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Darlington Drinker 175 Newsletter of the Darlington Campaign for Real Ale - Autumn 2009 Pub
Covenants Scrapped RESTRICTIVE
COVENANTS have been dropped by Britain’s two main pub companies
following local and national campaigning by CAMRA. Enterprise
Inns and Punch Taverns have bowed to pressure to abandon the legal
agreements which prevented a pub being used as licensed premises once
sold. We
revealed in our last edition how Enterprise Inns had been ensuring that
Darlington pubs it had been selling off, such as the Brown Trout at
Cockerton and previously the Caledonian and the Bridge Inn in Northgate,
were not being allowed to trade as such ever again, whatever prospective
owners and local communities wished. Enterprise
followed suit, making the commitment in a list of measures sent to
Business Secretary Lord Mandelson in an effort to head off a threatened
Competition Commission inquiry into pub companies. Campaigner
Peter Bridle warned pub companies that CAMRA would be vigilant for other
“underhand tactics” when pubs are sold and would continue to work hard
to ensure they came on the market at realistic prices. He
added: “Time again we see pubs, run by national brewers or pubcos,
closed because they believe they are unviable. However, in the right hands
they can become thriving locals.” Quaker
Goes Free IN
GREAT news for Darlington ale lovers, Brian Dourish and Garry Hewitt have
been successful in their bid to buy the freehold of the Quaker House,
local CAMRA members’ reigning pub of the year. Brian and Garry, who were lessees, submitted an offer as soon as Scottish & Newcastle Pub Enterprises (SNPE) - now part of Heineken - placed the Quaker on the market. The legalities are about to be concluded as we go to press. SNPE
have had less interest, it seems, for two, once-bustling, village pubs up
for sale for some time in our area. Both have stood empty for months since
their tenants left, unable to cope with the leases. Meanwhile,
Colliers are struggling to dispose of the Slaters Arms in Bondgate,
Darlington on behalf of Punch Taverns. “All offers considered”
has been slapped on the saleboard. The guide price is £200,000 on a
property which Punch spent £145,000 restoring in 2006. Finally,
Colliers have the Station at Hurworth Place ‘under offer’ - we
would hope for re-occupation as a pub. Its guide price was £250,000.
Darlington Drinker .…Twenty-Five Years Ago “THE Hole in the Wall could be the first Darlington John Smith's pub to regain cask beer, after a lapse of 10 years or more.The basic boozer - which at present aptly lives up to its name - is about to be given a £70,000 refit by Smiths’ managed house subsidiary, Imperial Inns. A smart, youthful image is aimed for, with meals at lunchtime, music on an evening - and handpulled John Smith's Bitter at all times. An October launch date is planned. The Golden Cock, Tubwell Row, is also to receive £78,000 worth of improvements. We don’t know if real ale will go on sale there.” Darlington Drinker 28, September 1984 Good
Clubbing CLUBS
ARE at the fore of good news for lovers of traditional beer in this
edition of Darlington Drinker. A
decline in cask ale availability in Hurworth pubs - the new landlord of
the Comet, Hurworth Place has surprisingly taken the handpumps out - has
been countered at nearby clubs. Up
the hill from the Comet along Hurworth Road, a regularly-changing guest
beer is the attraction in the fine Victorian setting of Hurworth community
association’s Hurworth Grange Social Club. Occasional beer
festivals are also organised; check out www.hurworth.org.uk
for details. Meanwhile,
we mentioned last edition that the ritzy new Rockliffe
Hall Golf Clubhouse is
stocking a real ale but omitted to say what it was. The answer is Old
Speckled Hen from Greene King, at £3.10 a pint in both the
lounge-restaurant and adjacent Spikes bar. The clubhouse is open to
non-members. A few days paddling up the Tees towards the upper dale would bring you Middleton in Teesdale Sports & Social Club, the former Working Mens Club in Rose Terrace. That’s the impressive 18th-century mansion on the bend in the B6277 heading uphill. Committee member Michael Firth tells us that cask Caledonian’s Deuchars IPA is being sold here. Opening times are 7-11.30pm. THE LORD NELSON at Gainford has reopened, and it’s now a freehouse having been bought outright from Punch Taverns by villager David Hardy. David has separated the bar off from the eating area and is working three handpulls. These were serving Timothy Taylors Golden Best, Thwaites Lancaster Bomber and Thwaites Ribbler on our visit. The pub opens from 12 until midnight (or when last person leaves) and food should be available from late October.
THE CAMPAIGN for Real Ale has passed the 100,000 mark in membership. CAMRA was founded in 1971 as the ‘Campaign for the Revitalisation of Ale’ and by the end of 1973 had 5,000 members. The first branches were formed in 1974. Today there are over 200 branches, Darlington CAMRA being a late-comer in 1982. From a dire, and declining, real ale base in the early ’70s, there are now 700 breweries in Britain, brewing more than 2,500 cask-conditioned beers. And for CAMRA and its volunteer campaigners that is the greatest, although not only, success.Darlington CAMRA branch’s membership growth is matching that nationally. From just 30 people in 1982 it is close to breaking the 300 barrier following the recruitment of another batch of new members at the recent Rhythm ‘n’ Brews festival. If you are not already a CAMRA member, by signing up you’ll receive £20-work of Wetherspoon’s beer vouchers as well as the usual benefits. Click here for more details.
GG
Rides Again THE
BARRACUDA
bar (once Humphry’s), on the corner of Blackwellgate and Grange Road in
Darlington town centre, has been converted by the owning group of the same
name into a more traditional-style pub. It
now goes under the name of Hoskins, after the influential
Victorian Darlington architect GG Hoskins. And
sure enough, for the first time
in years, the pub now serves cask
beer and impressed our chief scout: “I called in the Hoskins last night to find two real ales on
the bar. They were Black Sheep bitter at £2 and Wells Bombardier at £1.95
per pint respectively. There was also a nice, polite barmaid, a
good-looking menu, including two main meals (some) for £6.50, a
knowledgeable manageress - but rubbish music. I’d say worth a visit.” GEORGE GORDON, Hoskins
(1837-1911) was almost
single-handedly responsible for the appearance of Victorian Darlington.
His works included
Queen Elizabeth Grammar School (now sixth form college), Crown Street
library, the King’s Head, the frontage of the Red Lion, the building
opposite ‘his’ pub today occupied by Lloyd’s Bank, and numerous
red-brick villas across the town. But the Hoskins pub
has no associations with GG. The building dates only from 1956 when the
then-County was rebuilt with a curved frontage to allow for the increasing
traffic flows on what was - hard to believe now - the A1, Great North
Road.
Tapas
Triumphs DARLINGTON
CAMRA
branch members selected as their Town Pub of the Season winner the Old
Yard Tapas Bar, on Bondgate. Along
with an excellent offering of Spanish and Greek fayre, it is ‘simply
perfect to pop in for a pint’. The Tapas stocks up to three guest beers
in addition to the regularly-stocked Theakston Old Peculier (the only pub
for miles to always stock the famous Masham ‘looney juice’) and John
Smith’s Magnet. On the night of the presentation the brews included
Holt’s Humdinger and Caledonian’s Great Knock. The presentation was
made to licensee Pete Turnbull by branch Pubs Officer Pete Fenwick. Runner-up
was the Wetherspoon chain’s Tanners Hall on Skinnergate, while third was
the Hole in the Wall in the Market Place. The Red Lion at Cotherstone has just recently won
the latest branch Pub of the Season award for Teesdale. A presentation
will be made to licensee Richard Robinson on Thursday 22nd October at 8pm.
The Old Well, Barnard Castle was runner-up and the Three Tuns in Eggleston
was placed third.
Closure
Capers THE
LANDLORD/owner of the Grey
Horse at West Rounton, near Northallerton, has applied for permission for
a change of use to residential accommodation, sparking dozens of
objections from villagers and one from Darlington CAMRA. Stephen
Greening has run the pub for nine years but says it is not financially
viable and that he has to supplement his income with other jobs. The
pub’s accounts - which apparently show a “relatively limited” profit
in 2007 and 2008 - have been submitted to Hambleton District Council but,
understandably, not made public. A claim by Mr Greening’s agents that
“the darts and dominos leagues have also recently ended which has had a
significant impact on takings” doesn’t, however, sound the most
convincing of arguments. Hambleton
planners want Mr Greening to mount another marketing campaign, which he
wants to be excused from as “there is an extremely strong likelihood the
business would attract less interest”. There
could, conceivably, be a race between the two to get change of use consent
first, as councils are generally much more reluctant to allow the last pub
in a village to be lost. Mr
Greening’s agents argue that the Horseshoe provides “better car
parking facilities … has larger public areas and a more practical layout
... enough external space to facilitate the provision of a beer garden and
dedicated smoking area …would provide a more attractive proposition to
potential investors … and would therefore be better placed to meet
community need in the village in the long term”. *THE NEARBY Monks Table - former Duke of Wellington - at Welbury is on the
market at £675,000. The owners for the past 18 months wish to sell
due to ill health. Worst
in Britain ?, Get Real ! A
LETTER in CAMRA’s national newspaper, What’s Brewing,
recently asked if Barnard Castle was the ‘Worst Real Ale Town In The
British Isles?’ It came from a visitor who had failed to find cask beer
in any of the four pubs he went into. The knocking story was swiftly
picked up by the Teesdale Mercury and Northern Echo. Local
resident Adrian Hobbs, a member of CAMRA since 1976, looked forward
to some scientific research to discover the facts for himself. So, with a
few quid in his pocket, he started at the top end of town. This is the
very different picture he found. “ON THE northern edge of town lies the Red Well in Harmire Road. It’s a small hotel near Glaxo, and two or three real ales were on sale when I visited. Score: real ale 1-0 up. The Beaconsfield is a community focused local at the top of Galgate. A couple of real ales were on sale. Real ale 2-0 up. Further down Galgate we come to the four pubs our unfortunate fell-walking hero came upon. First up was the Cricketers which sure enough did not sell any of the real stuff. ‘No real ale’ pulls one back. Next was the Coach and Horses. A long and narrow Jenning’s pub selling one of their real ales. 3-1 to real ale then. A short wander brought us to the Commercial. Not a handpump in sight, so I swiftly left and headed across the road. The Three Horseshoes recently reopened and always used to sell Black Sheep, and sure enough it still did. At the halfway mark hunger reared its head so, with the score 4-2 to real ale, I stopped off for a pie at McFarlane’s. The Golden Lion in the Market Place has nice views of the castle to the rear which can be enjoyed with a pint of real ale. So the score was now real ale 5, no real ale 2. Across the road is the large and lively Turks Head which sported a couple of handpumps amongst the numerous other fonts. We’re on a roll: 6-2! The Raby Arms was closed and I nearly missed the Black Horse around the corner on Newgate. It didn’t matter much because as it turned out it didn’t sell any of the real stuff. On the Bank is the Old Well. I knew this pub always had a fine variety of real ales available so I didn’t really need to pop in to check, but in the interests of completeness… Real ale now in an unassailable lead: 7-3! The next port of call was a real surprise: Blagraves Restaurant on the Bank is the oldest house in town and sports a handpump dispensing real ale in the reception area. I booked a restaurant table for the weekend and carried on, quite rapidly now, down the Bank. Score 8-3 in favour of real ale. The Blue Bell looked like a nice pub but I could not detect any real ale so headed back to the Old Well to mull over my findings. The final score was 8 real ale establishments against 4, and that probably reflects the picture nationwide. It’s a shame that one ‘non-real’ Barney landlord in the Mercury branded people who like real ale as ‘crackpots’. Another suggested that only the ‘over-50s and tourists’ drink the stuff. I would suggest that if they sold cask beer then Barney’s thousands of older tourists - and younger ‘crackpots’ too - may be tempted to part with cash in their pubs. A two-thirds majority in favour of real ale does not entitle Barney to be branded ‘The Worst Real Ale Town In The British Isles’. I hope our intrepid walker, when he visits next, will take time out to explore a little further.”
Hitting
the Heights DARLINGTON’S
RHYTHM ’n’ Brews Festival 2009, organised by Darlington CAMRA and the
Arts Centre R‘n’B Club, hit the high notes once again. Despite
not quite selling out of ale over the weekend - little more than a
flagon-full of pints went unsupped - the choice of 56 beers, from new
breweries and local and established brewers, once again proved popular. CAMRA
received many positive comments from the questionnaires which were
distributed. They included ‘excellent choice and quality’, ‘relaxed
atmosphere’ and ‘beer choice and the brewing group stand’ - a
reference to the Darlington Traditional Brewing Group, run by people who
brew in backyards and sheds on a small scale. The
winning Beer of the Festival was one with a short journey to
Darlington - the amber, 5% Beach from Redscar brewery of Redcar, founded
at the Cleveland Hotel in the town just last year. The
organisers have thanked everyone who donated their unspent beercards
towards this year’s chosen charity. A generous £226.50 was raised for
the Great North Air Ambulance, and the ceremonial presentation will be
made soon. The
next Darlington CAMRA beer festival will be part of Spring Thing 2010 at
the Arts Centre, from Thursday 18th to Saturday 20th March. Make that a
date. *THE
R‘n’B
Festival may have sold a fraction less beer than last year’s sell-out
but even Munich’s Oktoberfest saw a fall in visitor numbers, from 6
million last year to a mere 5.7 million this. Mind you, the Darlington
events’ 1400 drinkers had a far wider range of brews to chose from - the
Oktoberfest stocks only beers from the city’s six breweries... Marque
One THE
OLD
FARMHOUSE at Morton
Palms, on the A67 between Darlington and Middleton St George, is the
latest pub in our area to gain the beer industry’s Cask Marque
accreditation for the quality of its real ale. Manager Kevin Young says the award has been great for the pub and the staff: “It recognises the hard work we have put in for the last year. It has taken all this time to increase sales on our casks, as when we started out we sold less than two barrels in a week on two handpulls.” At that time, Kevin tells us, they came close to dropping down to a single handpump. Now: “we have three real ales on all the time - one regular, Harviestoun Bitter & Twisted, and two guest ales. We alternate between these, trying to find the ones our guests enjoy the most. We are happy to listen to any request". Throughout autumn the Mitchells & Butlers Vintage Inn is participating in the company’s Cask Ale Festival, stocking specially-produced ales. Kevin would like the Farmhouse to get more involved with micro-breweries which are local to the pub - “more interesting for our guests” - but these will have to go through Mitchells & Butlers to agree prices first. “Hopefully”,
he adds, we will continue to grow awareness of our product and the
possibility of more handpulls.” BREWS, NEWS
AND VIEWS THE HOLE IN THE
WALL in
Darlington Market Place has widened its range of cask ales to three with
the introduction of Black Sheep Best Bitter alongside the long-established
John Smith’s Magnet and Greene King Abbot. THE BRIDGE at Whorlton also now has three real ales, spanning the strength range with what landlord Paul O’Hara calls “a strong , middle and light”. All are £2.50 pint. Paul’s intention is to put another two cask beers in by Christmas. The pub-restaurant has picked up a good few awards from newly-published guides. It’s listed in the 2010 AA Pubs Guide as one of the ‘pick of the pubs’ in County Durham, features in that organisation’s Britain’s Best Pubs 2010 and is an “inspector’s favourite”, no less, in the Michelin’s Eating Out in Pubs 2009/2010.
DIARY
DATES TUES 10TH NOV: Darlington CAMRA Branch Meeting: Old Yard Tapas Bar, Bondgate (upstairs room). 8pm start. All welcome. FRI 13TH NOV: Rural coach crawl: Middridge, Newton Aycliffe, Aycliffe Village, Coatham Mundeville, Great Stainton and Preston le Skerne. TUES 8TH DEC: Darlington CAMRA Branch Meeting: Quaker House, Mechanics’ Yard, off High Row. 8pm start. All welcome. FRI 11TH DEC: Rural coach crawl: Low Coniscliffe, Heighington Station and Heighington village. All rural coach crawls depart from Feethams (opposite Town Hall) at 7pm. Details: Pete Fenwick (01325) 374817; (07792) 093245. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Darlington Drinker is published by the Darlington branch of CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale. Circulation 3,500. News, articles and letters welcome. All items © Darlington CAMRA but may be reproduced if source acknowledged. Editor: Brendan Boyle, 6 Clareville Road, Darlington DL3 8NG; (01325) 362092; email dd@idnet.com. Additional contributors this issue: Malcolm Dunstone, Pete Fenwick, Adrian Hobbs, Ian Jackson. Advertising: Peter Everett (01325) 241388. Ad rates a snip at quarter-page £30, half page £50, full page £80; sixth consecutive insertion free. Branch website: www.darlocamra.org.uk. CAMRA HQ is at 230 Hatfield Road, St Albans, Herts AL1 4LW; (01727) 867201; see www.camra.org.uk for all other real ale information.
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