'ooky in an 'andle

Autumn Beer & Sausage Festival

2011-09-13T10:18:00.003+01:00

Ales from Compass, Patriot, The Complete Pig, Bellingers, Sherfield Village, Best Mates, Vale and West Berkshire. Cider from Tutts Clump. Sausages from Cricks, The Complete Pig and Lincolnshire.

Beer and Cheese Tasting at the Cricketer’s Arms

2011-03-02T16:43:00.003Z

This piece was written by our good friend and beer festival bar manager, Mike, for the "Oxford Drinker". Unfortunately, it didn't make it into the magazine due to lack of space. We intend to hold another beer and food tasting session sometime soon as it was a very good evening and for a first event of this type, a reasonable turn-out, even if I had to split my time between this event and serving Christmas dinners!

Anyway, here's the article, complete and unabridged:

21st December 2010

I have always enjoyed a nice piece of cheese, and on special occasions I can even be persuaded to try a pint of beer, but I had never thought of putting the two together so the Christmas Beer and Cheese Tasting at the Cricketer’s Arms in Littleworth seemed like the ideal opportunity to give it a try.

Stuart (landlord at the Cricketer’s) had obviously put some thought into the matching process, and spent a few minutes explaining to us how he had tried to find cheeses that would both complement and contrast with the beers on the bar. We were given strict instructions on how to proceed (cheese to be followed by beer, and each beer/cheese combination to be taken in the listed order) and then armed with a piece of paper for making notes, we were let loose in the back room where a table had been piled with cheese and biscuits.

First on the list was Loddon Razzle Dazzle matched with greek feta cheese. Razzle Dazzle is a blonde beer with plenty of citrus hops and Feta is a sheeps milk cheese with a distinct sharpness to it, so this immediately picked up the citrus notes in the beer. After a couple of mouthfuls, though, the effect became slightly overpowering and the other thing about feta is that it is very salty, and this, for me, made it the least successful as a match for any of the beers.

Next up was an old favourite - Hook Norton bitter - but matched, unexpectedly, with a French brie. The brie was just as I like it (creamy without being runny) and the Hooky was on top form, so I suppose there wasn’t much to go wrong but the surprise was just how well the flavours went together, the well-roundedness of the Hooky somehow working together with the smoothness of the Brie and adding up to more than the sum of the parts.

The third option was good old English cheddar with Shotover Prospect. The cheddar was what you might call an ‘ordinary’ cheese from Stuart and Angie’s usual supplier but despite the ‘ordinariness’ it was a big hit. Proper cheese, like real ale, is a living product and the maturation process means that no two batches will ever be exactly the same. As Angie’s cheese-grater-in-chief, Stuart admitted that he’s come to know this particular cheddar better that he might like, but said that he thought it was a particularly fine batch. It was creamy, with a real depth of flavour but without being sharp or overpowering and as a cheese on its right was my favourite of the evening. With the Prospect, it seemed to enhance both the malt and the hop flavours, but with a slight taming effect on the bitterness.

Last, but not least, we had a Stilton matched with Hook Norton Twelve Days. Both of these are favourites of mine so I was expecting a bit of a treat and I wasn’t disappointed. The surprise here was that after the cheese, the beer came through with a strong smokiness which I have never particularly noticed before. Interestingly, though, on second and third attempts the smokiness faded into the background and more subtle and recognisable flavours started to come through.

Having been once through the list, I decided to throw caution to the winds and try some of my own combinations. The Prospect was probably the most interesting to do this with - as anyone who has tried it will know, it is a very flavourful beer and each cheese seemed to bring out different aspects of it. The Twelve Days turned out not to follow the cheddar particularly well, but in a happy accident I found that following the Twelve days with the cheddar added to the finish of the beer and brought out even more flavour from the cheese. This resulted in several contented minutes (and almost half a pint) chasing the Twelve Days with the cheddar, followed by the stilton and back to the Twelve Days again.

Finally, with plenty of cheese still on the table, myself and my companion had to tear ourselves away before we became too full to move, and we rounded the evening off with a last half. We agreed that the Prospect had probably been the most interesting to experiment with and that the cheddar was the cheese of the evening but the outstanding recommendation has to be the Hooky Bitter with brie - definitely something I will be trying again.

All-in-all it was a very pleasant way to spend an evening. The relaxed but busy atmosphere at the Cricketer’s was probably the ideal setting for something like this (I have always avoided similar tasting exercises in the past because of the formality) and at the introductory price of £3 for the cheese, it was extremely good value. Roll on the next one.

Original Beer & Sausage Festival Champion ale of 2011

2011-03-01T16:23:00.003Z

Seventeen ales made an appearance at our February 2011 Beer & Sausage Festival. The Campaign for Real Ale's Champion Beer of Britain - Castle Rock brewery's "Harvest Pale" and our Autumn beer festival champion Loose Cannon brewery's "Abingdon Bridge" were the first to sell out, but the award of our Current "Original Beer & Sausage Festival Champion ale of 2011" went to Compass brewery for their "Baltic Night Stout" with Thame brewery's "Hoppiness" as runner-up. Commendations are due for "Harvest Pale", Compass "Isis" and "The King's Shipment", Loose Cannon "Abingdon Bridge" and Loddon "Penny Pond Porter", all of which achieved average ratings by festival go-ers of 7/10 or more.

So, a stout wins beer of the festival and deservedly so, and we'll hopefully be getting some more casks in soon (we have it in bottles if you're desperate to try it in the mean time).

If you didn't know, we stopped selling the brand of Irish stout with the harp device and the fancy adverts at the start of the year and since then have always had either a cask stout, porter or mild on hand pump. It was a trend that really started when I put Baltic Night on in June last year (The first cask from Mattias) and despite initial reservations - it's a 4.8% stout and you're going to try and sell it in June, after a heatwave, in a country pub! - it sold brilliantly. Since then, every time a dark beer has been on the bar, it has always sold well, so much so that they have become a permanent feature that you can sample all year round - why be limited to the winter months or May (or even March) for mild, if it's what you fancy then it's there. We also carry two porters, two stouts and a mild in bottles which I have at three different temperatures - room, cellar and chilled, just for that extra bit of variation.

Post festival notes

2011-02-21T15:22:00.004Z

The pub is quiet now, very quiet, but it was a great weekend. We definitely wasn't as busy as last February, but a very good festival all the same.

The fastest selling ales included, predictably, Castle Rock Harvest Pale as well as RCH Pitchfork, Loose Cannon's Abingdon Bridge and, a little more surprisingly Compass Baltic Night Stout, which won a number of fans. I will be determining the beer of the festival when I have had chance to go through the tasting forms.

My choice this time would be Compass King's Shipment IPA, which was literally bursting with flavour, but at 6.0% was not such a fast mover - conventional wisdom, of course, would tell you that the fastest selling ales at beer festivals are strong ones, but not here, it's quite the reverse. Maybe that's big CAMRA festivals. But then conventional wisdom would tell you to host a beer festival on the August bank holiday and not the third weekend of February, so so much for conventional wisdom.

Thanks to all who came to the festival from far and wide and made it such an enjoyable event. Cheers!

Racked, tapped and ready to go

2011-02-17T22:26:00.002Z

All ales for the festival are now in and ready to go. It's been a bit of a panic, I was over in Thame to collect one from Pete this morning, Mattias dropped in three from Compass this afternoon and Tim arrived at four thirty with his two from The Patriot brewery. The cold January weather did no favours for small brewers, hence the lateness of some of them arriving: Tim mentioned temperatures of minus eighteen degrees out in The Cotswolds. But, that said, we managed to get all of the ales that we set out to get and have plenty to start with (fourteen) plus four more specials in reserve and another four regular brews if they go too, which should be plenty and will avoid a repeat of last years festival when we ran out on Saturday night! And there's the two real ciders.

The first fourteen are Loose Cannon Abingdon Bridge (our current champ) and Pale Ale Trial 1 and 2 (both brand new), Castle Rock Harvest Pale (champion beer of Britain), RCH Pitchfork (customer's choice), Patriot Longbow (4th in September) and Nelson (new), Thame Hoppiness (2nd at Oxford beer fest), Compass Baltic Night (3rd in Sept) and King's Shipment (2nd in Sept), Old Forge Blacksmith's Gold (new) and Hammer & Tongs (2nd at Wantage), Two Bridges The Woodcutter (new) and Old Bog Monsterous Mild (first at Wantage). Which leaves Vale Plucky Pheasant, West Berkshire Two Bills, Loddon Penny Pond Porter and Compass Isis (5th in Sept) waiting in the wings.

So, spuds peeled, sausages ordered for Friday AM, ale looking and tasting great, staffing arranged, pub shipshape, weather ok, see you over the weekend!

Quick update

2011-02-14T20:49:00.000Z

We will be starting with 14 of the ales listed - most are now confirmed - plus two real ciders - Tutts Clump 6% and Combe Raider from Ciderniks 6.5%

Customer's Choice

2011-02-09T15:44:00.006Z

For the first time in what seems like a very long time, we'll be featuring two ales at our upcoming Beer & Sausage Festival (18-20 Feb) that are not brewed locally.

Being Oxford's first CAMRA LocAle pub and having our own SixSixes portfolio, where we only stock ales direct from breweries within 36 miles of the pub, we have always taken this reasonably seriously, but all rules are there to be broken and what better time to do it than at the biggest event of our year.

But, I still needed some sort of justification, hence, "The Customer's Choice". Customer number one is me (and Ange, although Ange didn't know much about it and neither of us are really customers either) and my choice, as already mentioned a few days ago is CAMRA's Supreme Champion Beer of Britain 2010: Castle Rock Harvest Pale from Nottingham, a 3.8% blonde ale with a distinctive citrus hop. When we lived in Sheffield, we used to frequent The New Barrack Tavern more than anywhere else and being a Castle Rock house, I sampled much Harvest Pale back then (as well as Abbeydale Moonshine, another personal favourite). As luck would have it, Hook Norton had it on their guest ales list this month.

Our second Customer's Choice comes from our house musician Lawrie (if you missed Lawrie performing last Saturday night, make sure you catch him on March 5th). Now Lawrie, like me, is a huge fan on Hook Norton Hooky Bitter, but because this is a beer festival and we have Hooky on the pumps the rest of the year, Hooky isn't at the festival (unless we run out of everything else). So, I gave Lawrie the choice of nominating his next favourite beer and If I could source it I said I'd get it for the festival.

Lawrie's choice was RCH Pitchfork from Weston Super Mare, a 4.3% golden bitter with floral citric hop aroma. Back in the day, Lawrie used to frequent a pub called The Wharf House in Oxford, which has long since closed but at the time, although a little run down by all accounts was Good Beer Guide listed and served cracking pints of both Hooky Bitter and RCH Pitchfork. Apparently, Pitchfork has a hoppy predominate taste which is slightly sweet and fruity and leaves you wanting more. Knowing that Lawrie and I share similar tastes (in beer), I'm certainly looking forward to it. As luck would have it, Vale Brewery had it on their guest ale list this month!

From RCH brewery's website: Pitchfork was judged to be the Best Bitter of the Year in 1998 at the Great British Beer Festival and has been a finalist in the last three years.

The Loose Cannon Three

2011-02-09T11:09:00.004Z

We first had an ale from Abingdon's Loose Cannon brewery at our Autumn beer festival in September. "Abingdon Bridge", the brewery's first product ended up being rather popular, taking the beer of the festival award, with no-one who voted giving it less than 6 out of 10. The 4.1% ABV ale - mid brown in colour, full flavoured with a well rounded bitterness and a floral aftertaste - has also proved to be very popular since then when we have had it on the bar, selling out in record time on two occasions. It'll be on the bar in the run-up to this festival as well as at the festival itself in the guise of our Champion ale.

In addition, two further ales, known as "Loose Cannon Pale Trial 1" and "Loose Cannon Pale Trial 2" should be there. Both will be pale and 3.7% ABV. Trial 1 should be smooth, almost sweet, delicate, slightly spicy whilst Trial 2 should be lemon/grapefruit citrus aroma. This may differ in the finished beers though. One of these beers will likely go on to become Loose Cannon's second staple brew.

Spoke to Will this morning and ... "The first brew was done yesterday and all went well. We are just starting brew 2 now. Both should be ready next week."

We look forward with interest...

Old Forge Brewery

2011-02-05T10:24:00.004Z

All being well, we'll be getting at least one of these ales from The Old Forge Brewery based at The Radnor Arms in the National Trust village of Coleshill in Oxfordshire, run by owner of The Halfpenny Brewery Alan Watkins.

The original beer & sausage festival

2011-02-04T20:08:00.004Z

Our Original Beer & Sausage Festival will commence in its usual 3rd weekend of February spot this year starting on the 18th Feb.

I have been holding off a little with naming some of the ales we will have available, since some of the brewers I have been speaking to weren't sure what they would have available, but in this last week just gone, hopefully they will have made the progress that they expected and when I speak to them next week, we'll get the ales we're looking for.

We're also going a little further afield with some of the ales, and ignoring our self-imposed thirty six mile rule, by introducing a "Because I can't have Hooky, I'll have a... (name of favourite ale here)". The first of these will be Castle Rock Harvest Pale. Chosen by me because I used to frequent a Castle Rock house in Sheffield and because it is CAMRA's supreme champion beer of Britain 2011.

More details as I have them.

Autumn Beer & Sausage Festival

2010-09-08T15:51:00.004+01:00

Our Autumn Beer and Sausage Festival is almost upon us (24-26 September) and we have lined up a selection of ales from the smaller and newer brewers within our area, most of which were not available at our last bash in February.

To kick off, we are likely to be the only place where you'll be able to sample all three of The Compass Breweries ales: Isis Pale Ale, Baltic Night Stout and The King's Shipment IPA from cask. I say this because brewer Mattias mentioned to me that the latest batch of his fabulous Isis Pale Ale would possibly not be ready for the end of the month. Luckily for us, I managed to cellar one the of the same a few weeks back, guaranteeing its inclusion in our festival.

Next up, we have two from Pete at the Thame Brewery: Mr Splodges Mild, which did appear in February (the first cask of Thame ale not to be served in The Cross Keys) but at 4%, quite pokey for a mild, so this is back at a toned down 3.6%-ish, plus we have "Hoppiness", a dry and hoppy bitter.

We didn't manage to get any ale in time from The Patriot Brewery at The Norman Knight, Whichford in February due to brewing gremlins having a go at Tim's kit. We did get to sample Missile and Longbow a couple of week's later though, and very good they were too. But for this festival, not only do we have the aforementioned Missile and Longbow, but we are completing the set with Tim's other two ales: Nelson and Bulldog - presumably a rare opportunity to compare all four ales from Patriot side by side.

Oxfordshire's newest brewery is Abingdon's Loose Cannon Brewery. Brewer Will has hit the local headlines recently by brewing two trial brews to go head-to-head for one of them to become Loose Cannon's first brew "Abingdon Bridge". The winner, which will be at our festival is "Mid brown in colour, full flavoured with a well rounded bitterness and a floral aftertaste. An easy drinking beer," so says Will.

Completing the line-up we have Prospect and Scholar from our local brewery, the Shotover Brewery, just up the road at Horspath. Yes, we had them both in February, we have Prospect on all the time and we now regularly stock Scholar, but they are very, very good.

Lots of sausages too from our local butcher with proper mash and home made onion gravy, entertainment from The Headington Hillbillies on the Saturday night and if we run out of the ales listed above, we have seasonal specials from Loddon, Vale, Hook Norton and West Berkshire lined up, and then of course, there's always Hooky Bitter - served in a handle, naturally.

Festival Page on The Cricketer's Website

Back, but briefly

2010-07-12T17:07:00.003+01:00

This afternoon I have harvested our first batch of "early" potatoes that went into the ground at the end of April; I got about 10kg, some of which have now been eaten (and very tasty they were too), but it feels like a small milestone on the way to getting this place how we want it has been achieved.

This project, of growing some of our own veg on a former patio at the private back of the pub, is the start of a drive to getting home grown veg on our menu, which goes with some of our other ideas about home produced food and drink. Just a small step, as I said. There are so many ideas that I have and want to work on, many of which I have talked to people in the pub about, be none of which I have started on as yet; it's all a question of time, or at least organising my time better to get more done.

It's the same with this blog. I haven't posted for a long time; far too long. My original aim was to post regularly, which I did to begin with, but as with all things, with no schedule to work to, other things got in the way. One of those things was this, a new business I have started with neighbor and customer of ours: Colin. It's all part of the way things work in a pub - you form alliances with others over a period of time and then over a few pints (in this case, I was behind the bar and serving, not drinking - at least most of the time), sometimes ideas and solutions present themselves as new projects.

So, I have taken some advice and done some reading and will be committing myself to regular writing, but not just yet. I want to come back soon with a new design and a real reason for contributing regular and worthy content which doesn't just mask itself as an advert for the pub, but is instead a view of life as a landlord in a country freehouse and which may provide some insight into the way things work, warts and all, as well as some of the solutions I utilise in trying to get stuff done.

From little potatoes, and all that...

Compass Baltic Night Stout

2010-06-05T11:37:00.004+01:00

Not posted on here for a while - busy with other things which I will get around to explaining soon. In the meantime, we are proud to present Compass Baltic Night Stout 4.8% on draught from today.

Coming Soon... Isis Pale Ale

2010-04-08T16:44:00.005+01:00

We have a brand new ale coming to The Cricketer's from tomorrow lunchtime. Created by The Father's Folly team and brewed by Mattias at The Compass Brewery, this is a very special beer, which I am looking forward to trying from the cask, having already sampled one the the brand new bottles, which was truly excellent.

The best thing, and a bit of a coup for us, is that not only is this the first firkin of Father's Folly Isis Pale Ale to leave the brewery, but also the first time that a firkin of any ale has been available from The Compass Brewery anywhere around Oxford, both of the previous beers from the brewery - Baltic Stout and the original Father's Folly - only being available in bottles locally. So you heard it here first. We just have the one firkin though and only twelve bottles, so first come first served.

BRAVO! for BINGO!

2010-04-03T17:59:00.005+01:00

Last Thursday's quiz night - our second anniversary quiz, quiz number 100 and our first BINGO! quiz was something of a success.

Firstly, it was a record turn-out, so a big thanks to all of those who attended and submitted their own questions.

Secondly, from the point of view of the competitor submitted questions, I think it showed that setting a quiz isn't something as easy as it first appears. Of the questions that were submitted by the various teams, very few of them were answered by the other teams correctly; so a question on say, football or soap operas that you think is really easy is often not as easy as you think it is, regardless of whether a member of another team is a football or soap fan. It was quite fortuitous then that we only had thirteen questions submitted by competitors in total. This meant that I was able to add six of my own, plus the tie-breaker. The "True or False" questions that I added bumped up the overall scores, enough at least to potentially get a BINGO! line.

It was the first time that we had used "True or False" questions in our quiz and they were a real unexpected benefit and source of humor. It still begs the question as to whether such questions are easy, since they're all easy if you know the answer, but at least with questions like:

True or False: The Channel 4 TV series "Desperate Housewives" is set in Surbiton, or
True or False: Brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher are in the band "Scissor Sisters"

you have a 50% chance of getting it correct whether you know the answer or not. And before you say, "They're really easy," think about it. If you're not someone who watches much TV, or who only watches, say, natural history programmes on the BBC, and believe me, I know people with interests outside of the box, or your musical interest is Classical or Opera, then a seemingly simple question for most, is brought down to a fifty-fifty guess.

Thirdly, the actual BINGO! element of the quiz was brilliant and added a new excitement to reading out the answers, together with authentic BINGO! calls. In the end, the quiz was won by two young ladies who, with the help of one competitor question, four "True or False" questions and a whole lot of luck, managed to be the first to complete a line; narrowly beating several other teams who would have completed their line on the next one or two numbers out of the BINGO! cage. Our 100th quiz winners, it is fair to say, would not have won without the BINGO! element, so that, for me, is a result.

Talking to the teams afterwards, the general consensus was that the BINGO! format was fun and fair. Even teams that have won the quiz on many occasions agreed and reinforced the point that for many, the whole point of attending was not to win the quiz in any case, but to have an enjoyable and social night out. BRAVO! for BINGO!

So, how to move forward? Well, we are going to hold a BINGO! quiz on the first Thursday of every month from now on, so the next one will be the themed "Happy Birthday David Attenborough" on 6th May. If the format proves to be more popular both attendance wise and in terms of feedback, then we'll do it more often. I am also going to make "True or False" a permanent feature, so one each of the geography, music and culture, sport and leisure, entertainment and history questions will be of that type. That should keep things fresh and scores on the up.

See you Thursday 9:30pm

Cask Ale Week etc

2010-03-17T17:55:00.008Z

It's been a couple of weeks since I lasted posted because I have been busy with this and that and spending more time in the kitchen than previously (note: This post is dated 17th March, it should say 28th, which is when I wrote it) .

We have a lot of questions already for Quiz 100 on Thursday, but there's still time to get yours in if you have been to a previous quiz. Deadline is Wednesday evening.

The Oxford Mail has had a couple of articles about breweries over the past couple of weeks. Abingdon has a new one, so will be contacting them in due course.

Peter at Pitstop has also had a bit more PR for his world record attempt, "The Hop".

Which brings me to National Cask Ale week. It runs from tomorrow until next Monday, 5th April. There was a big feature in The Independent about it. I had been racking my brains for something to do for a while, and had many ideas including a Meet the Brewer, doing something for FemAle day on 1st April, a beer festival and various other things.

So what are we doing to celebrate this week long National event? Nowt. Or, at least nothing more than normal, anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I think any attempt to promote cask ale is laudable, but let's put this in context.

We are a small rural locals pub and free house that deals directly with small local breweries and one regional brewer - Hook Norton. National Cask Ale Week is the brainchild of several organisations, but mainly Cask Marque and CAMRA with some strong associations to Punch Taverns and Enterprise Inns. To get official POS (Point Of Sale) kit for National Cask Ale Week, we would have had to shell out £25+VAT (OK, you get alot of stuff, fair enough, but £25+VAT for a load of paper when it's coming out of your own pocket is plenty). SIBA, the Society of Independent Brewers, did have some free POS kits to give away, but these were only to pubs of their Direct Delivery Scheme, and as mentioned, we deal direct with the breweries. We got some POS material from our friends at Hook Norton instead.

CAMRA: A consumer organisation; SIBA: For the brewers; Cask Marque: For the beer, by the big boys.

On the events side, is having a meet the brewer or a FemAle day going to attract new trade? Ed, the Shotover brewer, gets in here all the time, so I could have asked him to do a talk, but who is going to attend? Non-ale drinkers? Doubt it. I'm sure it would be a fascinating talk and we would sell plenty of Shotover Prospect, but only to the initiated who wanted to support the event, not to people new to ale; so we can do that sort of thing anytime.

A FemAle day? Well the 1st April is Quiz 100, so that'll keep us busy anyway, but I just feel we're not that sort of place where something like that would work. We do get plenty of lady ale drinkers and I am scheduling Vale's Ninkasi next (named after the ancient Sumerian Matron Goddess of Beer. Borne out of fresh sparkling water, she is the goddess made to "satisfy the desire" and " sate the heart"), but our ladies that drink wine and spirit/mixers, should I be really trying to convert them to cask ale? It's all about balance and what's good for trade, not what's good for the brewers: Big or small.

We will be giving away free beer. Tasters. But then we do that anyway, as any cask ale pub should. Whether Vale Ninkasi will appeal to our lady drinkers - most of whom seem to either prefer milds and stouts or golden ales - will remain to be seen.

A beer festival? Had one last month, which was great. Too soon for another one.

No, for a free house like us, National Cask Ale Week is something that everyone else does. We do cask ale all of the time, not just one week of the year.

Glutton for Punishment

2010-03-13T17:54:00.002Z

It was excellent to see a team winning the quiz last week that have been attending every Thursday, in various guises, since day one. Although they have won the quiz three times before, and collected their free drinks, this was the first time that the foursome also picked up the (not insubstantial) jackpot. Sometimes it appears the questions just come together in their favour and this was one such time; not that they had an easy time of it. No less than four teams finished the night with 17/20 and it all went down to the tie-break. Persistence is a virtue, or so they say.

So, onto all those hecklers out there who have been leaving sometimes vitriolic anonymous one-liners on this post. I must say, I am flattered that someone would leave a comment two weeks after the initial blog stating that we have the most difficult quiz in Oxfordshire. Really? Do you really think that? As you are all anonymous then I have to take these comments at face value. Shame you cannot be more constructive in your criticism and can't offer a comparative take on your views, for instance, where I could find an easier quiz? Presumably there are loads of them about which is why you are so concerned with this one.

Anyway, thanks to Pete and another Anonymous (but this one came into the pub and chatted about it also and the anonymity was more down to a technical issue) for their constructive feedback. I mentioned here about a call for questions for quiz number 100, the "competitor quiz" on April 1st (the date is a coincidence, this isn't an April Fool), also the second anniversary of our quiz. To mark this occasion, we are going to trial a "BINGO! Quiz" format and see how it goes.

Our "BINGO! Quiz" works like this: You still get twenty questions, but instead of writing them down in a list, you write the question number and the answer anywhere in a five by four grid. When the answers are read out - in random order (I will make use of our BINGO cage and balls) - you can mark your own answer paper and if you answer a question correctly, then you get a tick. If you get five ticks in a row, then you shout "BINGO!" and - subject to verification - you have won the quiz. If two teams shout "BINGO!" at the same time, then the winner is the closest to the tie-breaker. If no team completes a line by the time all of the answers have been read out, then we'll go with the nearest to the tie-breaker (for this first trial at least).

So, this means that potentially, you could win the quiz by just being the nearest to the tie-breaker, or you might only have five correct answers and still win. Another team could get 19/20, but the winner might only get five, depending upon the order that they place their answers in the grid and the order that the answers are randomly selected, and be closer to the tie-breaker and still win the quiz. Unfair on the team that got 19/20? Possibly, but by answering more questions correctly, you are maximising your chance of getting a winning line. If you're just a lucky so and so, you can get a line anyway.

I just thought. If a team gets 20/20 (and no team has yet), then they could still loose to a team getting 5/20. Both would have the tie-breaker correct which would force use of the reserve question and the 5/20's might be closer on that. Scary thought, you get all the questions right and still loose...

Keep in mind as well, that quiz number 100 has competitor submitted questions, so if you have put forward a question and it has been accepted, then you'll already have one tick in the box wherever it appears on the grid. Sometime after the quiz, we'll have a vote and see whether we want to keep the "BINGO! quiz" or stay with the current format. Can't say fairer than that.

Call for questions

2010-03-09T00:42:00.002Z

Busy old weekend, so no time to write about last Thursday's quiz until now: Our most successful ever, which was nice. We beat the previous record by two whole persons (that's not to say that previously we have had less than complete persons attending our quiz night) and we raised a few quid for Fairtrade into the bargain.

The evening was a joint effort between ourselves and Wheatley United Reformed Church. We (mostly Angie, I have to admit) did the quiz, in our usual style. The URC and our quiz regulars attended and it was a really fantastic evening. One of our regular teams was only beaten by the tie-breaker too, so the "inside knowledge" of the URC crowd was nicely balanced.

One thing that became apparent from this quiz, or at least the partnership style to it, which made it so successful, was that if you do a quiz which has a local interest, then people will turn out for it. Hopefully, some of those that came specifically to last Thursday's quiz will turn up again to future ones. But, it gave me an idea. In three week's time, it is our second anniversary quiz and also, by a bizarre coincidence (not really that bizarre, since there are fifty two weeks in a year and we have a two week break for Christmas and New Year) our 100th quiz.

I may introduce some other surprises, but I want to make #100 the "Competitor Quiz". That is, you, the competitors, set the questions.

All you have to do is let us have one or more questions (and answers) that we can ask on the night, either by email or in person (don't put them on Facebook or the blog because everyone will see them). The question(s) should be of a level suitable for all. You will, of course, know the answer to the question(s) yourself - although we will have to verify it (and of course, we reserve the right to edit it and/or use it as a theme to a question) - and if you are a member of a team and you all submit questions, then we will need to restrict the number per team somehow, but we'll see how it goes first. Don't worry about making it British themed and if sport, music or entertainment are your specialty, then go for it, just make sure it's not too out-there and everyone has a chance. The deadline for questions is 7pm on Wednesday 31st March.

More than twenty different teams have won the quiz in the last two years and many more have taken part, so getting twenty competitor questions should be easy, but if we get too many questions, we'll select from them randomly.

Start jotting....

Operation Longbow

2010-03-07T10:30:00.002Z

Tim from The Patriot Brewery delivered his much awaited ales on Friday and Longbow - his 4.2% straw coloured ale - in on the pumps now. If you drank the Hooky Gold dry recently, then you'll like this. Patriot Missile 3.8% is in the cellar too and will make is debut over the coming weeks.

The lovely black stuff

2010-03-01T10:23:00.005Z

I have written before about Paul over at RealAleBlog's Make March Mild Month campaign and also noted that Mild can be rather messy when it comes to preparing a firkin for dispense, so I am preparing for a rather wet month; it'll be buckets and beer towels to the ready during March in our cellar. Anyway, if you like a glass of mild, here is our line-up for this month, not necessarily in that order:

Vale Black Swan is ready and waiting to go, but may not get on the pumps today as I am not going to waste any of the lovely Best Mates Satan's Sister, but if you request it, I'll fetch it direct from the cask for you. Hopefully, there'll be a brand new Mild available from The Pitstop Brewery as well this month and if I get around to it, I'll speak to Pete at Thame and see if he can spare another Mr Splodges, that went down so well at The Beer & Sausage Festival.

And don't forget that you can earn free pints with our Tuesday Ale Club.

As if by magic, some research on pub quizzes

2010-02-27T19:15:00.002Z

"Pub quizzes seems to be catering for what people are talking about these days. A team is now really disadvantaged if they do not have someone who knows about soap operas and pop stars."

From soft drink brand J20

What colour is the sun?

2010-02-27T11:55:00.003Z

"You can please some of the people some of time, but not all of the people, all of the time." Is that how the saying goes?

I am frequently reminded that our Thursday night quiz is too difficult. Tonight was another of those evenings. "If the quiz was easier then more people would attend," certainly that was the gist, and, to back this up, "the same teams always win," and "those (that always win) are quiz 'professionals' and only drink coffee and soft drinks."

Now, there's alot here to analyse and this is only one person's viewpoint after all, however, I have had similar conversations before. What I don't do during these encounters is enter into any discourse that might be considered negative, what I do do is take on board any feedback as constructive criticism and try and use that to improve the quiz to suit our customers better, but now, to be perfectly honest, I have had enough constructive criticism, so time to debunk to a few quiz myths.

"if the quiz was easier then more people would attend." I don't think so. If I include our pub as part of Wheatley, then of the seven licensed premises, we are the only one that holds a regular weekly quiz. The most people we have ever had attend is 33, the least 3 - that was a week last Thursday and the quiz was canceled; OK, it was snowing. But the fact is, more people would not attend just because the quiz was easier. Wheatley has a population of around 5500. 33! It's hardly a crowd puller. We have regular quiz customers who come regardless because a quiz is a diversion from the norm, whether they win it or not. People who drop in occasionally will not turn out if the quiz is easier next week - if I say, it will definitely be easier next week, I promise, honest - they won't come out. You either come out on a Thursday because you like a quiz and the social interaction, or you don't.

So what is an easy question anyway? If you come from a farming background (one of of quiz regulars does) then an "easy" question is something about farming, or habitat or natural history maybe. We don't have a category for that. We have a number of accountants who attend the quiz, but we don't have any questions on accountancy or mathematics. I don't stand there are ask, questions about algebra or calculus, I try and ask questions that relate to general knowledge. I place a slant on general knowledge that is in popular culture - because these are very often things that some of our competitors watch on TV. So often, we get questions cropping up about Emmerdale, Coronation Street, East Enders, The X Factor, I'm a Celebrity..., Big Brother etc. etc.. If you watch these programmes, they're easy (or at least easier). If you don't, they're not. From what I have noticed, most of our accountants and indeed our former farmer, do not tend to watch the above, thus putting themselves at a disadvantage. But that's just one question category, if you follow politics or sport, you'll be able to answer questions in those categories. So an easy question, then, must be one that everyone knows the answer to, like maybe, "What colour is the sun?" and what category should I stick that in? Geography? And if you happen to be someone who is interested in sun colouring phenomena, then you'll give the answer that the sun isn't the same colour as children paint it at school.

In short, questions are always easy if you know the answer.

"The same teams always win." No they don't. The same teams often attend and many different teams win. We have hosted almost 100 quizzes now and no team has ever had a winning streak of more than two weeks. One thing you'll find with our quizzes is the more you attend, the better score you'll tend to get. This isn't an increase in knowledge per se, it's an increase in the level of understanding of the question master. Our questions are asked or phrased in a certain way; it can't be helped, it's something called human nature. My questions often have a clue to the answer and it's usually the only answer you can think of. Go for the obvious, every time, it'll probably be the right one. The same teams win because they know the style of the question. Attend once in a blue moon and you might not understand the question master.

"Those that win are quiz professionals." Rubbish. None of our attendees are quiz professionals, as noted above, they like the social interaction and intellectual challenge of a pub quiz. A professional would be attending a quiz every night and winning the jackpot every time. Ours don't. Our jackpot hasn't been won for weeks and even when it's a themed quiz when there is a topic that could be researched, the jackpot has rolled over. These quiz goers are here for a night out, nothing more. They are no more quiz professionals than I am.

"Those that win only drink coffee and soft drinks." This may have had some truth to it, once. One particular couple, who are very much quiz regulars, when they first started coming to the quiz and, shock horror, winning, they did indeed order coffee and soft drinks. When you win our quiz, the prize is a round of drinks and the chance to win the jackpot by answering the secret question. If one of the team gets the secret question correct (no conferring) then the jackpot is won, otherwise, it rolls-over to the next week. A team that has won that has been drinking coffee and soft drinks, is polite and orders coffee and soft drinks as their "round". It doesn't matter to me; the Gross Profit on coffee and soft drink is much higher than that on alcoholic drinks.

But I did say "may have had some truth to it, once." If this couple did that once, then they have now graduated onto one or two pints of ale instead. The implication however, is that people who come in specifically to do the quiz, like our couple, do not spend any money in the pub and leave as soon as the quiz is over. This couple, who we first met through them doing the quiz, like a number of others, have grown become excellent customers of ours and I would like to think that they enjoy the atmosphere and general friendliness of the pub. They support our live music, they eat here, they bring their friends here; they are good and regular customers. Even if they leave as soon as the quiz as finished, it's no matter, after all, they probably have to get up for work in the morning.

The weekly quiz takes me around two hours to put together every week and that's probably an underestimate, I suspect that most of the time it takes me much longer. It starts at 9:30pm on a Thursday and is over by 10pm. It attracts on average between 12 and 16 competitors. Is it worth my while? Certainly it attracts more people on a Thursday night than we would get by not doing it and our takings are up even if I have to give away a round of drinks to the winners. Would I attract more people by somehow dumbing down the questions to the level of one of those ITV phone-ins? That's like saying if I reduce the price of a pint to £2.50 every night (as it was at the beer festival), then we'd be packed with drinkers. No we wouldn't. The same trends would be followed as they are now. If you're going to come to the quiz, you'll come to the quiz. If you're having a night out with friends and you fear that the quiz might be too difficult, save yourselves the one pound cost of entry each and don't enter it.

One thing I do have for those that say the quiz is too difficult is something of a frame of reference, which if you don't attend quizzes anywhere else, you wouldn't have. Another regular couple of ours attended a Sunday night quiz at a village pub a few miles away from here with friends. That quiz, they told me, made ours look trivial.

Beer & Sausages: The verdict

2010-02-24T00:09:00.003Z

Right, last night I was taking a break. Tonight, Tuesday, was Real Ale Club and we were quite busy, so only just chance to sit down and pen a few words about last weekend's Beer & Sausage Festival. First off, it was GREAT! So many people - and we weren't just supported by local people from the surrounding villages, but (somehow) we managed to attract visitors from far and wide. There were people from Carlisle, Bristol, Norwich, Durham, Rugby, Milton Keynes, Banbury, Marlow, Reading and Oxford... Wow! I am totally amazed and would like to say a huge "Thank you" to everyone who turned up to make our 2010 Festival the best yet and of course, everyone else who helped out along the way, especially our staff and volunteers who worked so hard, Cricks butchers, Sue and Pat for the Lincolnshire sausages, all of the breweries, but especially Shotover and Best Mates for Sunday and Tom for Saturday's entertainment.

So, some figures: More than 1200 pints of Real Ale and Cider, 500 sausages, 75 kilogrammes of potatoes. We sold a firkin each of Shotover Prospect and Scholar on the Friday. All of the festival ales were gone on Saturday night and by Saturday lunchtime more sausage had been eaten than all of last year. Sunday would have been a real let down had it not been for the two breweries mentioned above delivering so quickly and Cricks bringing in an emergency supply of sausages. It was a perfect example of local businesses working together.

As mentioned, the Shotover Ales were very popular, as would be expected with them being so local, but all of the ales at had least one fan: The local CAMRA guys, out in force on the Saturday (when you said your branch social was the Sunday :)), were particularly fond of the Thame Mr Splodges Mild, I think. Our regular lager drinkers favoured the Pitstop and Two Bridges brews, lighter in colour than the rest and not popular with many others, but that's perhaps because they are cross-over brews. The Old Bog, Hooky Double Stout, Box Steam COG and Best Mates' Ardington Ale were all singled out by many people that I spoke to as being their favourites. The first to go of the ales in the stillaged area was Vale Ale-Conner: Vale brewery's January special. Richard (I know you read this Richard, don't try and deny it) described it yesterday as "The perfect ale," and wanted to know when we'd be getting it back. Unfortunately, unless our friends at Brill reprise it next year then, never, since it was a one off, I understand. Many, many people were fans of Uley brewery's Pigor Mortis, the second to run out - up that end - and, again, an occasional ale, not widely available. My personal favourite, as seconded by Adi, Angie's son, was the Half Penny Anniversary Ale, which probably didn't sell as fast as others due to its positioning on the stills, but then at least that gave me chance to have a few pints of it (including the last out of the barrel, which was almost as good as the first).

Sausage wise, our three own recipes: The Lamb and Rosemary, Beef and Stout, and Pork and Old Hooky were the first to go, together with the genuine Lincolnshire. Cricks butchers, who made them all (except the genuine Lincolnshire) said that the Pork and Old Hooky was the tastiest combination that they had come across in a very long time and intend adding it to their list of sausages available all the time. Nice one.

And this festival was the first that we have had a real cider. As mentioned previously on this blog, we found Tutts Clump Traditional Farmhouse Cider. We trialled an 18 pint mini-pin which didn't last until the end of Friday, that was clear from when we opened the doors that day. Saturday a 40 pint barrel of Tutts Clump arrived and just about managed to last until the end of the festival; we'll be doing real cider again and its popularity has convinced me to get it in all the time - hopefully - watch this space. Our bottled ales also sold extremely well. Very popular were Compass Brewery's Baltic Stout and Father's Folly, but many others as well. We stock a huge range of local bottled ales and it was nice to see eyes widening and lips licking as the beer menu was perused. The bottles of North Cotswold's Arctic Global Warmer, the luxurious 15% stout - they had sold out by Friday lunchtime.

Bring on the next one!

Quick post

2010-02-22T20:21:00.002Z

Having an evening of not doing too much, now that the pub furniture is back to normal and all the empty firkins are gone, so will hopefully write a much more detailed account of the Beer & Sausage Festival in the next day or so.

For the time being, here is an email that arrived recently from a visitor at the weekend:

"I visited your pub and Beer Festival on Saturday for the first time having traveled down from Norwich to London then out to Oxford. It was one of the best pub festivals I have been to just for the range of new beers on, and two brand new breweries: Shotover and Thame. Also to see the OLD BOG outside The Masons Arms was great. The pub was excellent, will visit again."

We had so many visitors from so many places at the weekend and I don't think I even met this chap, but to receive an email with such praise really makes you feel like you have done something really special.

Last Minute Substitution (or a tale of three brewers, part II)

2010-02-18T21:19:00.003Z

Unfortunately, due to a technical glitch - a problem with the element in the copper - Patriot Missile will not be making an appearance until after the Beer & Sausage Festival this weekend. And I haven't got to meet brewer Tim yet either, since he has been far too busy trying to get his brewery working. These things happen. When Tim's ale is ready, we'll be getting it in then: The Missile and the 4.2% Longbow.

Tim and I both agree, and I'm sure every brewer that I know would also concur, that if a beer is not ready to be released then it shouldn't be (ok, Ed, we got a bit excited with that first firkin of Prospect, but I've been really good with the new Scholar), there's no point in putting an ale on sale that isn't ready, it does no one any favours and I, for one, wouldn't want Tim' business to suffer because he'd released an ale for our festival that he wasn't happy with.

Anyway, here's a new picture

In place of Patriot Missile with have an excellent ale from Darren at Best Mates. Darren has been brewing since late 2007, about the same time that we got here at The Cricketer's and it's his first winter ale. All of Best Mates beers have a wonderful and distinctive earthy taste that comes from the centuries old water that he has access to on the private Ardington Estate. They're not everyone's cup of tea, but I love his beers, so much so that when our friend Lee decided to have a stag party (congratulations on now being married Lee, by the way) in Oxford, we spent the afternoon with Darren at his brewery supping his ales. Top man.

A Tale of Three Brewers (part I)

2010-02-18T18:01:00.001Z

I met two of the last of the three brewers that we are getting ale from for the Beer & Sausage Festival yesterday.

Kevin is head brewer at The Two Bridges Brewery, Caversham. A former removal man, Kevin has been brewing since September 2009 and has already a number of brews to his credit and is making great in-roads into the London market. He arrived with his cask of BBB: Blonde Berkshire Bevy, inspired by Reading's three former industries: Brewing, Biscuits and Bulbs, on a cask truck which could only be described as a large skateboard. Apparently, in its time, the device has moved pianos, tables and all manner of other large objects, so it had no problem handling a cask of ale, even on the rough terrain on route to the cellar.

I popped over to Thame yesterday afternoon to meet Pete, landlord and brewer at the Cross Keys Brewpub. Pete is a former landlord of London CAMRA pub of the year and a very experienced cellarman and real ale enthusiast. When he took over the Cross Keys a year ago, it was, by his admission, "On its last legs," and weekly takings were truly dire; worse even than The Cricketer's when we got here. In the last year, not only has he transformed The Cross Keys into a haven for real ale, complete with a ceiling covered in pump clips and beer mugs hanging above bar, but he has also installed his own brewery. The brewery is a real joy to see, fitting into a space that can't be much more than the size of our bar - about 12' by 8', I suppose. It was Peter's first brewery installation, but he has done himself proud, creating a real gem from equipment that had laid dormant somewhere in the west country for the last twenty or thirty years.

Tim from the Patriot Brewery in the Norman Knight at Whichford called this morning, and should be here by the close of play today...

The Kelham Island Tavern - a memoir, of sorts

2010-02-17T10:25:00.010Z

The Kelham Island Tavern in Sheffield has been voted CAMRA National Pub of the Year for the second year running. What an amazing achievement and many congratulations to them.

In the mid-noughties, I visited this pub and its neighbors in the area a lot - The Fat Cat, home of Kelham Island Brewery, the Cask and Cutler (now known as The Wellington), The Gardeners Rest, The Hillsborough Hotel, home of Sheffield's Crown Brewery and, our local, The New Barrack Tavern. All of them, together with a few pubs in the centre of Sheffield and a pub in Heeley to the South of the city, The Sheaf View, were (and I didn't really appreciate it at the time) vital research for running a pub of our own. At that time, I had just wound up my own business, having been self-employed for five years and gone back into the employment market, which had meant dealing with "recruitment consultants".

I don't have a very high opinion of recruitment consultants: Most of them should go back to flipping burgers. It seems to me that most of the "opportunities" that they advertise don't actually exist and when they do, in reality they are nothing to do with the job advertised. The best way that I found to deal with - what I perceived as ageism (I was in my mid thirties) - was to leave at least a decades worth of experience off my CV. It was only when I started doing that, that the phone started ringing and interesting sounding work began appearing. Whoops, slipped a bit off topic.

The first job I took after leaving self-employment that time around was with a small company based on Kelham Island, just over the road from the Cask & Cutler. Bliss. The job didn't work out, but I bumped into some guys I knew from Quba (just looked and they're still around) one lunch time in the Fat Cat and, over a pint of an ale that they had commissioned for the company's third birthday, or something, from the Kelham Island brewery, happened to pick up a job with them as they had just won a contract and were looking for someone with just my skills. Funny old thing, fate. Quba were then based on Kelham Island. I had drinks with the company I was leaving in the Kelham Island Tavern. It was Christmas and it was absolutely packed.

Anyway, after a year, Quba hit a spot of trouble and made me redundant. I toyed with self-employment again for a while and ended up spending too much time in Leeds, before my job search (with the help of the only recruiter I have any respect at all for) led me to the bright lights of London town. All this went on with myself and Angie having the dream of running our own business and eventually, that dream became reality here at The Cricketer's. But I took a little of all those Kelham Island / Hillsborough real ale pubs with me, not least an enthusiasm for real ale, which although it started years earlier, was finely honed during those few years.

Whilst our little country pub is a world away from a city based establishment and it's unlikely we'll ever get the level of throughput that they get - The Kelham Island Tavern has as many ales permanently on draught as we will have at our Beer & Sausage Festival - it's reassuring to know that some of my best years were spent drinking in the UK's best ale pub.

Warming up nicely...

2010-02-16T17:12:00.004Z

Things are hotting up here now for the Beer and Sausage Festival. Most if the ales are now in and I collect another tomorrow from the Thame Brewery, mainly because I want to see Peter's brewing kit, The Cross Keys being a brew pub and all. The real cider is in and so are a plethora of bottled ales including some hefty brews that include Arctic Global Warmer, a 15% ABV dark imperial stout and Monarch, a 10% IPA, both from The North Cotswold Brewery and Ridgeway Brewing's Foreign Export Stout, that weighs in at a comparatively sedate 8%. We're getting a call from BBC Oxford ~~tomorrow~~ Thursday, which should yield a bit of good publicity, not sure whether it'll be live or recorded, but they are calling around midday; I'll try not to be too tongue-tied.

Tutts Clump

2010-02-15T16:08:00.004Z

Somehow yesterday evening, possibly via twitter, I came across Tutts Clump Cider: "Real cider made by hand from local apples mainly from within West Berkshire." I contacted Tim, the owner and tomorrow all being well, with a little help from The West Berkshire Brewery, we'll have a limited amount of Tutts Clump cider which will be available at the Beer & Sausage Festival this weekend. We will also stock it in bottles and see how that goes. Local Real Ale in a bottle and Local Real Cider in a bottle, lovely.

Countdown to the festival

2010-02-11T12:32:00.004Z

The last two ales have been confirmed for next week's festival. The first is a dark ruby beer brewed to celebrate the anniversary of The Half Penny brewery at The Crown Inn at Lechlade on the banks of The Thames in Gloucestshire. Alan Watkins began brewing in December 2008 and this is the last of his "Anniversary Ale" that he brewed to commemorate his, Julie's and Valerie's achievement. It weighs in at a tasty 4.2%.

The next is a brand new beer from Peter Fowler at the Pitstop brewery in Grove. 4% Pace Car is a light and hoppy ale using a single hop. "it's a very pale beer with a single hop variety, Hersbrucker Hallertau. This hop is deliciously floral and is normally only used sparingly at the end of the brew, but I have put loads of it in right the way through and the taste is amazing!" Says Peter.

Peter also updated me on the progress of his bid to brew the world's bitterest beer "The Hop":

"The Hop has a bitterness of 323 BU, which I have now reported to Guinness World Records as there is no evidence of any more bitter beer ever been brewed and tested. All the claims of 1997 BU etc are projected and were not submitted for official testing. I had my beer done by hplc, which is the most accurate - and expensive - possible method."

When this story was first reported in the Oxford Mail last month, although there were many people who could see this for what it is: A bit of fun and some good PR, Peter came in for a certain amount of criticism from the "blogosphere" over the bitterness of a beer not being discernible over a certain bitterness and it just being a copy of what happens on the other side of The Atlantic. I find it quite ironic that Brew Dog can be praised for their innovation in one breath, but a fellow British Brewer promoting his business in a similar way is lambasted in the next. Maybe it's about fashion and being seen to say the right thing and drink the most fashionable beer, maybe some people fall for clever marketing and "cool" design, but if the point of brewing is to produce wonderfully tasting iconic brews then Peter, like the other local ales that will be appearing at our festival are all doing a grand job.

Predicting the future?

2010-02-11T00:10:00.003Z

I was busy this evening ordering bottled ales and firkins so that we have enough in reserve for the beer festival next week, but couldn't find some details from one brewery that I wanted to contact, so did a search of my hard disk to try and locate the details. I didn't find them, however, I did come across a business plan that we had written in early 2007, long before we had even visited The Cricketer's. I'm pretty sure that the business plan I discovered was the basis of the one that we eventually submitted when we were searching for funding for here, but what struck me as ironic was the number of coincidences and the number of things that we said in the business plan that we have actually stuck to. I must admit that business planning, whilst I see it as a worthwhile process, I didn't really expect to follow it too closely. It's one of those things that you write down, present, get funding and then move on and build the business using what you've got. Nothing more than a wish list of what you would like to do and like to achieve at the time that you are writing it. At the end of the day, before you own the business, you don't really know what you are going to find when you take over, so it's nothing more than a stab in the dark no matter how much research you put into it - especially when you are coming from another town or city and have no real idea of the locals or the locality.

"The English pub is famous the world over as a unique social centre, the hub of community life, an influence on popular culture, a source of history and a tourist attraction.

We wish to tap into this rich environment by building a business based on the four corner stones of our business strategy: Cleanliness, product range, quality of experience and traditional charm."

I think we have kept to our "four corner stones", even though I had forgotten about that statement, they are things that we hold close.

"We intend that by providing the above corner stones to our customers and offering a full range of cask conditioned and bottled beers, ciders, wines and spirits, a quality food menu including locally sourced fresh ingredients and a varied range of themed entertainments"

Ditto. But here's the crunch:

"As part of our business strategy, the cornerstones of traditional charm and product range do not include any of the following: Loud music (our pub will operate without a music license, suffice for “A Quiet Night Inn” (see below) and other specific events), excessive use of games machines (these we will be considered on an individual basis depending upon business benefit), frozen chips or any other convenience foods, alcopops or redbull, TV's or pool tables"

Well, we have got a music license. Two in fact. But the dining room side of the pub doesn't usually have any music on and the bar side is a quiet, relaxed kind of music: Singer-songwriter stuff mostly. "A Quiet Night Inn" has become "First Friday": Live acoustic music. We don't have any games machines, we sell real chips (made from actual potatoes that we peel and chip ourselves). We added scampi to the menu to alleviate the pressure on our home made food, but it's not exactly what I was thinking of when I said convenience food, I don't think. We do stock Smirnoff Ice, but we don't sell much. I have one can of Red Bull in the cellar. The TV is no longer visible when you walk into the pub, but we'll keep it at least until after the World Cup - just in case, and the Pool Table went last March, almost a year go now.

So all in all, for a prediction made a year before we took on a pub, I think we remain pretty consistent to what we originally planned. There are many other similarities, not least the names of the pubs nearby this one: The Queen's Head, The Chequers, The White Horse (that served Thai Food) and its proximity to major road networks. And then, there's this:

"We intend to be as environmentally friendly as possible. We will introduce a recycling policy for all bottles, plastics, paper and cardboard. We will utilise composting bins for food waste as well as growing our own produce on specially set aside allotment an unused area of the pub garden."

When I plant our crops in the next month or so on the allotment that I created out of the unused private patio at the back of the pub (that is also home to three composting bins), I'll let you know how they get on.

The pub the business plan was for? That was in Cambridgeshire...

Keg Aware

2010-02-04T19:14:00.005Z

As a follow-up to yesterday's post, our copy of The Morning Advertiser arrived this morning. Inside was a leaflet headed "Looking after your kegs and casks..." and asking "Are you doing your bit?" in big bad letters. Upon first impression, it came from an organisation called Keg Aware.

Apparently, there are 80 million kegs in use at any given time in the UK and this avoids the use of around 7.5 billion bottles or cans every year. But, "missing kegs & casks cost our industry £50 million each year."

My first response was that if they were collected promptly, instead of me stacking them on high (behind a locked gate I might add), then there might be less missing to begin with and certainly there would be less opportunity for Mr Keg Thief to pinch any of them.

On the back of the leaflet, there is a free phone number to get empties collected, a website address and a little note to say that the leaflet is published by British Beer & Pub Association. So Keg Aware is not an organisation at all, but an initiative of the BBPA.

The BBPA is funded by its members. Its members include most of the major breweries and PubCo's in the country, including Heineken. The Morning Advertiser has a distribution of 31,000 (and I wouldn't mind betting there'll be one in The Publican too). Leaflet design and printing, distribution, website design and development, free phone number provision, that's all got to add up. And, let's face it, most of them will go straight in the recycling, but the MA did carry the story too (but then PR is free).

Why not just get staff at the brewer's to ask how many kegs/casks need collecting when orders are placed on, say, Monday - it would have to be an estimate, but could be pretty close I'm sure - and then when the delivery arrives, a couple of days later, get the drays/logistics company to pick up the number that has been estimated. There would be space on the artic since that would have been factored in by the route planners.

I don't know, I've not worked for a logistics company, it just sounds like a plan that might save a bit of that £50 million and keep a few people in jobs and the price of the beer down. Hook Norton are a member of the BBPA too and they always have space for all my empties, so maybe it's just a case of small being beautiful again.

Apologies to the neighbors for the early start

2010-02-03T07:53:00.003Z

Ten past seven the Heineken UK (or whatever they call themselves now - was once Courage and then Scottish and Newcastle, although the lorry says "Kohenagle" or something, but if I Google that, I get no results, so my spelling must be wrong) dray called this morning and turned up twenty minutes later, which was a bit early, I thought, surely it would make more sense for their first visit of the day to be in a city centre somewhere, before the traffic gets too heavy, rather than in a small village. No? Maybe it's just me then.

I had arranged with the person who I place my orders with to remove a number of empty kegs that I had stacked on high since the New Year and the snow, which had meant that Heineken in their heavy duty artic lorry had been unable to deliver our order for a couple of weeks in a row. No-one else failed to deliver, only the biggest supplier of the lot. On one delivery day, I got a phone call from the dray saying that he had broken down about a mile away and could I come and collect the kegs. Urm... Yes, I'll just pop down the hill in between me and you that is covered in ice and snow because it hasn't been gritted (even though it's a bus route) and load up my little Peugeot with half a dozen kegs. So we didn't get a delivery that day.

After some discussion this morning, all the empty kegs were taken, but there was no note on the order saying that they should be collected, even though that was what I had arranged. The dray wasn't too pleased since they apparently get paid extra for collecting more than the number of full ones that they deliver. But he was very good natured about it and they are all gone now, so I'm happy too.

It's always the same with these big companies though and it doesn't matter whether they're British, Danish or Dutch, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

Give me a small, local supplier, supplying quality, hand-made produce any day.

New festival ale

2010-02-02T15:53:00.005Z

Almost there with the ale line-up for the festival. From the new Thame brewery based at The Cross Keys, Thame from brewer Pete Lambert, we have:

I know it's the first time that Pete has released an ale outside of his pub because he wasn't sure how much to charge me, so we have a price and now all I have to do is pop over and collect it. Mild, I like mild. And have had some most favorable reports about this ale, so really looking forward to trying it. It's named after the pub cat, in case you couldn't guess.

Feed the Family

2010-02-02T00:35:00.002Z

Sunday evening, "Sailor" said something that made me think. He said that he had, in a supermarket, picked up five meals for £20. Sounds like a bargain, but then I thought, "hang on, we almost match that in the pub." And lo, a new initiative was born:

We do very good food at a very good price. Most of the time, we beat the local M&B place on price as well (and you don't have to be here before 6:30pm - you can be a not-so-early feathered friend), we just need to tell more people. Back to marketing again.

Not such a Blue Monday

2010-02-01T23:55:00.003Z

We had a surprise at lunch today, diners. A dozen to be precise. Monday is an odd day. Sometimes you have Bank Holidays. One of those a year is busy, the one at the start of May. For the last two years since we have been here, that day has been packed on both occasions. The other two Bank Holidays (ignoring Easter and Christmas), at the end of May and in August are very quiet, We still open, but around here the conventional wisdom is that people flock to "The river" - that is, The Thames and village pubs like ours, are left empty. Fair enough, I'd do the same I suspect. Quite a few pubs around here don't even bother to open on Bank Holidays at all, or maybe just in the evening. We open every day. In fact, in the last two and a quarter years, we have been closed for just one full day, but I digress...

Monday though, in general, is a slow day. It's not just Bank Holidays when other pubs close around here during the day either. I said to one of today's diners, one of a party of seven, "Where have you come from?!" and she replied that we were the only pub with a ten mile radius of her office that was both open AND serving food. I suspect that ten miles is probably a small exaggeration, but they had certainly visited two in the village before arriving at us. The first was closed. The second could not (or would not) serve them food. A party of seven! I was completely amazed that a pub could turn down such an order on a day that is traditionally quiet.

It turned out that the eponymous Mr East was in the said pub at the time of the party's rejection and he directed them in our direction, before later turning up himself. Good man that Mr East.

"If you want good, home-made food," said Mr East, "then go to The Cricketer's." What a star. Not only our most regular customer, but a walking advertisement for us as well.

None of the party had visited us before. In fact, none of them even knew we were here, which is a bit worrying since they work under two miles away as the crow flies. That is one of our big failing points, I feel: Our marketing. We do some great stuff, have excellent food at great prices and we're getting more and more recognition for the range and quality of our ales, but when you take over a pub that simply "wasn't on the map", then two years (two and a quarter) just isn't very long when it comes to getting your message across, especially to people who work, but don't necessarily live, in the area. And this is despite them working in the same organisation that we have some very close pub friends. But it is a big organisation after all.

But, they did find us and, having loved their food and the service, we exchanged email and website addresses, so I can keep in touch with them in the future. New customers and regular ones from now on I hope. And the little silver lining to it all - they're the organisation's marketing department, so perhaps they can give us some advice in that direction too. Maybe we could be a case study?

Closed on a Monday? Not us.

Gushing about Mild

2010-01-26T19:31:00.005Z

I am just about old enough to remember drinking Mild in my youth. It was the drink I first tasted in a pub, but only just. Ansell's keg mild it was. Very soon after starting drinking, however, I switched to lager because thats what everyone was drinking. It was the time of the big switch to lager and in rural Lincolnshire, we was probably a little bit behind everyone else, hence my mild experience. A few years later I found real ale and the rest, as far as that is concerned is history.

Mild though was easily the most popular drink amongst the working classes, before the advertising man took control and keg lager became the staple drink. Conventional wisdom puts this switch down to the big brewers of the time industrialising the brewing process, pub landlords going with the ease of keg products over cask ones and drinkers being taken in by TV advertisements of lager being the drink of choice. It's the second bit that interests me the most.

My empirical experience of serving cask mild is this: It's a bloody nightmare. When you vent and tap a cask of bitter, you get a satisfying hiss of gas when the spile knocks out the tut, and the tap goes in fine. Usually, the cask conditions for a while, but it doesn't make much mess and it's all under control. With mild, almost exclusively, whether it's Hooky Dark, Vale Black Swan or today's choice, West Berkshire's Magg's Mild, the damn cask will, 90% of the time, decide it is not a cask at all, but a cask shaped mini volcano and erupt, Vesuvius like, spitting fountains of brown fluid all over the cellar as soon as the spile breaches the tut and the wooden keystone - difficult to break - has, many time, simply spat the tap back at me and flooded, lava like, onto the cellar floor. Today, Magg's managed to cover my shoes, the bottom of my trousers and the lower third of my bar apron, as well as the cuffs and sleeves of my new shirt. Nice.

It seems not to matter how long a cask of mild has been sat on stillage, the level of condition in that cask is just explosive. On several occasions, Hooky Dark, which is dry hopped, has spewed seven foot to leave hop residue of the cellar ceiling.

But, it's all worth it. Mild is a great drink. Mess can be cleaned up and it's a popular drink, popular enough to attract custom just because it's on the bar.

The question is though, when the big brewers switched to keg and the advertising men went for lager in a big way, did the landlords of the time thank their lucky souls that something rather less messy and infinetely easier to handle had come along? I wouldn't mind betting that they had.

Box Steam Brewery at Beer Festival

2010-01-26T15:27:00.004Z

The second of our "out of range" ales appearing at next months beer and sausage festival will be COG from the Box Steam Brewery in Wiltshire - A 4% dark amber best bitter with a light fragrant nose and a pleasing hoppy character. I've heard good reports about Box Steam's ales and they have been spotted by a couple of people in Oxford pubs too, plus, they seem very proactive and called me at the end of last year asking if I was interested in stocking something of theirs. When I explained our 36 mile "rule", they were most understanding, but I said I was making a couple of exceptions for the festival and here we are. They deliver to Oxford every other week, so timing will be perfect for COG's arrival in our cellar two weeks today.

Got me a big Growler

2010-01-26T00:36:00.003Z

Rex came in tonight and brought me a Growler. Rex is American, but he works in the Czech Republic. The growler came from the Czech Republic. It has a two litre capacity and a Grolsch style flip-top and is truly a work of art. The photo below makes it look small. It's not small, it's huge. A great glass receptacle for the storage of ale to be taken home, quaffed and then rinsed out and refilled with more ale. I think it's a great idea and far better than those stubby plastic carry kegs that are no longer in fashion over here. trouble is, I have two problems: One, encouraging brewers that they are the great idea that I think they are and two, getting a price on them from the manufacturers in the Czech Republic.

Vale Ale-Conner

2010-01-22T00:52:00.000Z

Vale's Ale-Conner 3.8% will be at the Beer and Sausage Festival.

In days gone by, an ale-conner was an officer appointed by communities to ensure the goodness and wholesomeness of bread, ale, and beer. It was their job to "to take care that they were good and wholesome, and sold at proper prices". Sounds like a grand job to me.

Make March Mild Month

2010-01-19T00:57:00.003Z

Paul over at RealAleBlog has a plan to "Make March Mild Month", which I think is a great idea. Not sure how long he has been campaigning for it, but I only saw it today. What a great idea. March should be a time to showcase a beer style of such historic importance, rather than May, when light, golden ales are coming into vogue and when summer is (or should be) just around the corner. We often have a mild on. At the moment we have Hooky Dark. Tomorrow Magg's Mild from the West Berkshire Brewery is being delivered, but in March, we'll make an effort to have one on at all times because there are some great ones about around here, it's just a shame that a few more local breweries don't have them in their portfolio.

Crib at The Mason's Arms

2010-01-19T00:10:00.003Z

We got well and truly thrashed tonight at The Mason's Arms, Headington Quarry at Crib. I suppose we were due a drubbing after beating them at home here at The Cricketer's earlier in the season. Whilst there, I had a couple of halves (I ended up being designated driver), the first was Harviestoun Bitter and Twisted, not really my cup of tea, but the Old Bog Quarry Gold, 4.1% brewed on the premises was excellent.

It'll not be long before pub games like Crib die out though unfortunately, I fear. Another traditional pub game consigned to retirement. Of the fourteen people playing this evening, I was easily the youngest by at least twenty years. At least The Mason's had a darts team playing and there were some younger people playing that (younger than me anyway) and pool still attracts a younger audience to pubs that can justify the space of a pool table (we couldn't and sold ours last March time). The same goes for the traditional Oxfordshire game of Aunt Sally, the youngsters are just not committing to the game like they used to in years gone by.

Festival update

2010-01-19T00:05:00.003Z

Two more breweries confirmed for next months beer festival. We'll be getting something from the brand new Thame Brewery, based at the Cross Keys in Thame, not sure what yet because brewer Peter has to work out what, but look forward to it with interest. I have been hearing great things about his beers. We will also be getting something from the Half Penny brewer at Lechlade, as well as some of their bottled ales. More details as and when I have them.

The minimum price debate

2010-01-17T22:10:00.005Z

Crib captain Geoff asked me tonight what effect the introduction of a minimum price per unit might have on us. My answer was none, directly, since our session ale is £2.80 a pint, so it's more than the minimum price per unit anyway. However, indirectly, if supermarkets are forced to introduce a minimum that increases the price of cheap tins then it follows that people will have to spend more in the supermarket. Because the prices will still be cheaper than coming down the pub, then they'll have less money to spend when they do get here.

This makes sense to me, even if our customers aren't buying the cheapest things on the shelves at Asda or Tesco, since a rise in the cheapest products will, I'm sure, mean a rise in alcoholic beverages across the board in order to keep prices for premium products at a premium to low costs ones.

I have no problem at all with our local CAMRA, they popped in yesterday on mass, which was a welcome boost to Saturday lunchtime trade, they are great to chat to and they have been very supportive to us. But Nationally, CAMRA's stance that they welcome a minimum price per unit because it will "help pubs" - it just doesn't sit right with me, for the reason given above.

Supermarkets are here to stay as are supermarkets selling discounted alcohol. I don't like the fact that they sell it below cost, I feel its an abuse of power, but what can I do? Not alot. The same goes for JDW: We do lose trade to them and their value offering - but they're the supermarket in this context, and we're the corner shop. As pubs we need to diversify - as has been said a thousand times before - to value local trade and offer products and services that supermarkets (including JDW) can't.

No Baltic Night for Beer Festival

2010-01-16T00:32:00.004Z

Unfortunately, Compass Brewery's Baltic Night Stout - 4.8% - lovely hint of coffee and a long dry moreish cocoa finish - isn't going to be available in firkin form until Easter time, so it won't be appearing at the beer festival. It's a shame because over the last few days, it has sold extremely well in bottles, so well in fact that I have sold out of it completely. Father's Folly from the same brewer has also been doing a brisk trade on the back of the demand for Baltic Stout. you can read more about Father's Folly here.

However, we have another dark beer making an appearance: Old Bog's Half Wit. A 5.5% dark wheat beer, brewed at The Mason's Arms, Headington Quarry. Although you can find Old Bog ales at one or two festivals, The Cricketer's is, I think, one of the few pubs (if not the only one other than The Masons) where you can sample their wares. We face them at Crib on Monday at their place, so I will be seeing what they have on then.

Where to buy Shotover Ale - in a pub

2010-01-14T10:47:00.004Z

Nice article in The Independent today about the Shotover Brewing Company by local journalist Toby Green.

Little bit of a shame that "with 52 pubs closing each week"

and with "People [are] starting to look for local products,"

and "Ideally, I think, you should drink a microbrewer's beer close to where the beer is brewed,"

That a small plug wasn't given to the two local village pubs that serve Shotover ale on a permanent basis..... or maybe that was it? - just look for pubs local to the brewery. OK, I suppose it is The Independent and wouldn't want to dumb it down too much.

Anyway, here's a better one, to save you the trouble of looking it up: "Shotover ales can be found in two local village pubs within a mile (or so) or the brewery: The Queen's Head at Horspath and The Cricketer's Arms at Littleworth"

Yes, a shameless plug, but at least I am fair enough to include a fellow pub (and not let's forget a competitor) up the road

Two more ales confirmed for next months festival

2010-01-14T00:13:00.004Z

I have spoken to two brand new breweries and ordered ales for our beer and sausage festival in February. The first "BBB" - Blonde Berkshire Bevy, so called because Reading used to be famous for the three B’s: Brewing, biscuits and bulbs - or so Kevin the brewer tells me, comes from the Two Bridges Brewery at Caversham. They only started brewing in September last year, but it sounds like things are going well for them so far. BBB is a brand new session beer weighing in at around 3.8% and brings their total number of brews to four.

The second ale is likely to be another session beer at around the same strength called "Missile" from the Patriot Brewery based at The Norman Knight pub in Whichford, Warwickshire, which is just three miles from our friends at Hook Norton. Tim, the pub and brewery owner sounds like the sort of guy who gets things done. I first found out about him from my next door but one neighbor, Mr. H, who fortuitously dropped into The Norman Knight just as Tim was moving in a few months ago and happened to mention to him that the "pub next door" was really into local ales.

Three down, nine to go...

Veggie beer update

2010-01-12T15:58:00.006Z

After a cursory glance around our bottle collection, I noted that the Shotover Brewery at Horspath, just up the road from us does state on the labels of their Shotover Scholar ale that "No animal products are used in this beer". I recall now having a conversation with Ed, the brewer, where he said he didn't add finings (Isinglass) to casks that were destined for bottling, his Prospect ale is the same. I need to check with the other brewers and see what they do.

Cask Marque launches Sat Nav app

2010-01-11T23:03:00.005Z

This article in The Publican today made me think about the benefits of joining a scheme such as Cask Marque.

I did look into it once, but at the time I didn't believe it offered me particularly good value for money. I know we do very good real ale because 1. I drink it regularly and I like to drink beer in perfect condition; 2. We have a customer base that is increasing because we serve good real ale and 3. When we get visits from breweries and they taste our ales, they tell me they are in perfect condition. So why would I need someone else to come in and check my ale and tell me it's good and let me put up a plaque that (at the time - two years ago) not many people understood. Added to that, I have been in pubs displaying said plaque and the beer, whilst drinkable, wasn't brilliant: Real Ale is a living product and requires a lot of care and attention and sometimes, for instance in a managed pub chain where the staff haven't been trained well enough in the care of cask ale, then you can get a pint that isn't quite up to scratch, despite the sign on the door. It happens.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think it's a bad idea. Anything that promotes real ale and provides education in its upkeep has to be a good thing, but I just didn't think it worked for us as a single freehouse in a rural-ish location. But now they have come out with this Sat Nav application and text messaging service, two very popular technological advancements of recent years, I may have to look again. We're pretty close to the M40 and Oxford, but we're quite hard to find unless to know where you're going, so we don't get much passing trade, but these services would sort that out. Assuming, of course, that anyone bothers to use the services that are being offered.

Time to look again at Cask Marque, I think.

"How nice it is to see a Vegetarian Roast"

2010-01-10T14:54:00.003Z

Been very up and down the last week trade wise and all down to the English weather. Monday was steady. Tuesday saw a good turn out despite the start of the snow. Wednesday was amazing. Thursday was a funny one. Friday was great again. Saturday was a no show. Sunday was an unexpected surprise with plenty of people walking-in for roasts after an energetic walk on Shotover.

"How nice it is to see a Vegetarian Roast" was a comment from Julie, one of our quiz regulars who had been out walking herself with friends.

It's something that we have always offered since we started doing our Sunday roasts and something which we see as a natural thing to do, not something out of the ordinary. So, are vegetarian options rarely seen on a Sunday then? How strange. Delivering vegetarian potatoes to a table always gets a laugh, but Angie normally roasts the potatoes in goose fat, for that lovely crispy skin and soft centre, so offering these to someone who doesn't eat meat, when it's easy to cook some on olive oil, seems like pulling the wool over someone's eyes. It's the same with the gravy: Tasty, made from vegetables and gluten free, so it's suitable for coeliacs too. And we don't just offer one veggie option, we have at least a couple: A Quorn fillet or a nut roast usually.

It's just attention to detail I suppose, and caring what we offer our customers. But that's one of our USP's (Unique Selling Points) - we do give a damn what we put on a plate and in a glass.

This got me thinking about our usual "bowl food" menu that is available during the week. Our vegetarian selection is really quite large, I suppose, for a pub of our size - yet it has all grown organically from customer requests over the last couple of years and we sell alot of meat free dishes, which always go down well.

I have been meaning to make some suggestions of matching local ale with some of our food. But to match a vegetarian dish with a beer, the beer would also need to be vegetarian - that is, it would have to be unfined, or at least not use Isinglass for clearing the beer. The first firkin of Prospect that we had from the Shotover brewery was unfined, but since, Ed the brewer has been fining them - for entirely commercial reasons. I believe we may have one or two bottled beers that use something other than Isinglass for clearing. Need to check that one.

Twenty20 Brit Quiz - Review of 2009

2010-01-07T22:30:00.002Z

Number 88, Thursday 7th January 2010 - Review of 2009

1.Geography: In which capital did the first test of the 2009 Ashes series take place in July: London, Cardiff or Belfast?

2.Sport & Leisure: Which sisters won the Wimbledon ladies doubles final in July?

3.Politics, Current Affairs and Business: Which former Labour Party Chair resigned from her post as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government in June?

4.Music & Culture: Who presented his last BBC radio 2 breakfast show in December after 27 years?

5.Entertainment: Who won the 3rd series of “Britain's got Talent” in May?

6.History: In January, the closure of which chain of retail shops was completed across the UK, ending 100 years of their presence on the High Street?

7.Art & Books: Featuring the character Robert Langdon, which American author's best selling book “The Lost Symbol” was published in September?

8.Geography: In June, where in the UK was the first death related to the H1N1 swine flu virus: London, Scotland or the Isle of Mann?

9.Sport & Leisure: Which German driver won the final British Grand Prix to be held at Silverstone in June?

10.Entertainment: Which celebrity chef won series 9 of “I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!” in December?

11.Music & Culture: For the first time in five years, the UK Christmas number 1 was not an X Factor winner. With the song “Killing in the Name”, which band was it?

12.Geography: In September, Britain's largest haul of Anglo-Saxon treasure was discovered buried beneath a field by a metal detecting enthusiast in which county?

13.History: In May, which Speaker of the House of Commons announced his resignation after coming under criticism for his handling of the expenses row?

14.Art & Books: In December, artist Richard Wright won the UK's most prestigious art prize. What is it called?

15.Sport: Who won the 2009 Carling Cup, beating Tottenham Hotspur 4-1 on penalties after extra time?

16.Music & Culture: Who was the only artist to have a UK number one for more than 3 weeks with the song “The Fear” in February?

17.Entertainment: Which British film won seven awards at the BAFTA's and eight Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director?

18.Politics, Current Affairs and Business: In December, cabin crew at which airline voted overwhelmingly in favour of a planned strike action over Christmas and the New Year?

19.History: In July, we lost two of the oldest men in the world and the last surviving First World War servicemen. Henry Allingham who was 113 and which other, who was 111?

20.Tie-breaker: How old was Mollie Sugden when she died on 1st July?

The winners got 15/20

Snow

2010-01-06T23:48:00.002Z

Wow, what a great day, completely knackered now though. Snow is great for trade in a place like this. A dozen chilli's too, we've never had a single dish go into double figures on one day before.

Tuesday Snow

2010-01-05T23:02:00.002Z

So, Tuesday Ale Night was reasonably busy, despite the snow falling since 6pm. I heard a story tonight from a customer who used to be the tenant of the Coach and Horses in Wallingford - we have alot of ex-landlords here at The Cricketer's - he was apparently present with Tim Turner - of Fuller, Smith and Turner - when they were buying up pubs around Oxford a few years back, and viewing a number of the properties that are now Fuller's pubs.

The snow has been falling all evening, so a nice busy day tomorrow, I'm sure. Snow = no-one going to work = everyone down the pub. About time too, last time it snowed, just before Christmas, it thawed before the next morning, so we had crap trade on the evening and everyone went to work as normal the next day.

Tuesday night is my favourite night of the week

2010-01-05T16:45:00.006Z

I'm sure this is the case with most pubs, but especially with a rural one, Tuesday night can be a dead-zone. With the exception of a few hardy regulars, no-one wants to go out on a Tuesday night - do they? Monday can be an extension of the weekend and we have crib every other week, Wednesday we have Aunt Sally in the Summer, Thursday is quiz night and Friday is the weekend so everyone is up for a few pints, but Tuesday no. It's a no-go area, a quiet night, an evening to stand behind the bar and ponder the meaning of your own existence. It's also the only night we don't have any staff on, so it's just me and Ange and beer standing about in the pipes going stale.

About a year ago, we hit upon the idea of having an Ale Club. Said ale club would be on a Tuesday night and snappily titled The Tuesday Ale Club and would be a chance for real ale lovers to come in, drink local real ale and reminisce about ale and breweries old and new and all manner of things in between. Hooky bitter is very popular here and as our first ale and permanent session beer also our best seller, so as an incentive and to shift the guest ales which were the ales that were most likely to sit and stagnate on a Tuesday, we introduced our "Hit for Six" collectors cards (cricket themed, like much of our stuff).

The idea is, you purchase six pints of guest ale on a Tuesday evening and then exchange the card for a free pint. You keep the card until the next week if you can't manage all six on one night, or we keep it behind the bar for you. Simple idea and not even an original one - I borrowed the concept from Castle Rock brewery who operated a similar scheme in my local in Sheffield - The New Barrack Tavern - which they called "One over the eight"; you had to buy eight drinks and had more of a range than us at the moment, but basically the same.

Guess what? It worked. We sold guest ale on a Tuesday night. Then we went from two to three handpumps. Then four. Now we get ale drinkers turning up, brewers turning up, have had a brewery trip to Hook Norton and we're planning a number of other local beer related things. Everyone talks about real ale and everyone loves it.

Sure, on a night like tonight with snow forecast and the temperature staying below zero all day we may not get as many through the door as during a lovely warm August evening, but I know all of our ales will move tonight.

Beer and Sausage Festival update

2010-01-04T21:42:00.003Z

I have sourced the first ale for next months Beer and Sausage Festival at The Cricketer's: Pigor Mortis from the Uley Brewery in Gloucestershire. It weighs in at a meaty 6% ABV. It's not a local ale as defined by our own definition (B2P (Brewery to Pub) is 59.5 miles), but I did say that we going to introduce a couple from the further reaches of Oxfordshire's neighboring counties. I had a few pints of it on Christmas Day and found it to be a nice warming malty ruby ale with a hint of sweetness - ideal with a strong tasting sausage.

Red Rag to a Brewdog

2010-01-03T20:16:00.004Z

Everyone has been banging on about Brewdog and its ultra strong beers and its pushing the boundaries attitude, well, we're doing that with local ale here in Oxfordshire too. We have been selling Peter Fowler's Pitstop ales here at The Cricketer's since we had our Acoustic Music and Beer Festival last September when we had a firkin of his 7% Pitstop Sump - a wonderfully dark and smooth Imperial Russian Stout. Peter is in the news with an attempt to create the world's bitterest beer, a barley wine called "The Hop"

Go for it Peter! Incidentally, I have in our cellar a new brew by Peter called "G-Force" that will be on-tap in the next couple of weeks.

What to write

2010-01-03T19:52:00.002Z

Being new to this blogging lark (that's actually writing them, not reading them or knowing of their existence, you understand), I am becoming familiar with the issue of what exactly to write about on any given day, with so much going on, both in the pub and on the news feeds I read.

For instance, today in the pub, a member of the local CAMRA committee turned up to sample a couple of our beers (Shotover Prospect and Hook Norton Double Stout). He's a nice chap, but I have certain issues - good and bad - about how I feel about CAMRA both nationally and locally. In general, I believe we are in a better place with CAMRA than without it, but there are certain things about it that piss me off as well. So that was the first topic. Maybe I'll expand on it another time.

Next, I could start to have a whinge and a rant about the state of the economy and the way the (so called) government and health lobby are constantly on the attack and how that really does have an affect on our business - neigh, our livelihood - at the end of the day. These thoughts were prompted by posts from Pete Brown and on The Publican website. We have just done ten people Sunday lunch, which is good for us of late, but this time last year it was two or three times that amount. Christmas and New Year were ok for us, but November was truly dire and I expect the remainder of January, judging by the last three days, will be equally as bad. Yet VAT is back up and with have rate rises around the corner. I'll find time to go into more detail another time maybe.

Lastly, Stonch's Beer Blog has now made its last post. I have been reading his blog for the last couple of years at least on and off, I think I originally found it when we was looking to buy our pub and living in Islington. I know that I visited The Gunmakers once or twice back then, not being too far away from where we were living at the time, but that would have been before Jeff's time. If I keep this blog going for as long as his (three years), then I'll be well 'appy.

Straight glass or handle?

2010-01-02T20:32:00.002Z

Reading this article that I saw on Bryce Eddings blog prompted me to leave this comment:

"When we took over our pub three Christmas’s ago, we inherited a few DM’s; battered things they are – but then they are the Volvo’s of the beer drinking world, virtually indestructible. Popular though. I switched to an “old man’s mug” after about six months and their popularity has been on the rise since. We had to buy more. Damn expensive things, so we went halves with another pub down the road. Call it a mini-revival of the Dimpled Mug in Oxfordshire."

and start a little straw poll of my own in the pub early this evening with my two customers, one of whom - we'll call him Mr L - like me drinks "'ooky in an 'andle" and the other - Mr K - prefers a Hooky branded straight glass. Pro's and Con's were vitriolically fired in both directions to the extent that I was most surprised by the sheer passion of our two combatants. At the end of the day, it all boils down to personal choice. I use one because I like the traditional nature of them; Mr L feels it is the correct vessel for the drinking Man and you wouldn't drink tea out of a cup without a handle so why should you do the same with beer. Mr K, our straight glass champion, whilst trying out mugs in his distant youth, prefers the straight glass for reasons of drinking comfort.

Whichever way you go, the use of mugs with handles, at least in the micro environment of our pub, is certainly on the rise.

Looking forward to Beer and Sausages

2010-01-01T21:57:00.002Z

Christmas and New Year over for another year - we opened every day and put a lot of effort into serving dinner on Christmas Day this year, as well as Christmas dinners during evenings in December, and then there was last night's party with its late finish. But all done now until next time. As ever, we have learnt a few lessons and for the first time, we branched into selling bottle gift packs for presents, home made mincemeat and polypins of real ale for take-home use. The way we see it is that if someone is having a party at home, then they are not going to be coming to us anyway, so if we can sell them real ale to drink at their party, all well and good.

Anyway, so all done and time to look forward to our next big event: February's Beer and Sausage Festival. There are so many new breweries that have appeared in 2009 within our thirty six mile radius that I am focusing my attention on those to begin with. I'll be talking to them all in the next week or so and seeing what ales they have available in time for the festival. Should be an interesting mix and a chance for new local microbreweries to get some exposure and drinkers to sample some ales that they would be unlikely to come across otherwise. As well as that, for the first time we are going to feature a couple of breweries from slightly further afield - breweries that are in neighbouring counties to Oxfordshire, but which fall outside of our self-imposed local area.

Sausage wise, I need to confirm the detail with chef Angie, but I expect we'll be getting some down from my native Lincolnshire as well as using our local butcher's excellent fayre. And I want some beer and sausage sausages, if you get my drift, maybe pork and Old Hooky, or something.

Beer festivals should get easier the more you have of them, but when you do everything yourself, from contacting the breweries to arranging the production of speciality sausages, rather than just talking to Waverley's call centre or buying in from Tesco, there's always a challenge to be found.