A walk around Petersfield

I did the Butser Hill Challenge in 2017 with my niece's partner, Martin, and we had lunch afterwards in the Wetherspoon in Petersfield. I thought that the town looked interesting, so a few days later stopped for a little pub crawl after dropping off the girls at Gatwick airport.

I visited the Red Lion (Wetherspoon), The Townhouse (modern), Charles St. Tap (craft bar), The Old Drum (gastro), and Square Brewers (Fullers).  The Fullers pub was the most traditional, while the Wetherspoon offered the best value, but was also the most popular so there was a long queue at the bar. Fullers competes well with Wetherspoon, offering good value food and a good number of cask beers (five), though Wetherspoon has a greater range of breweries and brands to choose from.

Red Lion, Wetherspoon

Red Lion, Wetherspoon

We loved the building. It has been a pub since the 1600s, and in the modernisation Wetherspoons have retained significant character, creating a large and interesting space with cosy nooks and crannies scattered around fireplaces. Sadly, the bar area is small, so on busy days there are long queues, especially for food. And the beer selection is fairly limited for a Wetherspoon pub.

Beer selection and sample tray

The whole building is Grade II listed, from the small attached building, known as The Tap, in Heath Road, which is the oldest part, and is the original pub, through the corner location main building, to the more recent (early 1800s) and larger building by the car park, which has the upper floor bay window.

The Luker brewery and Petersfield's almshouse on the site of
the Red Lion's car park.

Where the pub car park is, there used to be the town's almshouse, and also Luker's brewery. The brewery was taken over by Strong's of Romsey in 1934, who transferred the brewery operation to their own brewery. The building burned down the same year, and the remains were then demolished.

This and the Square Brewery pub are possibly the two best pubs in Petersfield. I think I like the Square Brewery slightly more. It's interesting that both have historic associations with Petersfield's long gone breweries.

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The Townhouse

Townhouse ambiance

Attractive bistro style cafe/bar serving local craft beer. I really liked the ambiance of the place, and that it has a selection of interesting local beers. Seating is mixed - there are high tables and stools, coffee tables, and standard cafe tables. I found it pleasant to sit in the window and gaze out at Petersfield passing by. The window is a bit of a sun trap, however, and I had to reluctantly move further into the cafe to get some shade. 

Townhouse beer selection

Service is relaxed and friendly. I ordered a soup of the day (veggie) and bread for around £7. The bread was very nice - it was grilled, but sadly the soup was watery and inedible. I was hoping a member of staff would ask me if everything was OK so I could mention to them that the soup was watery, but that doesn't seem to be their style. I would expect there had been mistake in making the soup, but rather than going up to the bar and making a complaint, and then working through the alternatives with them, I preferred to simply leave it. The Square Brewery were doing a veggie soup and bread for £5.


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Charles Street Tap

Charles Street Tap

This craft beer bar and kitchen looks and sounds promising, but they present difficulties with their beer dispense system, as the taps are behind the counter, which makes it really hard to see what's on offer. They have a list but that is on a wall behind the bar, and is also small, so I had to stand in front of it to read it. And when I did I was disappointed at how few beers were really "craft". Most beers were simply keg beers from the big breweries, with some beers from smaller traditional breweries who would not think of themselves as being part of the modern American style craft beer movement which is about using off the shelf lab yeast, and filtering and force carbonating for stability. Flack Manor beers were on offer, and while they are small and young, they are a proper traditional brewery.

The Tap range

I wasn't impressed with this place. I would place it bottom of the pubs I visited in Petersfield. It's probably popular with students and trendy types. It is the antithesis of Fuller's Square Brewery. I could imagine that some students would find the Square Brewery too old fashioned.


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The Old Drum

The Old Drum

The Old Drum looked very promising on the outside. A traditional looking old pub that's been around for hundreds of years. On going inside I can see and feel that it's been refurbished into a modern gastro pub. Or, rather, one half is a restaurant, and the other half still retains some awareness of being a pub, though feels more like a modern bar.

Ambiance in the Old Drum

There were four cask beers on offer, plus a cider, so not a bad selection. I had the Andwell 5 Little Fishes, a malty beer.
The bar area is clean and attractive, and this is the place you'd bring your partner for a drink or meal, but you wouldn't come here with your mates for an evening session.

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Plaque on the Old Drum

Oh well, we shouldn't let truth get in the way of a good plaque. Curious, I looked up H. G. Wells. He never lived in Petersfield. His mother was a house maid at a country house 10 miles away, and he went to stay with her briefly when he was 13. He was later a student then a teacher at Midhurst School, about 20 miles away, and then didn't return to the area for the rest of his life, living and writing mainly in London.

I see no scholarly account that puts Wells in that pub (or even the town - though Wells mentions Petersfield Station in his own writings in his account of when his mother was dishonourably discharged from her duties in the country house, and caught the train there), but I see the story that he "regularly dined and wrote" there all over the place - people simply copying the story without bothering to check the facts.

My most likely explanation is that his father (who lived and worked in the area as a gardener long before H. G. was born) might have done some gardening for the pub, and the story got tangled over time. The closest pub connection I can find in the area is that while he was a student teacher at Midhurst School, he lodged next door to the Angel Inn in Midhurst.

Square Brewery

Square Brewery, a Fullers pub

The Square Brewery was my last stop. Bang in the middle of the town, with a view over the square, this is a proper traditional pub serving five cask beers and good value food in a characterful environment. I liked it a lot.

Five pumps (only four showing) 

I had the Red Fox, which was served a little too cold for my taste, not allowing the malt to come through, but was an acceptable Autumn ale.

Ambiance in the Square Brewery

There is a pleasant, laid back and welcoming atmosphere in this well run pub.  I have been looking into the history, and Gales Brewery (which Fullers bought in 2006) took over the Week's Brewery, who owned and brewed at The Square Brewery, which either served as its brewery tap or it was a brewpub, in 1907, closing down the brewery operation. The brewery had been in operation since at least 1739, when it was owned by the Holland family.


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Unity Brewery (reopened)

Unity is no longer at Portswood. They have moved to:
 23-27 Princes St, Northam, Southampton SO14 5RP

Unity was a small brewery in the north of Southampton, that opened its doors to the public every Friday and Saturday.  As CAMRA say, all the draught beers are keg, there's no cask, though that shouldn't matter, as it's a pleasant experience to get a freshly made beer served to you by the brewer, Jimmy Hatherley. Jimmy also serves jugs of pretzels, which seems to be a growing fad, and is great fun. I love the idea of small breweries opening their doors at the weekend, similar to the Bermondsey Beer Mile in London, started by Kernel.  Jimmy would know about the Bermondsey Beer Mile as he used to work in the London Fields brewery  in London, "when it was good", before it became a cuckoo brewery and the brand name was bought by Carlsberg.

Unity owner and brewer, Jimmy, serving me a drink

Jimmy likes to brew to style,  keg his beers and inject carbonation, as then he retains control - keeping the beer fresher and more stable.  He feels that arguments about carbonation are pointless  anyway, as all carbonation is the same - be it natural or from a bottle. It's a good argument, and though my own preference is for natural beer brewed for a purpose rather than to copy a style, Jimmy's beers are clean and tasty, and in many cases most people would not know the difference on a blind tasting between cask or keg these days.

The brewing tanks, from right to left
(out of the picture is the mash tun where the brewing starts):
the brew kettle where the wort is boiled (usually with the hops);
the whirlpool tank where the beer is spun to clear it of hops and waste;
four closed fermenting vessels where the yeast turns the wort into beer;
a bright beer tank, where the finished beer is carbonated. 

I sampled three beers,  Congregate,  Amalgamation,  and Conflux; and then bought several bottles to take home.


Date: Oct 2017   Score: 6 

 

The end

Unity closed during the weekend of  25/26 Feb 2023. Jimmy Hatherley said it was a combination of Brexit, Covid restrictions, and the impact of the war in Ukraine. Yes, we've all felt that triple whammy. No news yet on what will happen to the brewery at Northam, though it is usual for the equipment to be bought up and taken away than for someone to move in. 

The Cloud Wine shop in Bedford Place that Hatherley bought and took over, remains in his hands. It will now be renamed Good Libations, and will offer tasting sessions, as well as the ability to drink purchases on the premises for a small fee. 

Date: Feb 2023   Score: N/A  

In April 2023 the company was bought by two businessmen, and four of the original staff have returned. Hatherley is not involved, and nor is the sales manager who is now working for Siren. The stated intention is to continue as under Hatherley with the same recipes, etc.  The relaunch party takes place all day 24th June at Princess St,  Northam. 

Date: June 2023   Score: N/A 

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Portswood

The Witch's Brew, Shirley

New pub in Shirley (as of 2017). Used to be a hippy shop, run by the same woman who, when asked,  coyly admits she is a witch. The Hells Angel pub, The Stile, is nearby - some of them have dropped in to check it out, so there seems to be a calm relationship between the two pubs. 

I've seen The Witch's Brew being called a micropub, though it didn't immediately fit my understanding of that term which was that it should be a single room. There are three rooms, unlike The Stile which only has one. However, according to Martyn of The Butchers Arms in Herne, who created the term the micropub, it doesn't have to be a single room, just as long as it's small, serves cask beer, and encourages conversation. Well OK, but that also, to a degree, fits The Stile. I think micropubs are like craft beer or punk rock, there isn't really a scientific definition that works, because most definitions of micropub would work for many existing small pubs. What seems to be the case for each micropub I have visited is that they are recent conversions to pubs, they are independently run, and they are not huge. They may be smaller or larger than many existing traditional pubs, so the name micropub is perhaps not the most appropriate. It was used by Martyn to make an association with microbreweries (which are now called craft breweries). I suspect if Martyn were starting up today, he might have called himself a craft pub rather than a micro pub. Anyway, I think that, as with punk rock, it's more about the attitude than the format. And on that basis Witch's Brew fits right in with other micropubs I've visited. 

Beer selection

There are four gravity cask beers on offer from local small breweries, and  some crisps and pork scratchings. There's space on the front pavement, which has been fenced off, to sit and watch the world go by, and there are three rooms inside, the last one of which holds the bar counter.

Ambiance

I like the place, and it serves as an ideal link between the pubs in central Southampton, and Overdraft and the traditional scooping pubs of the Waterloo Arms and Wellington Arms. The owner, Mary Thornton-Smith, and the barmaid were friendly, chatty folk, and Mary's two border collies are fun and friendly, and love pork scratchings.

I had a dark beer, Arthur Brown, by a Bournemouth brewery Way Outback, and a pale hoppy beer, Tessellate, by Broken Bridge, a brewery in Upper Swanmore near Bishops Watham. I enjoyed both, and both were served in good condition. I had met the Broken Bridge brewer just a few minutes earlier when I was in Unity, as he is friends with the Unity brewer, and had popped in for a drink and a chat. I had not heard of Broken Bridge before then, and the next pub I walk into, has a beer by them! I love it when that happens!

Date: Aug 2017    Score: 6


 

Nov 2021

This is just a note that the place still exists. It wasn't open when I was walking around Shirley looking for a pub that served food, but it's still there.  

Date: Nov 2021   Score: N/A 

Ind/craft bar

220 Shirley Road
Southampton
SO15 3FL

Hours:
Wed-Sun: 5pm to 11pm

No food, and I don't think children are welcome (which, for me, limits the score)


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• Pubs in Shirley