With the explosion of craft-beer bars and micro-pubs in Southampton I thought it time to invite some of my old beer friends down for a good old fashioned pub crawl. The first to come was Ian Harrison. I've known Ian since meeting him at the Maidstone Beer Festival in 2005. We are both members of RateBeer, and we've been to two weddings and a funeral together, as well as numerous pub crawls, including one in Sheffield that got turned into a film (I was having a bad day so refused to get involved in the filming, and asked them not to shoot me and my wife, though we can still be seen in some scenes).
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| Southampton November Crawl Part One - by car |
Despite all my meticulous planning the day started badly when Ian text me to say he was arriving at Southampton Central, and I was still at home because I had thought he was arriving an hour later! I picked him up at around 11.30, but I had planned to start in Shirley where none of the pubs I'd selected would be opened until 12. Given that we would be visiting a planned 16 pubs and drinking in each, I had cut out non-essential pubs like Wetherspoons. But, in the circumstances, there was no choice. We started the day in The Bright Water Inn while waiting for Overdraft to open.
Ian and I are both beer collectors, sometimes known as tickers or scoopers. Ticking was started by Mick The Tick when he bought the first copy of The Good Beer Guide and thought it would be fun to drink every beer mentioned in the book. He wasn't alone in having this idea, but he was the first to be well known for it as he shuffled into pubs and beer festivals around the country with his trolley bag and his telescope, occasionally entertaining folks with his skiffle band. For many small breweries in the UK, tickers kept them going. Until then it was normal for brewers to focus on a small core of beers, with a few seasonals and the occasional one-off special for anniversary events like a brewery's centenary, But small breweries realised they could get more sales if they made lots of different beers, because the growing band of tickers would want to buy each new one. The relationship between these small breweries and tickers was so close they would often make special beers named after some of the tickers. Certain pubs started to focus on ticking and would stock ever greater numbers of cask beers. And some cities, such as Sheffield, became infamous for the amount of ticking pubs they had. Ticking has so expanded now that even an ordinary pub will offer a guest or three, and most towns will have a few pubs which concentrate on offering at least six constantly changing beers.
Day One, Saturday
Pub 1: Bright Water, Shirley
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| Ian at Bright Water Inn with his chosen beer |
So, because we are tickers, a large part of the focus of the crawl would be collecting new beers. When we get in Bright Water we study the pump clips. There are eight beers on offer, but I've had everything there, and for this first section of the crawl I'm driving, so I don't have anything, while Ian selects the one beer he's not had, and we settle down at a table to chat and catch up.
Pub 2: Overdraft, Shirley
It's now time for the Overdraft to open, so we cross over the road, and Ian studies the kegs and casks behind the bar in the shabby chic interior.
Two of the beers we order turn out to be unavailable, so we have to wait while new casks are opened. Ian is not impressed by that, and neither of us are generally impressed by the ambiance or decor - it feels a little too shabby and not quite chic enough. However, this is a popular and successful pub that has recently extended its opening hours, and does offer interesting local beers.
We share three beers from the New Forest brewery Vibrant Forest: Belgian Zuur, Kick Start, and Kaleidoscope. I tend to find Vibrant Forest beers too hop focused for my taste (I prefer malty beers), but I did enjoy the Belgian Zuur.
Pub 3: Waterloo Arms, Shirley
We then drove round the corner to the Waterloo Arms, a pub I particularly like. There are plenty of good quality HopBack beers on offer, plus some from the Downton brewery, also in Salisbury, and the barmaid was friendly and attractive. Ian wasn't so keen because the smell from the cleaning fluids in the toilet had drifted into the pub.
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| Daleside Stout in the Waterloo Arms |
We shared two beers - Red Ember from Hop Back, and a Stout from Daleside. Bot hdecent beers in good condition.
Pub 4: Wellington Arms, Shirley
The Wellington Arms is just round the corner from the Waterloo, and I should imagine would attract the same customers. When we popped in there was only one customer, and he was busy helping the barmaid light the fire, but there's always a warm, relaxed atmosphere in here, and we had a good crack while ordering the drinks.
There were two beers from the Brewhouse & Kitchen on offer, and even though we would be visiting them next, Ian went for their Wellie Gull as he'd already had all the other beers in the pub. I had the Andwell Gold Muddler, which Ian had sampled at GBBF in 2010. Both were drinkable if unremarkable pale beers. The Wellie Gull was quite similar to Walk The Line, and appears to have been created just for the pub, so may be a rebadge of that beer.
Shop, Casks & Corks
On our way to the Brewhouse & Kitchen we stopped off at the Casks & Corks beer shop in St James Road. This offers a decent range of local beers at decent prices, and we picked up a few bottles and cans each.
Pub 5: Brewhouse & Kitchen
Our visit to the Brewhouse wasn't that successful. It started promisingly enough with a spread of pump clips, and an offer of three thirds for £3, so we grabbed Walk The Line, On Le Tiss, and Speedwell as our samplers.
All three beers were really bad, with Speedwell Bitter being particularly awful. I was convinced the Speedwell was the result of a pull through error, and that what we were drinking was the cleaning water, and that we should ask the barman to try again, but Ian was so unimpressed by the general standard he didn't think it was worth the bother, so we moved on.
Pub 6: Tramstop Bar & Kitchen
We parked in the useful free car park just off Westridge Road behind Sprinkles, and walked the short distance to Tramstop Bar & Kitchen, which is named after the tram terminal which was on St Denys Rd just outside. There is an attractive range of local beers available here, and Ian had Crackle Rock's Crackerjack and Firecracker, both of which which I'd already had.
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| Some of the local beers available at Tramstop |
It's a pleasant place, but we both felt that while promising, it doesn't seem to have quite settled on an identity or target audience. I've been at least a couple of times now, and haven't yet written up a review....
Pub 7: Butcher's Hook
One of our favourite stops of the day. I like the Butchers Hook - I like the chap who runs it. Always friendly and ready for a chat. And knowledgable about beers and brewing. We got into an interesting conversation with a drunk Scot who was urging us to try a pub in town which serves Doom Bar.
Pub 8: Olaf's Tun
At last I was able to leave the car near home, and we visited Olaf's Tun where we had a couple of decent beers before jumping into an Uber Taxi and making our way to the new BrewDog bar in the student-tastic Bedford Square area of Southampton.
Pub 9: BrewDog
I'm not really a fan of BrewDog or their bars, but this one sort of works for me. We had Flying Dog Berliner Weisse and Beavertown Tropigamma, both drinkable but nondescript beers, and neither from local breweries.
Now we were in town, and I had left the car in Woolston, we could do a proper old fashioned pub crawl, and I wouldn't be limited on the drinking. So we walked round the corner to the Cricketers.
Pub 10: The Cricketers Arms
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| The Cricketers beer choice |
The Cricketers Arms (or The Famous Cricketers Arms, as its seems to be called now) is a traditional pub in the centre of the trendy student night area of Bedford Square. The two rooms have been knocked through, so you enter into the lounge area, then go through into the old public bar to be served. The rugby was on the TV, and some lads were playing darts, so it had a sports bar feel, but there was an attractive selection of beers. I kind of like the Cricketers as part of a crawl. We had
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| Ian demonstrates how the English will crush the balls of the Welsh in the rugby |
Marston’s 61 Deep and Jennings Pigs Might Fly, another Marston's beer. Neither were very exciting. Next pub is also just a short walk - the modern Sadler's, just round the corner.
Pub 11, Sadler's
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| Regular display of beers |
Even though Sadler's has a something like ten different casks on offer, Ian and I have had nearly all of them, so there isn't much of interest for us here on this visit. We had the Kingasaurus.
Pub 12, Chalk Valley
This was my first visit to Chalk Valley. We were walking past, and I said that the local CAMRA branch had mentioned it had draught beers on offer, so we tried it out, and both liked it.
Pub 13, Wetherspoons - The Giddy Bridge
Pub 14, Belgium and Blues
Pub 15, The Red Lion
Pub 16, The Duke of Wellington
Pub 17, Dancing Man
Pub 18, Platform Tavern
Pub 19, Caskaway
Pub 20, The Frog & Frigate
Day Two, Sunday
Pub 1, Junction Inn
Pub 2, South Western Arms
Pub 3, The Dolphin
Pub 4, The Bookshop Alehouse
Shop,
Pub 5, The Guide Dog
Pub 6, The Rockstone
