In his weekly The Bar Man column, beer expert Jeff Hoyle gives an insight into a CAMRA pub survey…
If you are the kind of person who checks the crowds rather than the football results in the Sunday paper you might be interested in the results of a pub survey detailed in the autumn edition of Norfolk Nips, the local CAMRA magazine.
On a Saturday in June, 63 volunteers visited every pub in the Norwich and District CAMRA branch area between them. They recorded the beers on offer in each of them and discovered that 142 breweries were represented.
The average price of cask ale was £4.73, while Guinness averaged £5.76 and the cheapest keg lager available in each pub averaged £5.04. A total of 389 real ales were available with the most common ones being from Greene King followed by Adnam’s, Woodforde’s, Lacon’s and Moon Gazer.
The most widely available beers were Woodforde’s Wherry followed by Adnam’s Ghost Ship and Greene King Abbot. The most common beers from smaller breweries were Moon Gazer Pintail and Cheeky Jack, Wolf Golden Jackal and Barsham Oaks.
We don’t have the number of volunteers required to perform a similar task over in the west of the county, but my impression is that we would have nowhere near the variety described in the survey.
I would speculate that in our area beers from Greene King are widespread. IPA, Abbot and varieties of Speckled Hen jostle for space on bars with their season offerings. The company seem to be very supportive of local pubs and willing to invest in return for the pubs taking one or more of their products.
Adnam’s beers are also easy to find, especially Ghost Ship which has come from nowhere a few years back to claim a position of one of East Anglia’s signature beers, aided by the popularity of the low alcohol version.
Pubs which want to offer cask beer without being fanatical about real ale often choose Sharps Doom bar, though other beers from the brewery are gaining a bit of traction and can be spotted in places such as Marriott’s and The Crossways.
Tim Taylors Landlord and sometimes their Golden Best or Boltmaker are other popular choices and Lacon’s are making inroads into West Norfolk. If you want something a little more obscure, where to go and what to drink?
Wenn’s often offer Courage Directors or the very niche juice Rocket from Three Blind Mice, while a few pubs such as the Blue Bell in Stoke Ferry prefer Barsham brewery beers.
For the more obscure pints, the places to head to in Lynn are The Live and Let Live, where Oscar Wilde Mild is often amongst the choices, The Ferry Lane Social Club where the regular Green Jack Gone Fishing might be the only one you recognise or The Globe especially when Wetherspoon’s run one of their frequent beer festivals.
As for price, Wetherspoon’s dominate the lower end of the market and are even more competitive if you are in possession of your CAMRA member’s discount vouchers, which might allow you to purchase a pint at under a couple of quid.
As for the top end, the sky is the limit. I was in an unpretentious village local not far from Lynn where I had a very refreshing pint of Lacon’s for £6, but I am sure that is not the upper limit.
I may be slightly jealous of the choice of pubs and beer in and around Norwich, but there some interesting places over our side of Norfolk where I can relax with a pint while checking out the latest attendance figures. About 125 at Boston Town v Hucknall on a recent Saturday was my best estimate.
* In a correction to last week’s column, we have been asked to point out Anmer Social Club is very much open. President Nick Coleman said: “Whilst we don’t have a CAMRA evening, good drinkable beer is sold on Friday nights and Saturday lunchtimes and when special occasions are arranged.”
bar.man@btinternet.com
