~.. B~::';~~~~~:~~:e__ guest ales

Parties and Groups catered for.

St.MiIglIet's BayTeI: 01»1m176

Page 9

The Golden Hind85, Beach Street,

Deal, Kent, CT14 7JBWe pay top prices for antiquarian and good quality

and rare second hand books, in particularLOCAL BOOKS; ANTIQUARIAN; MARITIME;

EARLY BIBLES etc.This famous old bookshop, situated opposite the Royal Hotel, has

been a source of interesting booksfor over 30 years

Phone/fax: 01304 375086E-mail: [email protected] visit our website:www.abebooks.comlhome/sandwichfinebooks/

tlCbe 1JjuU 3JnnEASTRY

Tel 01304 611444 Fax 01304 617037

4 B&B letting rooms,Friendly Atmosphere

& Three Real Ales

Newly re-furbished offering comfort & styleCome and try our pizza feature cooked while you wait

- eat in or take-away

Page 10

peering intently at the structure and writ-ing copious notes!

SANDWICH NEWS

Plans for changes at the Crispin havebeen put to DDC planners. These are forexternal alterations including moving thedoors with related internal changes tofollow. Let's hope these can be achievedsensitively, and do not damage the char-acter of this ancient structure. The Ad-miral Owen opposite has had the sea-sonal ale from Greene King so presuma-

bly will take the 1799. The guest alepump in the Fleur-de-Lis generally al-ternates between Gadd's (various) andArchers - the latter runs a huge range ofseasonal and one-off brews. MoreGadd's at the Red Cow, but again theparticular brew will vary from week toweek. Late Red should be in the MarketInn by now, replacing Goldings.

VILLAGE NEWS

As noted last time the Chequers(Selsted) is closing its doors for the lasttime (due in September), but we nowhear that the Endeavour (Wootton) isclosed "until further notice". The ownershad plans for internal alterations and it is

not clear if this is the reason. Does any-one out there know the full story? Mean-while the Jackdaw (Denton) keeps upwith its range of five ales, being Spitfireand (usually) Ringwood plus guests -e.g. Tom Wood's Harvest at the end ofJuly and more recently Pageant fromElgood of Wisbech. The range changesweekly (see also Park Inn, Dover).

Happier news though, comes from an-other Chequers, the long-closed one atWest Hougham. It reopened with verylittle fanfare in August, and split into adrinking area at the front and a separaterestaurant to the rear. Beers noted havebeen Tetley's and Old Speckled Hen, assold by the previous owner. Will thesuppliers once again annoy the nativesby sending their artics up the lane fromElms Vale?

Staying in that area, the Royal Oak(Capel) had a beer festival earlier in thesummer, using the patio. The NelsonBrewery was involved, with its ownbeers being supplemented by a dozen orso others. Owners Paul and Karen tell usthat they are considering making a fewalterations, mainly to the Dover side ofthe building, but this would be for nextyear. The Lighthouse nearby is essen-tially Greene King, including the sea-sonal ales and those badged as Morland,e.g. Tanner's Jack, although other brew-ers do appear. Some of the locals took toGadd's Nos. 3 & 5 during the summer.The bar has been staying open in be-tween food hours (Mon-Fri) as well as atweekends. Greene King may be arrivingin the Folkestone part of the village fol-lowing its take-over of the unbrandedLaurel pubco estate, which we assumeincludes the Valiant Sailor. Until now it

has of late had a single pump devoted toBass. The Fox (Temple Ewell) alwayshas something interesting, and has be-come known as a favourite outlet forbeers from Wyre Piddle in Dorset - e.g.Piddle in the Hole/DarklWind/Snow.

Heading across the Al, the Yew Tree(Barfrestone) flies the flag for both Hop-daemon and Gadd's and is still one ofthe few pubs to stock both at the sametime. There is always a dark mild on the"blue" pump, plus Biddenden cider. Anotable recent development is the deci-sion by Peter and Kathryn to declare thewhole pub as a smoke-free zone, as alsois the Hare & Hounds (Northbourne),which had been non-smoking until afterlOpm for several months. This pub is arare outlet for Harvey's Best and FullersESB. Fursty Ferret, a Badger brew, fromits Gribble Inn subsidiary, has also fea-tured. More ESB at the Plough(Ripple) which, following thesuccess of its Spring Beer Festi-val, ran another over the LateSummer Bank Holiday weekend.Wadworth JCB and BatemansPortugoal (ho, ho, ho) were seenin midsummer.

More Elgood's Pageant, this timeat the Butcher's Arms (Ashley),where there is always a guest alealongside the Master Brew. FiveBells (Ringwould) continues withBass, and Gadd's and Hopdaemonregularly deliver to the Coast-guard (St. Margaret's Bay), butexpect to find other brewers hereas well. The Crown (Finglesham)has new owners from Peterbor-ough - aka "Oakhamland". Thekick-started Greene King Triumph

made a seasonal appearance here, as itdid also at the St. Crispin (Worth), anEnterprise Inn. The Blue Pigeons nearbyhad Wells Eagle IPA and Wychwoodrecently. The Coach & Horses(Hacklinge) has Everards Tiger as aregular brew plus Gadd's (usually NoS)with organic cider from Weston's.

Both Eastry pubs have seen renovationwork done. The Bull now has modernistfurnishing within the old structure andsells Greene King IPA, and variouslyBass, Wadworth 6X or Young's Special.The Five Bells has had its cellar up-graded and now takes Gadd's on a regu-lar basis.Finally, congratulations to the Rose &

Crown at Elham, which is in ourneighbouring Ashford, Folkestone andRornney Marsh branch, and was votedKent CAMRA's Pub of the Year. It is

due to receive its award on 220d Septem-ber and is open all day every day forHarvey's Best, Hopdaemon Incubus andSkrimshander.

FOLKESTONE NEWS

This is a summary for the benefit of ourregular readers. For full coverage ofpub news and CAMRA events aroundFolkestone please see the new issue of"Marsh Mash" which is available in

selected pubs throughout Shepway, andalso in the Ashford Borough area

The Princess Royal duly reopened intime for the end of the summer follow-ing alterations and renovation work. TheFrench windows open out onto a pavedseating area and the two bars are nowlinked but retain their separate character.

Stained glass remains in the window bythe steps behind the pub. Otherwise it ismuch as it was, albeit a bit brighter withMaster Brew and Spitfire. The Raglan isbeing smartened up and the Martello isbeing altered to a one-bar layout. How-ever the Harvey Hotel has closed forconversion into flats. This one had thedubious distinction of being turned downby Shepherd Neame when offered as oneof a block being sold by Ind Coope Fri-ary Meux - the Railway Bell was substi-tuted. We have been told that Shep' s wasunhappy about the condition of thebuilding following previous alterations.

The East Cliff Tavern continues todelight with Richard's commitment to aneclectic beer selection - expect the unex-pected! Latest arrival is Biddenden Cider(in drums). Speaking of the latter, myapologies (already given at the bar) to

Chris and Liz down in The Chambersfollowing a misunderstood report lasttime. Hopdaemon, either Incubus orGolden Braid, has indeed replaced cideron handpump but Biddenden Cider isstill selling very well thank you. The clipfronts an unused pump but the cider, infirkins, is served cool but not cold directfrom the back room. A beer and ciderfestival held over the bank holidayweekend went down very well - CherryBomb from Hanby of Shropshire makesan interesting comparison with BelgianKriek, being based on an ultra-pale alerather than a darker brew. Since thenthere have been the odd guest ale, in-cluding Chancellor's Revenge fromShardlow.

The Kent Arms (ex-East Kent) hasbeen refurbished and has new tenants.The Park Inn Hotel has returned to real

ale - Directors, Greene King and Bom-bardier have been reported here. Thechange of beer supplier to the HappyFrenchman effectively ended the previ-ous guest ale regime and instead Andyand Charlotte have turned to EddieGadd! Initially there was N05 with oth-ers to follow, and an advance order al-ready going in for Dogbolter which reap-pears later in the year.

Wetherspoons has had a further changeof management and so far it seems to beworking, as are most of the handpumpsmost of time. One or two guest ales nowappear amongst the brands, plus Mar-ston's (see Dover). Last time I calledthere was just one - De Koninck Origi-nal!

:i)cwe 9UudIi9'uD.6 (JfI.iwt, 9Xi)Sd2J 9Jrumdt

'THE MOGUL' DoverA PHEONIX FROM THE FLAMES

Imust have been using the Mogul, Dover for nearly thirty years now. Originally itwas the New Mogul, with Nellie Wilson as the venerable landlady. It had not long

changed from being a Thompson and Wooton establishment to a Whitbread house. Thebar was very basic with few embellishments; among the few decorations was a line ofknickers of various shapes and sizes. There was a glass-fronted cupboard with all sortsof mementos inside, including Nellie's 'toys', things like the mustard jar from which,when unscrewed, would shoot out a phallic symbol. She used to delight in offeringsuch things to innocent and unsuspecting young ladies.

The beer was on gravity, the casks being on a pair of wooden stillions on wheels.These seemed to be of indeterminate age, and certainly dated from the Second WorldWar when the cellar collapsed due to a shell demolishing the nearby Seaman's Mission.Nellie would assert that dead bodies were blown in through the pub window. Breweryreps, particularly of the Whitbread variety, were reluctant to visit Nell as she usuallytreated them, and the brewery, with the contempt with which she thought they de-served. There was a new, young representative at the brewery, and his peers suggestedthat he visit Nellie and ask to see her cellar. When he arrived at the pub, she didn't turn

a hair, but said that she just had to

PIPSget something first. She returnedwith a pick and shovel!

Her language was choice, and the

TRADITIOHAL locals were always greeted withprofanities. In fact, if you weren't

niB le ClIPS sworn at when you came in, youFRIED IN knew that you were in her bad

VEGETABLE books. Th~ la~dlord of an~therpub, who III himself was quite a

OIL ~ character, used to refer to her as 'anGreat variety of fish. Open seven extremely rude old lady'. But shedays a week From 11-2pm and had a heart of gold. A certain lorry

5-11.45pm driver, who shall be nameless, usedFriday and Saturday OPEN ALL t~ bring ?ack tobacco fr~m .Bel-

DAY grum, WhICh.she w?uld distribute

R able· among pensioners III the nearbyeason prIces .,

Warm welcome and friendly service flats. One .of her pnze possessionsHI h Street Dover (near Town Hall) was a Christmas card ad~esse? to

9 Tel. 01304 204544 "The Old Dragon who lives III a

Page 15

Stewart, (j)e66ie e:£ CPau{WeCcomeyou to

THE FIVE BELLSEASTRY

l]uestjI{es

Home coo~d fOOdOpenjI(( (]Jay

Traditional Country Pub

Penfanque, Pool, Darts ete.

Sunday Meat Ri\rrle in aid or JointServices

Enquirieso I 304 6 I I I 88

Page 16

pub on a hill somewhere in Dover'. There was very little delay in delivering it!

But good things come to an end, and some seventeen or eighteen years ago Nellie re-tired to an old peoples' home. While the pub was empty, squatters moved in. A lot ofthe fittings were used for firewood. The stillions were, it appears, saved and are now inprivate hands. Tales exist of forcible acquisition from the squatters. Then, just as mat-ters were in progress for new owners to take over, the pub was very seriously damagedby a mysterious fire. That, we thought, was that.But the new owners, Frank and Charlie with, initially a partner, had the Mogul, the'New' was propped, rebuilt and reopened. Nellie attended the opening ceremony."What do you think of it?" she was asked. "Expletive awful!" was the alleged reply.

For a while the Mogul became an ordinary pub with ordinary beers and pool table, etc.The partner dropped out leaving Frank and Charlie to run the pub. Then, several yearsago, they decided to make the Mogul something special again. The cellar had beenrestored, and now a set of six water cooled and automatic tipping cask racks stood atthe back of the bar to complement the handpumps. These dispensed a marvellous selec-tion of real ales from all over the country. The pool table was ditched in favour of tra-ditional pub games. Once more the Mogul became an institution, with a regular anddedicated array of inmates.

So much has gone on there over the past few years. An evening of carols and seasonalsongs and readings just before every Christmas. Egg rolling down the hill at Easter.Massive participation in fancy dress for the Publican's Walk for charity every summer.The Timothy Club which, over a very short time has raised a few thousand pounds forlocal charities. The Mogul has been Branch Pub of the Year for several years, only justlosing out to the Yew Tree this time, East Kent Pub of the Year twice, and Kent Pub ofthe Year once. And it's been the regular venue for our Branch Christmas Socials.

We knew that the pub had been on the market for a couple of years. Frank has not beentoo well recently. However, it was a shock when the end was announced. It is beingsold to the housing association that runs the adjacent sheltered accommodation, and itdoes not wish to retain the Mogul as a pub. As I write this, an application for change ofuse, with quite a few objections, has yet to be considered. The last evening came andwent and the Mogul is closed. The beer racks have gone to Blakes, followed, it seems,by the institution members in the form of the Mogul Ex-Patriots Association. Mean-while, we all wish Frank and Charlie our best wishes, and thanks for everything thatthey have done.

But all is not lost. The Phoenix rose from the ashes once. Perhaps it may yet do itagain.

Jim~

Page 17

Beery Bat & TrappersBat & Trap has always gone well with beer. After all, it's a pub game. So

when the Canterbury branch of CAMRA advertised a Bat & Trap tourna-ment at its beer tent in Canterbury Cricket Ground, the Finglesham Contingentsigned up straight away.

For those not in the know, Canterbury CAMRA runs a beer tent at CanterburyCricket Ground once or twice a year. Members can go along and watch thecricket, with the added civilised bonus of having something decent to drink.Well, this year it seems that the beer tent was arranged for a weekend whenthere was no cricket scheduled for the Saturday, so they organised Bat & Trapinstead.

The 7th of August arrived in blazing sunshine - and so did our 6-seater taxi, towhisk us to Canterbury. The usual Finglesham Contingent was present - Tony,Trisha, Julian and Anne - plus a couple of visiting newlyweds from Hampshirewho had never played Bat& Trap before.

The tournament was dueto start at 5.30, so natu-rally we arrived in goodtime to sample some ofthe produce first. Agoodly selection of beerswas available, with suchofferings from Canter-bury's Hopdaemon brew-ery as Bitter & Twisted,Incubus, and a wheat beer,and we were promised abarbecue later. Excellent! The CAMRA Beer Tent

Two pitches were markedout on the outfield of the cricket pitch, just in front of the beer tent, togetherwith two traps, one pair of posts and two upturned chairs pretending to be

Page 18

posts.The teams gathered - four teams of six - with players mostly from Canterbury,

but some from as far as Chatham (and Finglesham, of course). Most of theplayers did have one thing in common, however. They nearly all claimed neverto have played before. This set us up as firm favourites, as we had two experi-enced and talented players, two experienced but not very talented players, plusour two newlyweds who may be talented, but we had no way of knowing.

We started with the semi-final.

It quickly became clear thatbow ling was going to be a treat.The pitch was completelysmooth - no bumps at all -which, after all, was to be ex-pected from County Cricketquality grass. All the teams,whether they had played beforeor not, got some traps. It was adream, especially when com-pared to some of the pubpitches we have played on,where the direction you bowlthe ball bears no relation to the The Fielding Enddirection the ball goes in.

The batting was a different matter. Some of the beginners had trouble hittingthe ball at all, let alone getting it down the pitch between the posts. However,with great perseverance, I don't think any team was out for a duck!

At the end of the semi-final, the barbecue was ready with a mouth-wateringselection of sausages, burgers and steaks. Then it was time for the final.

This was when the effects of the beer became apparent. Players who had trou-ble with the trap when they were sober had greater problems now. Also thefielding tactics became a bit strange - I'm sure I saw a bare buttock in the op-posing team at one point. In the end, the team who had played before - theFinglesham Contingent - won, but a great time was had by all, and we're alllooking forward to next year!

gwftaW~5& fj~fuun &trtuupnL

Page 19

A PUB WALKTHROUGH EAST KENT

Give me any chance ofa pint of beerand you'll find me at the head of

the queue before you can say "TimothyTaylor Landlord"!! Add in three morepubs and a walk and, to quote Billy Con-nelly, "hold me back!". Monday, 2nd

August, saw some CAMRAites (is thatthe collective noun for a group ofCAMRA members?) gathering for anevening's social walk from Eastry toWorth with visits to the local hostelrieson the way.

We started at the Five Bells in the cen-tre of Eastry. This pub has been a veryrecent find for me. I have lived in thearea for 10 years and only visited it for

Five Bells, Eastry

the second time last month, and I canhighly recommend it. A relaxed, unpre-tentious atmosphere inside with friendlystaff and excellent beer.

The first beer of the evening was Gadds#5, which everyone there agreed wasexcellent. Time for another quick onebefore setting off for The Bull. As itturned out the Gadds had just run outand we were treated to a beer from an-other local brewery, Incubus from Hop-daemon. For those of you who don'tknow the Five Bells in Eastry the land-lord always has at least one locally-brewed beer on tap, his other beer beingthe more commonly available GreeneKing IPA.

We thought it was about time to moveon to our second pub, The Bull, or elsewe would find ourselves stumblingabout the woods and fields of East Kentin the dark. Anyway, one hundred yardsis hardly a trek. This pub has gonethrough some serious renovation thisyear with walls being removed to openup the lounge area, which has been fittedwith comfy chairs, and the bar beingmoved against an outside wall. Twohand-pulled beers were available here:Greene King IPA and Bass. There hasbeen talk of a third pump from whichguest ales will be served but this has notbeen installed yet.

Now it was time to start 'the walk, butmaybe one more first? Back to the FiveBells for another pint of excellent Incu-bus. The landlord had very generouslysliced up a couple of pork pies for ourgroup to keep us going - very welcome.

Eventually we accepted that we neededto stretch our legs and head for Worth.So we set off, popping into the EastryFish Shop to pick up emergency foodrations for the hike. Roger led the way aswe headed through the car park, next tothe doctor's surgery, and out into thecountryside.

After leaving the back of the car parkwe joined the White Cliffs Country trail.The path took us north for about 500meters before we turned right at a Tjunction and headed east towards Worth,crossing the Eastry bypass.

The walk itself is straight forward andrelatively flat, taking you through a mix-ture of arable land and woods. A verypleasant walk, particularly on a balmysummer's evening. The only real prob-lem we encountered was by the sewageworks, about half way between Eastryand Worth. Nothing had been done tokeep the path clear so we were facedwith a one hundred yard section of pathwith nettles waist high. Thankfully allbut one of us was wearing long trousersso we made it through relatively un-scathed. ("By the way Ron, how are thelegs?") 20-20 hindsight tells me that itwould have been more sensible to havetaken a small detour around the sewageworks.

After about another kilometre, we foundourselves walking along the edge of anorchard. Here we turned right leavingthe White Cliffs Country Trail, whichturns north toward Felderland and theSandwich bypass. After 500 metres, weturned left into Mill Lane, which con-nects Ham to the A258 road from Deal

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to Sandwich. We took the path whichpasses to the right of a couple of houseon the corner, leading us in a straightline, across the A258 and past UptonHouse, arriving in Worth through thechurchyard.

Our third pub of the evening was theCrispin at Worth. The pub has got anoldy worldy charm about it and hasn'tchanged significantly in the ten years Ihave been going there. There was a goodselection of real ales available, includingMaster Brew, London Pride, GreeneKing IPA and, unusually, RuddlesCounty. Their cheese & pickle doorstopwith chips was excellent and very wel-come. That particular night the pub wasrelatively quiet.

Our final port of call was the Blue Pi-geons. The pub was bustling when wearrived, even though it was getting nearclosing time, but there was time for acouple more pints. Beers included Timo-thy Taylor Landlord and Greene KingAbbot.

Eventually, it was time to wend our wayhome, in a rather less environmentallyfriendly way, by car and taxi.

For details of future Pub Walks, contactJohn Pitcher on 01304 214153 or [email protected]. John can also becontacted if you are a CAMRA memberand would like to be added to the emaildistribution list.

!JotUjWeJb!Jfre fiimJle6fuun ~

t!~G~o~2~TDTHE HISTORIC DOCKYARD CHATHAMBrewers of Traditional Crafted Alesusing only the finest malted barley

and whole Kentish HopsSPONSORS OF THE

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POLIPINS (36 pints) from only,£39.07or FIRKINS (72Ilints) from only,£72.26

front our range of filk' ales\1dery Mild 3">"0 Roehester Bitter 3.7"0Adlllirals Bitter 3.S"0 Trafalgar Bitter 4.1".

Hardy's Ki~ 4.2/To ~'panker 4.2/To~naUIe 4.4/T. Friggin in the Riggin4.7".

Ci'owsN~t 4.S'. Shqnm'Cked 5.00-0Futtoek 5.2/To Old Sea DogStout 5.5/To

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~D THE BOHEMIAN1)IIOI~II"'~ BEACH STREET I DEAL

Ifirst visited this seafront pub aboutfour years ago, in its previous life as

the Antwerp. A haven for local beerssuch as those from the Swale Brewery,the Antwerp's interior was vastly dif-ferent from today's in an unfussy, old-fashioned way. As The Bohemian, thepub has undergone radical changesboth inside and out over the past fewyears.

Most importantly, the pub has retainedthe old policy of selling a variety ofinteresting real ales, but has expandedthis range to include a good selectionof draught and bottled beers and ci-ders, as well as quality wines fromaround the world. In charge of the The Bohemian, Dealhand pumps is John Brown (formerlyof the Deal Hoy in Duke Street) who,together with his partner, Carlene, has worked tirelessly to make the pub what it istoday - a comfortable, continental-style bar with something for everyone.

The exterior shows an impressive, his-toric town centre pub facade at the front,while an attractive, walled patio gardenhas been opened up at the rear - a wel-come addition in a town with only a hand-ful of outside drinking areas to be foundaway from busy main roads.

Exposed floorboards and understatedlighting in the bar compliment a good col-lection of different seating, from comfysofas and coffee tables to solid wood ta-bles and chairs. Traditional and contem-

The Bohemian - view of the bar porary artwork adorns the walls, and someinteresting fireplaces have been retained

Page 23

NORTHBOURNETHE STREET, NORTHBOURNE, DEAL, KENTCT14 OLG

TELEPHONE No. 01304 365429'Village pub at it's best'

Relax in our comfortable and traditional bar or when the sun is shiningenjoy the Kent countryside from our patio and garden with its

children's play area.BAR SNACKS - TO - A LA CARTE MENU

We cater for everybody ~ Extensive Vegetarian Menu

FWlY"eabA~East Kent's first Non-Smoking pubPhone for our Christmas Menu

m;be ~eb }LionCharlton Green Dover Tel 01304 202899

Open all day every day

Fullers LondonPride & Charles Wells Bombardier served

Separate non-smoking restaurant area

Food served 12-2pm ~ "

The Vi1l~ Pub next door to 00Dover s Town Centre ~!i!I

Page 24

as part of the mix of old and new.

Since The Bohemian opened, extensive renovations have brought about the addi-tion of an intimate upstairs restaurant, which must have one of the best views in

Deal, with two large windows lookingstraight out over the beach and pier. Theexposed floorboards and interesting mixof decor also feature in the restaurant,where tables are decorated with candlesand rather generous wine glasses.

The pub describes itself as a "modem barand eatery", and unusual culinary treatssuch as kangaroo and fish chowder reflectthis progressive policy. The lunchtimemenu is also varied and includes a rangeof interesting baguettes, salads, sausages,

The Bohemian - restaurant lamb cutlets, olives and cheeses, as wellarea as seafood such as seared scallops, and

smoked or roast salmon.

The four hand pumps include the regularly available Weston's Organic DraughtVintage Cider (7.5%) and a healthy turnover of beers from around the UK. Caskbeers during my last two visits in August were Hampshire Brewery's topicallynamed Greece Lightning (4.2%), Woodforde's Wherry (3.8%), and two offeringsfrom Grand Union Brewery: One Hop Amarillo (4.5%) and Centenary Honey Ale(4.2%), brewed to celebrate Brentford Football Club's 100 year tenure at GriffinPark.

Imported draught beers are Amstel, Bitburger, Budvar, Erdinger, Hoegaarden,Leffe and Liefman, and each is served in its appropriate brewery glass. The arrayof bottled beers from around the world includes the familiar likes of Chimay, Du-vel, Kwak, Becks, Singha etc - but the biggest bottled treat for me is Cooper'sSparkling Ale, which has come all the way from my home city of Adelaide, SouthAustralia.

Any pub that can represent and maintain so many different beer lovers' interests isto be applauded. The Bohemian goes further by offering this happy marriage in aninterestingly renovated building, conveniently located right in the heart of the pic-turesque seaside setting of Deal.

ll.nJre .M.cJbtoy

Page 25

The National News~

Boddies on the Move

On the day that I type this, Interbrewmade an announcement which will havesurprised few, if any, in the trade. TheBoddingtons brewery at Strangeways isto close in 2006 with "the cream ofManchester" being brewed at one ormore of its other plants which are atPreston, Glasgow and in South Wales.All this after relaunching the caskversion only a few months ago! The factthat only sixty jobs are lost speaksvolumes about the run-down atManchester with much of the associatedwork (like packaging into cans) alreadybeing done elsewhere.

Early next year the Bass contract withCoors (at Burton) runs out. Watch thisspace.

Greene King Lands LaurelPubs

The East Anglian brewer has taken overthe unbranded managed houses of LaurelPub Company which itself was formedfrom some of the last remnants of the oldWhitbread empire. GK will look to turnmany of these rather anonymous outletsinto tenancies, although some might fallinto its own branded imagery.

This leaves Laurel with "High St" and"circuit" bars such as Hogshead/Hog'sHead, and including a selection of oldBemi Inns, etc. Laurel is at odds with

competing chains in that it sees potentialexpansion in a crowded market.

Whitbread -s Premier DealEx-brewer and (almost) ex-pub owner

Whitbread was confident of taking overthe Premier Lodge hotel chain fromSpirit Group and has now confirmed thedeal. As yet we do not know theimplications for beer supply (if any)which currently come from Scottish &Newcastle.

High Street Blues

Laurel aside, the town centre picture is agloomy one at present. Yates has finallyachieved its intention to sell the businessto its own management but it took a lotof negotiation between shareholderinterests and merchant bankers to see thedeal through. Yates used to run oldfashioned "wine lodges" but has movedinto squeaky-clean "superpubs" whichaim at the 18-30 market with little, ifany, for the ale drinker. (Nearest to hereis in Margate by the bus station.)SFI Group (Litten Tree, etc) almost wentunder following financial difficulties andis now very much in the hands of itsbankers who exercise control.

JD Wetherspoon has scaled back on newopenings, blaming increased costsincluding National Insurance and thesuffocating burden of red tape with thenew licensing laws to follow. At itsAGM it announced profits which, asexpected, were as flat as an unwanted

pint. At the same time it is changing itsbeer range, having signed up withMarston's which will compete withScotCo's Theakston and Directorsbrands on the bar. (See also local news).

Unique Enterprise

Before take-over by Enterprise Inns,Unique Pubco had started taking localales from brewers affiliated to SIBA(their trade organisation). Enterprise isnow looking to expand on this overduebut very welcome scheme. More on thatwhen it happens!

New Licensing Delay

With the new law in place ready for nextyear, Whitehall was due to haveannounced regulations and fees in itssupport by the end of August. It did nothappen! Thus local councils and thetrade are effectively flying blind as theyattempt to prepare for the biggestupheaval for many years.

Clearing the Smoke

With total bans in countries like Irelandand Norway, and some parts of Americathe industry as a whole is taking smokingin public places very seriously. To wardoff the big stick from Whitehall, and acomplete ban the industry, the licensedtrade has developed the Charter onSmoking in Public Places, which seeks togive individual pubs choice from a numberof options. Essentially the trade needs totake urgent action to make properprovision for non-smokers while allowingfor smokers' rights too. Otherwise we arelooking at a ban sometime during the nextparliament.

9)~ fJlo.utft

CHANNEL VIEW

Inaddition to its traditional interestsof licensing control and excise duty,

Parliament appears to be unusuallyinvolved with the brewing and pubindustry at present. A Trade and Indus-try Select Committee is currently look-ing at pubco ties with their tenants, andGordon Brown, judging from his lastcouple of budgets, seems to have takenthe health of the micro industry toheart. Smoking in public places and"binge drinking" attract constant atten-tion, and CAMRA is urging the Gov-ernment to look again at the nowscrapped Beer Orders. If this were notenough, new licensing regulations aredue to be implemented shortly.

While such activity and interest fromour legislators is pleasing, previousexperience suggests that perhaps weshould not be too optimistic about theresults. The takeovers and mergers ofthe fifties and sixties, which left muchof the industry in the hands of six na-tional combines, drew little attention,other than a limited amount of requireddisposals to reduce local concentra-tions of ownership. By the time theindustry was investigated in the lateeighties, choice had substantially im-proved as pubs were sold off into thefree trade, and guest beers started ap-pearing in tied houses. However, de-spite, or perhaps because of this, theGovernment accepted a watered down

version of the resulting report, andrequired, via the Beer Orders, thatbreweries sever the tie on half of theirestates, above a basic 2,000 pubs. Wellintentioned, it is now generally ac-cepted that the results were not par-ticularly beneficial to either the brew-eries, publicans or drinkers. Whetheror not as a direct result, within ten tofifteen years, the major brewers, nowfurther consolidated to just four (withthree in foreign ownership), had splittheir brewing interests from pub own-ership, a dozen or so of the remainingfamily/regional brewers had closed orlost their independence, and a newclass of pub owners, the non-brewingpubcos, had appeared - two of which,Punch and Enterprise now own morepubs than the largest brewers beforethe Beer Orders. In theory offering awider choice of beer, many pubco pubsin practice offer just two or three froma handful of national brands, whilejudging from evidence to the currentSelect Committee looking at pubcoties, they are no more popular withtheir licensees, than were the largebrewers.

Although not achieving what was in-tended, the Beer Orders did at least actas a brake on conglomerations ofpower, but two years ago the Govern-ment rescinded them, making it is pos-

sible once again for brewing and pubownership to combine into a handfulof national giants. Already, severalregional brewers, originally with toofew pubs to be affected by the orders,are looking to expand their estates, andGreene King, having recently pur-chased 432 pubs from Laurel, nowexceeds the defunct Beer Orders wa-tershed, at 2,100. Elsewhere the Gov-ernment's approach is no more re-assuring. It has shown interest in sup-porting rural and community pubs, butstill allows change of use from a pubto restaurant or shop without planningconsent, while the benefit of GordonBrown's tax breaks for small brewer-ies, although very welcome, would begreatly enhanced if pubco licenseeswere given a guest beer right. Theproblem of binge drinking, probablyderives in no small part from the lais-sez-faire approach towards youth ori-entated bars in town and city centres,and the apparent eagerness to promotefamily use, together with encourage-ment of cafe bars and other continentalformats, suggests a lack of acquaint-ance with the true nature of the Britishpub; and to be honest, with the excep-tion of perhaps John Prescott, most ofour present legislators do not give theimpression of being the kind of peopleyou would bump into in the local.

However, at least interest is beingtaken. Too often in the past both pubsand breweries attracted scant attentionfrom the Government, other than as asource of revenue. Probably, the indus-try was seen as fragmented and disor-ganised, and in need of

"rationalisation" - out of date brewer-ies with tranches of run-down backstreet pubs, best consigned to the re-developers bulldozer. Few would holdsuch a view today. Ted Tuppen, bossof Enterprise, has described the pub asone the country's greatest brands. Heis of course right, and he might haveadded so also is real ale. The concernof the Government is welcome, but itneeds to be more focused, and to ap-preciate that these are unique assets,worthy of the appreciation and respectafforded to the Scotch whisky industryor French wine. While it's nice to be-lieve that in a free market quality andgood value will come through, as weall know, convenience, money andmarketing say otherwise, and althoughthe traditional British pub and real aleare not exactly delicate flowers theyare in need of care and attention. Let'shope that the Government is at lastbecoming aware of this, and that when,in due course, the current Select Com-mittee reports, any resulting legislationis well considered, measured and prag-matic, and not the kind of radical free-for-all that followed the Beer Orders.

LOUIS ARMSTRONGMaison Dieu Road, Dover

01304 204759Selection of Real Ales

~We~~7~&S~7'tadfk» ~ S~ ¥

Friday 15th October'I'. J. Jofinson's ~our6on Xick

Halloween Sunday 31st OctoberTate :Five witfi Cnariie Connor & Colin. Bowden.

mbe ~o!,aI <!&akCAPEL-LE-FERNE

Telephone 01303 244787

Your new hosts KAREN & PAUL welcomeyou to the Royal Oak, Capel-Ie-Ferne

NOW WITH ALL DAY OPENINGMonday - Saturday 12.00 - 11.00 Sunday 12.00 - 10.30

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BEER GARDEN CARAVAN CLUB SITE

Page 30

The 2005 edition of CAMRA's best-selling guide to Britain's 4,500 top

real ale pubs will be launched onWednesday 15th September 2004. It'sthe 32nd Anniversary of the best guideto British pubs. And it contains descrip-tions of the top 4,500 pubs in Britain. Allentries are surveyed on a regular basisby CAMRA members. Other guides mayonly send a questionnaire and are nevervisited.

The Guide has information about pubfacilities for families and the disabled,history, architecture, food, accommoda-tion, local places of interest... and,

of course, the beer: the best pubs servingthe finest real ale in the country. Youwill also find a full list of CAMRA'sNational Inventory of Pubs - pubs withinteriors of outstanding historic interest-helping to save these pubs for posterity.The 2005 Guide has Special features on:

* Small Craft Brewers - EditorRoger Protz highlights there are morethan 60 new breweries in this year'sguide, twice as many as 2004 edition.

* Pub companies are the supermarketsof beer - The majority of modempub companies are acting like beer su-permarkets and ignoring the needs ofmillions of beer drinkers. The GoodBeer Guide calls for the guest beerright to be reinstalled.

* Heroes of Beer and Brewing - Topbeer writer Roger Protz has chosenbrewers and pub owners for his Heroesof Beer and Brewing Awards.

Plus:Top 16 Pubs in BritainCAMRA announces the 16 RegionalPubs of the Year winners that will nowbe entered into the National Pub of theYear final.

The Brewers SectionUnique to the Guide - a list of everybrewery in the country, large andsmall, with details of all the cask-conditioned and bottle-conditioned beersthey brew, with professional tastingnotes.

For more info contact CAMRA,Tel: 01727 867201;Fax: 01727 867670;Email: [email protected]: www.camra.org.uk

Kent Small Brewenr News IHopdaemon Brewery 01227 784962 - Tyler Hill, CanterburyContact: Tonie Prins

Besides supplying local Tesco supermarkets, Tonie will now be supplying twentySainsbury supermarkets, in the South East, with his bottle conditioned beer. He is alsoextending his number of cultural outlets in London where one might buy his bottledconditioned beers, by two. These are The National Gallery and The Barbican Centre.

Incubus won the Champion Beer of The Festival award at The Kent Beer Festival atCanterbury.

Recent deliveries include The Coastguard - S10 Margaret's Bay, The Yew Tree -Barfrestone, Eagle - Dover, East Cliffe Tavern - Folkestone, The Five Bells - Eastry,Rose and Crown - Elham and Butchers Arms - Ashley. The Eagle in Dover does notnow always have a Hopdeemon beer available.

The Ramsgate Brewery 07967660060 - RamsgateContact: Eddie Gadd

A new seasonal beer, for the summer, was Dr. Sunshine's Special Friendly EnglishWheat Ale (try remembering that after a few pints), at4.2%. A high proportion ofwheat gave, what Eddie describes as, "a soft and quenching character, with a slightlyhoppy finish".

Jazz Ale, at 4.3%, was brewed for the Thanet Jazz Festival, but was available in theusual outlets. This was another pale ale with a hoppy character, and one that Iunfortunately did not manage to sample.

Gadd's Old Pig Brown Ale will be available from mid-September.

Recent deliveries have been made to Blake's in Dover, The Happy Frenchman andChambers, both of which are in Folkestone. Blake's has recently greatly increased it'srange of real ales, and will often feature Ramsgate Brewery beers and was recentlyselling Jazz Ale and No.5.

~i ~,~~ ~

~ ~

Vpper Street, 'l(jngsd"ownrfeC01304373915FreeHouse

Your hosts A/ex & Amandaand your chef Michae/ French

we/come you to the King's Head

Bar & Restaurant food Toes to SatAll freshly home-cooked by our chef t: R,

Fresh fish and good curries always available ~~ A'~\~~~~

Wliy not haoe an easy sunday and come to ~~~~usfor our super6 Sunday roast from 12-6 Oe%~~~Extensive wine list· Over 20 malt whiskies ,,~~

(eS <9p~rUne1test ~ LLM'ldv rvLday 12 - 2.3OpWII

ytlJ (eW(1,jS satu.Y~ 11(Mf1; - 3pWII(1: • ((l,b\t· s~ 12 - 10.3OpWII(1,'\J(1,t ( ",,(1,(

.fte'l\ \V fV~ lvt01'\l-rvLday 5 -11pWII0)" satu.Y~ 6-11pWII

s~ 12 - 10.3OpWII

Available any lunchtime for personal or business functions

Page 33

Nelson Brewing Co. (formerly Flagship Brewery) 01634 832828-ChathamContact: Andrew Purcell or Angelica 0 'Hanlon

A new partner has been taken into the business. His name is Michael Roper and he willtake an active role. So far he has been instrumental in building a mezzanine floor, inthe brewery. This now accommodates the office, bottling plant and an off licence thatsells the brewery's products to visitors to Chatham Historic Dockyard, which is wherethe brewery is located.

A new light and hoppy beer has been brewed for the summer and is Rochester Ale at3.7%. Should sales warrant it, this beer will be retained in Nelson Brewery's regularportfolio. It has proved to be very popular so far.

Recent deliveries to the Channel Draught area are Prince Albert - Deal, King,s Head _Kingsdown, Five Bells - Eastry, Raglan - Folkestone and East Cliffe Tavern _Folkestone

Contrary to rumours that suggest otherwise, the new eponymous brewery atWesterham has no plans to deliver to the area covered by this magazine. The nearestoutlet is, according to the brewery, in Tenterden. For more details, telephone 01959565837.

~.Mmtp~

L tt t th cl· t To contact the Editore ers 0 eel or see Page 53

Dear All,

As I'm sure you know, the English hop industry is in tatters (see the link below).http://www.hops.co.uk/NewsIHopStat2003.htmBy way of illustration, a local Kent grower had his picking shed bumt down (almostcertainly vandalism) after only one day of picking this year. The economics are suchthat not only is it unviable to transport this year's crop to another picking site, it is alsounviable to replace the shed and machinery - the result is another 60 acres of hops lostfor ever.

What can be done? No idea. But coverage in What's Brewing would be a start. We areseriously in danger of losing this industry very quickly. CAMRA saved our beeragainst all the odds but if we can't save our hops, our beer will be very different in afew years time.

Cheers

Eddie Gadd, Ramsgate Brewery

Page 34

I CIDER MATTERS I

Let me start with some unfortunate news. Althoughthe new Good Cider Guide was due for publication

this autumn, it was felt that it needs a little more workthan can be carried out before the publishing deadline.With that in mind, the publication date has been put backto next spring. Although that brings with it a risk that theguide might be out-of-date by then, the decision has beentaken and we will just have to wait that bit longer. I'msure the guide will be just as good and informative asever, so it should be worth the wait.

I went on holiday in August. That in itself isn't newsworthy, of course, and nor isthe fact that I went to Scotland for two weeks. What did surprise me was that afterno luck looking for decent cider in supermarkets in southern Scotland, I wasamazed to find a good selection in Inverness, of all places. I must say I wouldn't bedisappointed to find their selection in some outlets in East Kent. You can get de-cent bottled cider around here, of course, but not in every store, so keep looking!

That reflects a bit on the state of cider in this part of the world these days. I'vealways associated cider with Kent rather than anywhere else, but apparently therest of the country sees it as a West Country drink, which it probably is these days.It is still a relatively thriving industry there, whereas our local producer,Theobolds, closed down some years ago. Recently, it was announced that Merry-down would no longer be producing its own cider, preferring to concentrate onother products in its portfolio. That probably leaves Biddenden as the main pro-ducer around here, although Merrydown was actually based in East Sussex, ofcourse. What with all the problems facing traditional orchards, as I mentioned awhile ago, let's hope that this isn't the start of a trend.

Not long ago, I looked up a list of CAMRA's champion ciders & perries for thisyear. None from around here, of course. It's not that long since the county's ciderscene was a bit livelier, and CAMRA ran a cider & perry festival at the BrogdaleTrust. It was much smaller than our local branch beer festival, naturally, althoughthe ABV levels were similar. As I suggested in an earlier article, the best stuff canbe dangerously drinkable, and I relied on the knowledge and experience of theother staff when I worked there. There is no CAMRA festival there these days, butmany of the people staffing that bar still work on the cider & perry bar at the Kent

Page 35

Beer Festival. Why not pay them a visit next year? Arguably the best festival forcider & perry is the GBBF at Olympia, with an even wider choice, but there is aneven longer wait for the next one. There are specialist cider & perry festivals, but Ihave only heard of them happening in the West Country & Wales. Still, if you areinterested, you could always make a weekend of it. ...

A different approach to getting your hands on cider isto order it on the intemet. There are various onlineoutlets, and I'm not in a position to play favouriteshere. If you take a look at either The Scrumpy UserGuide at www.zider.co.uk or UK Cider atwww.ukcider.co.uk , which both cover most aspectsof real cider. They are better placed to advise you onbuying cider than I am.

Well, if you've stayed the distance and are still read-ing this, you deserve a nice drop of cider as a reward. Ican't offer you that, sadly, but I hope I've pointed youin the right direction.

Clpp&jae&

RE·········G·····E···N··· ·······(C················)y· ....• L;~. <'c< ....•y'. !inde endent financial advisers

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The FSA do not regulate all forms of the products or services we provide.

Page 36

BEER ACROSS THE BORDERDublin's micro breweries

The McIlroy half of the DDS branch "Finglesham Contingent" journeyed to theEmerald Isle in July during a three-part holiday based in counties Meath, Ferman-

agh and Dublin.

My original intention was to write about the various pubs and beers enjoyed along theway as we cruised the waterways around Enniskillen on a replica Dutch barge named(appropriately) Dutch Courage. Alas, these waterways are not quite the same as inEngland, where just about every public jetty is a stone's throw from a pub! The goodnews is that the third part of our journey took us to the heart of Dublin's fair city,where we spent three happy days and nights exploring the sights and, of course, water-ing holes.

Much as we both love a pint of Guinness, there is more to beer in Ireland than theblack stuff. During our short stay, we discovered three micro-breweries and heardabout at least one other such offering in Cork, which will hopefully become subject ofa future trip.

Staying centrally in St Stephen's Green, our 'local' was Neary's, the first pub listingin my ancient Ireland Rough Guide. Neary's is in the well-known Grafton Street shop-ping area, and the kind of place included in every guide worth its salt - so you mightexpect it to be full of tourists and therefore lacking any semblance of true Dublin life.To our delight, this assumption proved incorrect. A wonderfully traditional place,Neary's has both an unusual exterior (decorated with a giant pair of arms astride eachdoorway holding large, lighted glass spheres) and equally interesting interior (muchwooden panelling, cut glass mirrors, and two snug-like rooms).

To compliment the ambience of the place, the staff members were all thoroughlycharming, polite and professional. This was old-fashioned, good quality service, and itwas interesting to chat about how Ireland's smoking ban had affected trade there(noticeably, by some accounts - but let's hope this changes once things settle down).Apparently, Neary's is popular with patrons of the Gaiety Theatre, which is opposite-but we loved it because it was devoid of any glitterati, and we only saw a few touristsduring our three visits! No interesting beer here, but no matter - we nonetheless en-joyed plenty of Guinness and various whiskeys.

Our first micro brewery was a surprise discovery. Walking towards O'Connell Street,I noticed two enormous coppers (of the brewing rather than legal variety) in a windowon Burgh Quay. Messrs Maguire (& Weiss, according to the exterior) brewery pro-duces "hand-crafted Irish beers", and we felt duty bound to investigate further. Apart

Page 37

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o THE LYDDEN BELLoWinner - White Cliffs Tourism Association Pub of the Year 2000

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Up to five Real Ales! Including Charles Wells Bombardier, GreeneKing IPA, YoungsSpecial, Greene King Abbot Ale, CourageDirectors*2Reopeeed: w(;/;}l/ CN'fv~ look; n.ew m.e-t'\.UI ~ dad», i.mproved.- w.:.tw- LL,ftCU'\d; ret'l.eWed.-~ ~ w(u; ~e--t:hcl;t OW" ~(}y"

cir-~~¥w(u;hcwe--~~ ~(.ce, p~ I Look»{orward: t"o-wteet"1A'\.ff' yow all. !001'\1. * Ales are Subject ta availability J

from an open view to brewing cop-pers and a display of raw brewingingredients in the front window, anhistoric interior and some of thefinest stout we've ever sampled laywithin.

The building itself is quite some-thing, and worth visiting in its ownright. It houses an interior fit for anIrish equivalent of CAMRA's Na-tional Inventory of Pubs, with sev-eral floors of elaborately carvedwooden staircases, much wroughtiron railing between multi-leveldrinking/eating areas, and various

M .,agUlre S snugs together with many other

interesting decorative features. Thepub was formerly known as

Tommy Wrights and the brewery, which is housed in the basement, won the BrewingIndustry International Awards 2002 Gold Award for its wheat beer.

Top of the Maguire's beer bill, for both of us, was the Extra - a 5.0% "very specialdouble stout" which was a stronger tasting and more interesting version of the deli-cious Plain (4.9% - "classic, easy drinking, plain Irish stout"). Maguire's other beersare varied and include Rusty(4.6% - "fruity auburn red ale"),MM Pils (5.7% - "brewed strictlyin accordance to the German Pu-rity Laws of Reinheitsgebot"),Haus (4.3% - "classic Europeanpilsner style lager"), Weiss (5.0%- "naturally cloudy and pale or-ange in colour"), Gardens WildAle (5.1 % - "traditional handpulled cask conditioned bitter")and Yankee (4.2% - "pale, easydrinking and refreshing quaffinglager"). We didn't have time tosample all of the above but, onour next visit, we'll be bearing inmind that beer-tasting trays are Maguires- interior viewavailable on request!

Page 39

We had read that it is worth doing the Guin-ness tour, so set off on foot to cover themany blocks along the River Liffey to Victo-ria Quay, which forms one border of thebrewery's vast premises. The amount of landoccupied by Guinness at St James's Gate isstaggering, and it is worth doing a circuit ofthe entire site just to get some exercise, ifnothing else! As it turned out this is all wedid get that day, because visitor numbers hadreached capacity! So, off we trotted armedwith free entrance tickets for the followingday, and advice as to a nearby pub where wemight enjoy a decent pint of Guinness.

After taking the weight off our feet for a bitMaguires _Interior in St Jam~s's Gate, we set of~ again on our

next Dubhn beer quest. The fnendly staff atMaguire's had told us about two other local

breweries, one of which is based just north ofthe Liffey in an area called Smithfield Market. The Dublin Brewing Company doesn'thave a brewery tap at its Smithfield premises, but the nearby Cobblestone Inn is itsnearest outlet and sounded like it was worth a visit - until we realised we'd overshot byseveral blocks. By this stage our feet were saying"enough", so we resolved to return the fol-lowing day after the deferred Guinness tour.

Instead, we set off to investigate the otherrecommended Dublin brewery, centrally lo-cated just down from City Hall in the trendyTemple Bar district. By the time we arrived atthe Porterhouse Brewing Co, this impressivepub was full to bursting point and we wereunable to rest our weary feet. We decided toreturn again during the following day's lunch-time session, and headed home via a nice Chi-nese restaurant and the late session atNeary's.

The next day saw visits to more of the city'scultural sights before heading off to Porter-house in Temple Bar for the lunch-time ses- The Porterhousesion. Where I could easily imagine comingacross Maguire's somewhere in the historical

Page 40

/!i~ 20.··· ..s ·.·,m~THE~~ , .....•.•.

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Robert WbighamInnkeeper

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The Plough InnChurch Lane, RippleTel: 01304360209

Real Ales, Country WinesFull weekday menu plus traditional Sunday lunchesAccommodation, One Double Room & One Twin Room - Both en-suite

Ales always available are:Fullers ESB, Shepherd Neame Master Brew &

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Page 41

part of, say, Manchester,Porterhouse has a muchmore east coast Americanfeel to it - and a globalapproach to both the beersit brews and those it sellsby the bottle from aroundthe world.

The Porterhouse BrewingCo began life in 1989 whenfounders Liam LaHart andOliver Hughes bought run-down premises in Bray,south of Dublin (on thecoast near the Wicklow

Porterhouse - Interior Mountains). Porterhouse'ssubsequent brewing suc-cess brought about the pur-

chase of the Temple Bar premises, which in turn created Dublin's first bar/micro-brewery in 1996.

Another fascinating pub interior here, with much use of lovely old floorboards andpanelling over several storeys, floor to ceiling wall cupboards filled with beer bottlesfrom around the globe, and the unusual incorporation of brass and copper plumbing asa decorative material- it's everywhere, and positively gleaming. Refurbishment workcurrently underway also includes opening up one of the brewing coppers to a new seat-ing area.

The brewery uses "up to 8 different malts from 2 countries and 10 hops from 5 coun-tries over 3 continents". Hops are air freighted directly in for maximum freshness, andthe beers contain no chemicals - nor are they subject to pasteurisation. The Plain Porter(4.3%) won the Brewing Industry International Awards 1998/99 Gold Award, thoughour joint favourite was the Oyster Stout (4.8%) - a phenomenal stout, though unsuit-able for vegetarians as it is brewed with fresh oysters. The sea is definitely apparent inthe taste! The third stout is Wrasslers 4X Stout at 5%, which Michael Jackson (beerhunter, not music/headline maker) declared "The best stout in Ireland for my money".The three draught ales are TSB (Turner's Sticlebracht Bitter) at 3.7%, Porterhouse Redat 4.4% ("Makes Caffrey's taste like Tizer", says Mr Jackson) and An Brain Blasta, at7%. There are also three draught lagers: Hersbrucker (5%), Temple Brau (4.3%) andChiller (4.2%), as well as the draught Haus Weiss (4.3%).

As at Maguire's, we didn't get beyond the stouts - but a sample tray is also on offerhere, which helps us to plan our next visit! Another trip might also enable a sampling

Page 42

m:be (!Crolun 3Jnn~t jftnglesbam

Free house· 16th Century Restaurant

Tel: 01304 612555 Fax: 01304 620380

5 Real Ales

Including• Y Theakston - Old Peculiar<,. Morland - Old Speckled Hen

Shepherd Neame - MasterBrew

Plus 2 Further Guest pumps.

Beers, Cider & Stout ~Kronenbourg DarkMild ~ Ba, & A la Cart.Carlsberg Courage Best Menu available 7Foster's John Smith's Smooth ~aysha.wee~Strongbow Guinness ~c timeevenmgs. (Except

Sunday lunchwhen bar snacksare served along

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Page 43

of the hugely impressive range of world beers available by the bottle - the list is toolong to even begin describing here. To match its east coast American ambience, thePorterhouse serves huge (but delicious) portions of food - one of us had a starter thatwas bigger than a main course! You have been warned.

Anyone reading this in the London area will be pleased to hear there are two localoutlets for Porterhouse beers - The Porterhouse (Covent Garden) and The Porterhouse(Barnes) - which of course could also prove handy for those unable to get to Dublin!

Next stop was St lames's Gate andthe "Guinness Storehouse". We werehappy enough to do the Guinness tour,but rather glad of the free tickets - theenterprise is extremely commercialand, for my part, the best bits were thehistorical collections of "GuinnessGives You Strength" advertisementsand other old memorabilia (oh - andthe free pint of Guinness at the end!).

We set off for Smithfield Market andthe Cobblestone Inn, which is an abso-lute gem. This is the kind ofIrish pub Isimply didn't imagine would still existin Dublin, which to my mind has Cobblestone Inn - interiorchanged much since my first visit in1986. It quickly became apparent thatthis was the hub of the local traditional Irish music scene; there are sessions everynight of the week and some afternoons, and we were lucky enough to arrive to thesound of a small group of assembled musicians. Such is the Cobblestone Inn's musicalrenown, CDs have been recorded there and reflect many of the artists who have playedat the pub.

The Dublin Brewing Company dates from 1996 and prides itself for being "all natural,all Irish". The beers on offer at the Cobblestone Inn were Maeve's Crystal Beer(4.3%), Revolution Red Beer (4.5%) and D'Arcy's Dublin Stout (4.5% "ish", accord-ing to the barman), which won "best stout and best overall product in Ireland at the1998 Ind. Brewers Festival" and "best stout at the 1998 Stockholm Beer Festival". Thebrewery's Wicked Apple Organic Cider (5.5%) is available at the pub, and Beckett'sDublin Lager completes the current list of brewery offerings. The stout was our favour-ite of the three beers, though two others were very interesting in their own rights.

The organic cider will have to wait for our next visit, as we needed to be on our way.It was well worth retracing our steps of the previous day to the Cobblestone Inn for its

Page 44

THE CHARITY INNWOODNESBOROUGH

Up to Four Home Cooked FoodReal ales Served

Including Lunchtimes & EveningsBlack Sheep Bitter Tues~ay to FridayAnsells Dark Mild Lunchtimes - Saturday

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e-mail: [email protected] Traditional Sunday Roast£5.95

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Monday Tuesday to SundaySaturday

6 - 11pm 12 - 3pm 12-3pm6-11pm 7-10.30pm

Page 45

friendliness, atmosphere, music and, of course, the interesting beers from DublinBrewing - next time, we will do it justice by returning for a full music session.

Continuing the theme of retracing our steps, we returned to Maguire's via the lowernorth shore and O'Connell Street. Predictably, we had yet another of our favouritestouts - the wonderful Extra, with its strongly evident roasted barley and black roastedmalt. Things were getting underway for the evening's weekend DJ and late bar, so werepaired to our trusty local, Neary's, for a nightcap (OK, perhaps afew nightcaps!).

Sadly, there is not enough room here to give a complete description of the many won-derful brews we came across during our Dublin crawl, but suffice to say there are Irishbrewers out there who are not complacent about what they brew or how they do it - soa visit to Dublin (as a starting point) is well worth the effort.

stainte!Anne Mcl/Toy

Cobblestone Inn: http://www.cobblestone.ieDublin Brewing Company: http://www.dublinbrewing.comGuinness: http://www.guinness.comMessrs Maguire's: http://www.quinnhotels.com/pubs dublin.htmlPorterhouse Brewing: www.porterhousebrewco.com

WHITE CLiffSfESTIVAL Of WINTER ALES 2005FRIDAYFEBRUARY 4th 2005&SATURDAYFEBRUARY 5th 2005

MAISON DIEUHIGH St. DOVER

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Page 46

PRINCE ALBERT187-189 MIDDLE ST. , DEAL(CORNER OF ALFRED SQUARE)

Michael & Colin welcome you to the Prince Albert,An 18th century inn situated in Deal's historic

Middle Street conservation area3 REAL ALES

including regularlyNelson Ales & Gadd's

OPENING HOURS6 - 11 Monday to Saturday

12 - 10.30 Sunday

Restaurant open from 6.30Tuesday to Saturday (Last orders 8.30)

Sunday Carvery 12 - 2.30

Beer Garden

Accommodation Available

Telephone 01304 375425

Page 47

LASTKNOCKINGS

I've lost count of the number of times that I've heard real ale referred to dis-paragingly as warm beer, to be slung into the "outdated bin" along with vi-

nyl records, Bakelite radios and family tea around the fire. Most recently it wasas someone repeating John Major's oft quoted vision of England, which in-cluded village cricket and old maids cycling to church. What, of course, is fun-damentally inaccurate, and suggests that those who use the phrase have neverdrunk real ale, or at least merely latch on to a cliche, is that real ale is not warm(so long as it's looked after properly) - it's just not chilled. The correct cellartemperature for real ale, to allow secondary fermentation and conditioning,should be the mid 50s F, and this, to my taste, is how it should end up in theglass - not chilled, and not warm, but with sufficient temperature to allow it tobe appreciated at its best. While lager style beers often require chilling for besteffect (and some would say to mask their lack of flavour), the reverse is oftentrue for ale. Like red wine and unlike many refined lagers, good real ale com-prises a variety of complex and subtle flavours which chilling will often maskor prevent developing. Paul Hogan might well feel that Fosters is "cocked" bydrinking it warm, but real ale can be f***** by chilling.

----------------------------------------It's good to see that the Government's Health Department is backing self-regulation as the approach to controlling smoking in pubs, following a surveywhich found that only 20% favoured an outright ban (What's Brewing, August2004). Most people (some 55%) thought that smoking should be allowed, butrestricted to certain designated areas. This is the approach supported byCAMRA, and is set out in the licensed trade's Charter on Smoking in PublicPlaces, which seeks to give individual pubs choice from a number of options,with licensees encouraged to display signs stating their particular policy. Un-fortunately the anti-smoking lobby is vociferous and well organised, and seemsdetermined to impose its views on the rest of society whether they want it ornot. In particular they are arguing that the right of bar staff to work in a smokefree environment requires a complete ban, irrespective of the facts that thiswould include pubs run by their owners without the help of employed staff,

Page 48

that many bar staff smoke or don't mind, and that in a free society it seemswrong, to me at least, to deny smokers (of which I'm not one) any opportunityto indulge their activity in a public place.

When the Independent recently argued in favour of choice it immediately re-ceived the somewhat excessive accusation of condoning 18th/19th century levelsof industrial neglect for inner city workers. Undoubtedly there is danger in pas-sive smoking, but accurate figures for bar staff never seem available, and if, asis generally accepted, most of the thousand or so deaths a year in this countrycaused by passive smoking occur amongst those living with heavy smokers,then those resulting from bar work can only be a few hundred. Not insignifi-cant, but much less than that resulting from road accidents or inhalation of ve-hicle emissions and probably about equivalent with the annual murder rate -none of which causes most people to lie awake at night.

The average publican, however, is no doubt somewhat less sanguine. Formany, life is precarious enough, without deterring custom by banning smoking.Figures from New York, where a ban was recently introduced, suggest a dropin trade of up to 30%, and a similar result in this country would almost cer-tainly be the final straw for not a few pubs. For their benefit, and in support offreedom, this is a matter that should be left to the discretion of individuallicen-sees. Let's hope the Government has the resolution to support its own HealthDepartment, and ignore those calling for a complete ban.

-----------------------------------------Interesting to see the generally poorly regarded Greene King IPA as runner upChampion Ale of Britain at the Great British Beer Festival. I understandamazement was the general response from those present, and certainly it'snever found much favour with me, seeming somewhat thin and sharp, andlacking in flavour. However, I know of at least one pub that regularly appearsin the Good Beer Guide on the quality of its JPA, and that one of our branchmembers, who comes from "GK country", always maintains that it just needslooking after correctly. This perhaps explains this apparent paradox. Apartfrom JPA suffering the universal phenomenon of familiarity breeding con-tempt, the landlord who can't be bothered to look after his beer, is the one mostlikely to take the national brand shoved under his nose by his supplier. Drink abeer often enough, in poor condition, and you draw the obvious conclusionabout its initial quality. Having said that I have yet to come across a pint of

Green King JPA I really enjoyed. (9td- 'llJ~

Page 49

~t. ctCrt5'ptn 1Jnn15th Century

Pub andRestaurant, I' 'I' .

,:1.ti ~I· I~~~,...a- -£ .Come and eniov a A]trt,;!'~'" ~

'J ; I",:..J:-..:-

pint of real ale in ourlarge garden or on the barbeque patio. We also offer adaily changing specials board featuring local produceas well as our comprehensive bar and a la carte menus.

Upto 6Cask Ales:House Bitters are Fuller's 'London Pride' and

Shepherd Neame 'Masterbrew'Recent guest beers include:

Morland 'Old Speckled Hen'Theakston's 'Old Peculier'

Greene King 'Abbot Ale'Adnam's 'Broadside'

Monday - Saturday llam - 3pm & 6pm - l lpmSunday 12pm - 4pm

St. Crispin Inn, The Street, Worth, Nr. Deal, Kent.Telephone: 01304 612081 www.stcrispininn.com

Page 50

Local Information & (I) CAMRAUseful Numbers ~. Membership of CAMRA is

~ open to everyone who sup-ports the campaign to keep

Dover Touristlnfo 01304205108 CAMPAIGN real ale.Folk Tourist Info 01303258594 FOR To join CAMRA, pleaseDover Police Stn 01304240055 REAL ALE complete the form belowFolk Police Stn 01303 850055 ~ --------------

Dover Taxis Application Form to joinAl 01304202000 CAMRAA2B 01304 225588 I1Wewish to join the Campaign forArrow 01304203333 Real Ale and agree to abide by theCentral 01304 240441 RulesClub Travel 01304201915 NameHeritage 01304 204420Star 01304228822 AddressVictory 01304228888

Deal TaxisAI Cars 01304363636Castle Taxis 01304374001 PostcodeDeal Cars 01304366000Jacks Cars 01304372299 SignatureM & M Cars 01304382345

Sandwich Taxis DateAM Cars 01304614209Silver Cars 01304620222

Folkestone Taxis I/We enclose the remittance for:Channel Cars 01303246564Chris's Taxis 01303226490 Single £16 0 0 AP Single £9 0Folk. Black Cabs 01303220366 Joint £19 0 OAP Joint £12 0Folk. Taxi 01303252000 UnwagedJUnder 26* £9 0Premier Cars 01303279900 Disabled £9 0

National Bus Line 08706082608 *Date of birthStagecoach 0870 2433711National Rail ESq. 08457484950 S d . (p blen your rermttance aya e to

Trading Standards Office(EastKent) CAMRA) to:01843223380Trading Standards Office(MidKent) The membership secretary,01303850294 CAMRAGwynProsser MP (Dover) ,01304214484 230 Hatfield Rd, St Albans, Herts,Dr. StevenLadymanMP (ThanetSouth)01843 ALl 4LW.852696 Phone 01727 867201MichaelHoward QC MP (Shepway)01303253524 Channel Draught 21---------------All numbers on this page were believed correct

at time of going to press.Page 51

Andy & CharlotteWeIcame yaJ 10...

Christchurch Road, Folkestone,Tel;01303-259815

Every week we offer you ahand picked guest cask ale tocomplement our regular ales,which include; Bombardier,

Bass and Broadside.

It's also worth noting that we are nowrecognised as Folkestone's premier livemusic venue, with live band at least twonights a week. On top of which we have

darts, two pool tables and a 1ft BiDScreenTV showing all SkY Sports, including SkI

Sports Plus & PremierKeep an eye out for our forthcoming refit, when

we will have good food available once again!

Page 52

BranchContacts

If you have any queries about CAMRA,or any dispute concerning ale in WhiteCliffs Country then please contact Mar-tin Atkins (Branch Chairman) or DaveRouth (Area Organiser - East Kent).

Martin Atkins 0130420187001304216497

Dave Routh 07941968959

You can e-mail the branch using:[email protected]

The branch website is:http://www .ddscamra.org.uk

Adjacent BranchesAshford Folkestone & Romney MarshAnne Powell [email protected]

CanterburyMike Galliers 01732 771 775(w)01227272494(h)[email protected]

ThanetSteve Saunders 01843 [email protected]

Nationally CAMRA can be contacted at:CAMRA,230 Hatfield Rd,St Albans, Herts.,ALl4LW.

For enquiries, phone 01727867201Web www.camra.org.uk

Channel DraughtInfo & Advertising

Channel Draught is the Newsletter ofthe Deal Dover Sandwich & DistrictBranch of the Campaign for Real Ale ..

Please note that views expressed hereinare not necessarily those of this branch

or CAMRA Ltd.

Editorial Team

Editor & Martin AtkinsAdvertising

News Editor Dave Routh

Editorial Assistant Anne McIlroy

Design & Format Steve Bell

Editorial Address

You can write to the editor c/o2, Eastbrook Place, Dover CT16 lRP

[email protected]@[email protected]

Advertising Rates

Full Page - £30Yz Page or column £16

back page + £10

Format: Microsoft Word / Publisher/PDF or any common graphics formatplus printed copy.

Copy by 31st October 2004 forWinter 2004 issue.

I ADVERTISERS INDEX IPage Name Page Name

5 Chamion Wines 24 Red Lion7 Blakes of Dover 30 Louis Armstrong7 Butchers Arms 30 Royal Oak8 Lighthouse Inn 33 King's Head9 Coastguard Inn 36 Regency Financial Advisors9 Park Inn 38 Railway Bell / Lydden Bell10 The Golden Hind 41 Plough Inn10 The Bull Inn 41 Red Lion12 Guildhall 43 Crown Inn13 Fox Inn 45 Charity Inn14 Eagle Inn 47 Prince Albert15 Pips Fish Shop 50 Crispin Inn16 Five Bells 52 Happy Frenchman22 Nelson Brewing Co. 55 Bob Adams Printers24 Hare & Hounds Back Page Yew Tree

And Finally Oktoberfest Barbie

James Waldron, head designer for the fashion label Rena Lange, has createda special Oktoberfest Barbie. She is wearing an Alpine dirndl dress and has

a beer mug around her neck.

The dirndl is the traditional dress worn by women in Bavaria and the Alps.Waldron says he created the "Mountain Dirndl Barbie" based on Julie An-drews' character Maria in 'The Sound of Music' .

The one-off tiny ensemble consists of a hand woven French tweed skirt, a redapron with Swiss embroidery and frilly blouse with a cotton gauze and lacedecollete. It also comes with a metal stein - the lidded beer tankards that Ger-mans drink from at festivals.

As a result, a South African newspaper headlined the story:

"Oktoberfest Barbie comes with her own jugs. "

Page 54

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A.R. ADAMS & SONS (PRINTERS) LTDTHE PRINTING HOUSE, DOUR STREET,

DOVER, KENT CT16 1EWTELEPHONE: 01304 211202

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