A transcript created by OpenAI's Whisper model of Episode 3 of Season 6 of CAMRA's podcast "Pubs. Pints. People" (with 1550 million parameters).

Pubs. Pints. People. - S06E03 - Transcript.txt

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 Welcome to Pubs Pints People for February everyone. We are virtually hosted this month

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 by Burton on Trent, the legendary beer town and host of this month's Great British Beer

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 Festival Winter. And I'll be speaking with Nick Antona, who's very much a part of the

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 Burton branch, organising the GBBF Winter and also happens to be Camera's National

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 Chairman. With me this month are my co-hosts Simon Webster and Claire Phillips.

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 Yes, hello again. It'll be good to be hearing from Nick because of course we heard from

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 him when we were down in London. And good to be back here on the airwaves again.

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 Hello everyone, great to be back. Looking forward to digging into our theme this month,

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 which is focusing on pubs in general. And I know we've got a couple of fantastic interviews

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 coming up shortly.

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 Yes, as well as the Burton interviews that Alison's mentioned, we're focusing on pubs

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 as well, in particular this episode with Dr Claire Markham, who is from Nottingham Trent

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 University and she'll be telling us all about the importance of pubs.

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 We also have our first ever live cook-along from our resident chef Christian Gott from

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 his kitchen in Jersey, where he's combining real cider and some delicious seafood.

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 Now I've been enjoying following some of the pub tickers on social media for quite some

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 time. These are the true devotees of the Good Beer Guide. They live and travel by it. And

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 as it's the 50th anniversary of this venerable book, I thought it was a good time to chat

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 to one of the better known. So from York, here's Sy Everett.

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 So Sy, please do explain what is a ticker for those of us who are not initiated?

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 My aim is to visit all of the 4,500 pubs in any one given edition of the Good Beer Guide.

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 The problem with that, of course, is that a new beer guide comes out every year, usually

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 about September or October. So when that happens, I have to cross tick all of the pubs to the

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 previous editions. And that normally means I lose a decent chunk of what I've done, because

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 obviously some pubs close, other new ones open, and the quality declines in some places

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 and improves in others. So the local camera branches obviously see fit to put different

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 pubs in each year.

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 So you have probably got as good a working knowledge of what's in the Good Beer Guide

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 as anybody, I would imagine.

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 Probably. I'm always flicking through it. Last year, the front cover of mine dropped

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 off.

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 You have a very popular blog, and you're also very popular on social media. Your major point

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 is on Twitter, isn't it, Sy?

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 Twitter is about all I'm on really, as well as doing a blog. I've got about 1,750 followers.

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 It doesn't really go up gradually all the time, but when I have a week away in a new

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 place for the first time, I do start getting noticed by local beer and pub fans, and then

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 they'll start following me. So I normally have spikes when that happens.

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 How often do you get recognised? Because obviously I recognised you when you came to the Hop

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 Inn a couple of years ago.

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 I do post quite a few selfies of myself. It does help. I mean, not often, but it has happened

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 in some fairly unusual places. I've walked into busy micro pubs in Cambridge, and somebody's

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 just shouted, Brappa, because Brappa is the British Real Ale pub adventure. That's what

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 I call what I do.

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 So the big question, of course, is with all this pubs coming and pubs leaving the Good

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 Beer Guide, how many pubs do you think you visited in total?

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 Well, I know approximately that I've visited about 4,200, which have been in any edition

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 of any guide, but only 2,265, which are in the current one. So the gap between your kind

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 of net total of your current guide and your gross total of all guides just grows and grows.

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 It's crazy, really.

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 You have some pretty strict rules for yourself, don't you, when you visit the pubs? So what's

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 the rule when you go on one of your Good Beer Guide visits?

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 Firstly, I'd have to take a photo of the outside of the pub so everyone can see that I've been.

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 I'd have to stay for about 25 to 30 minutes in the pub, and I have to have a pint measure

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 of Real Ale. It never really started that it had to be ale, but every pub I've been

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 to, I've had a pint of ale. And it makes sense, doesn't it, if you're visiting the Beer Guide?

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 Most of the other tickers, I know they're a lot more effective than me because they

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 just drink halves so they can just be straight in and out, quick sip. Whereas what I like

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 to do is kind of sit down, maybe get chatting to the locals, take a few photos and just

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 feel like I've had an experience in each place I've visited.

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 Yeah, and I think that's why your blog in particular is so appealing to people, because

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 you do get a real sense that you have had a chance to soak up the atmosphere. And you

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 seem to be a very garrulous sort of chap that always makes contact with somebody in the pub.

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 You said that this little project started back in 2014. So what inspired you to take

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 on this massive and almost lifelong, endless undertaking, Si?

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 I think probably you have to go back to the fact that when I first got into Real Ale in

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 about 2001, I spotted this book called The Good Beer Guide just randomly in a second

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 hand bookshop in Leeds for a pound. It was a 1999 edition. And from then I thought, well,

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 this would be perfect for our football away days because I'm a fan of Hull City and my

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 favourite games going to were all the away games in interesting little places that I'd

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 never been to before. And we were always looking for a good pre-match pub. But of course, before

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 The Good Beer Guide, you walk into a pub, you don't know if it's going to sell Real

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 Ale at all. And if it does, you don't know what the quality is going to be like.

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 So I started using it for that purpose, really. And I remember one of the very first trips

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 was a trip to Kidderminster and we found this pub in the back streets and the quality of

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 the beer was like nothing I'd ever tasted before. And I thought, so this is what Real

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 Ale is supposed to really taste like then. And it just grew and grew from there, really.

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 So I was doing that for about the next, you know, 13, 14 years. And then I thought, well,

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 how about recreating this on a weekly basis, you know, stop going to the home games and

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 then just using The Beer Guide to find pubs and start ticking them off, really. So that's

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 what I did.

00:06:31.120 --> 00:06:36.799
 That's quite an interesting transition between football fan to superstar ticker that you

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 are now. What's the rest of the ticking community like? I read another gentleman called Retired

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 Martin, who I know you've bumped into once or twice on your travels. But what's the rest

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 of the ticking community like, Si?

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 We're all very supportive of each other. He actually invited me a couple of years ago

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 to join a little WhatsApp group. I think there's seven of us in it altogether. There's me,

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 Martin and five others who either aren't on Twitter and stuff at all, or they don't

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 tend to tweet much. And really, we just kind of give each other tips on things like awkward

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 opening hours, or if we've spotted a pub in the guide, which maybe was in a previous

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 edition under a different name. They're absolute professionals, most of these guys. They're

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 actually football ground tickers as well, most of them, apart from me and Martin. I

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 think they all are. They're really all about the ticks. So they make much more progress

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 than me, but they're kind of not as visible on social media and stuff. I mean, I write

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 a blog about everything I do, but obviously takes up a lot of time when maybe I could

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 be visiting extra pubs, but I like doing it the way I do it. So that's fine.

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 We very much enjoy your observations. So we're glad you take the time to share with us your

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 experiences. We can all vicariously tick through you.

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 Yes. I always tell people I pubs are my main passion and the beer comes second. I don't

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 know if people actually believe that.

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 Well, as a publican, I love that. So what's the average sort of month of a ticker like?

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 What sort of thing do you get up to?

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 Thursdays and Saturdays are usually my pub ticking days. And then most of the other evenings,

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 I'll be writing a blog, try and do it once a day, but I don't quite manage it. You also

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 really do need to set plenty of time apart to plan your trips because the whole working

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 out how to get from A to B, booking train tickets for the cheapest price as possible.

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 You know, if you need to be on a bus, do you know what bus route you're on? Can you maybe

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 get like a day ticket to save yourself a bit of money? If you've got a long walk to do,

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 is it actually wise to walk along the road? Sometimes you have to kind of look at Google

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 Street View to see if there's pavements and stuff like that. There's so many considerations,

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 you know, and then I might have the odd holiday week where I'm away for a week at a time and

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 I'm trying to like visit six pubs a day for about seven or eight consecutive days, which

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 takes its toll, but it's worth it.

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 I used to work as part of a field-based team and we used to do a lot of that booking and logistics

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 and it's quite a job. So I'm thoroughly impressed with your dedication to do all of that. Any

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 particularly memorable experiences that stick in your mind from all your years of pub visits

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 and ticking?

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 I think one of my most favourite places I ever went was the Isle of Man because it was

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 somewhere so unique. It was about five years ago now, but I remember it so clearly. I think

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 going to an island's always quite exciting. It was snowing on and off all week, so that

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 was kind of atmospheric. Staying in a lovely little guest house in Douglas. There was a

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 man on Twitter who lived on the Isle of Man who volunteered to drive me around to the

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 more difficult pubs, so that was lovely. And even though it was winter, even though a lot

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 of it was midweek, the pubs were busy. Everyone was really kind of happy and crazy and it

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 kind of felt like a throwback to a time that I've never lived through or experienced.

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 Something almost quite magical about the holiday really. And it was so easy to get around.

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 There were buses all around the island and it was quite beautiful too, so I'd really

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 recommend it.

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 I know you've been to so many pubs. I know obviously you appreciate them all, but is

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 there anything or are there a couple that stick in your mind?

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 The Black Horse in Preston. There you go for starters. I absolutely love that pub. It's

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 got everything because it's one of these heritage grade two listed pubs, so it's

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 incredibly ornate, but it sells fantastic beers, strong beers as well, like Robinson's

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 Old Tom and sometimes Titanic Plum Porter, the Grand Reserve Edition. It's just such

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 a lovely place to be, but it also has a nice, easy atmosphere where everybody seems to be

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 happy and welcoming.

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 That sounds fantastic. And any close to you that you regularly visit? Are you a regular

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 anywhere?

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 Well, I'm never really a regular anywhere because I'm always out and about somewhere

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 else, but where I live in York, I've probably got about six or seven pubs within about a

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 10 or 20 minute radius of me, which I would deem as above average good beer guide pubs.

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 The Fox Inn, which is out over in Holgate, is probably my favourite because it's a beautiful

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 multi-roomed old Osset pub. It used to be a Ted Lees pub. Osset took it over and they

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 managed to renovate it, keeping in all the old features. And I love the Osset beers anyway.

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 That's a real favourite. And then also within about 10 minutes of me, I've got the Golden

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 Ball, the Maltings, York Tap, Swan, Slip Inn, Acorn. So there are really, really loads of

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 fantastic pubs near me. Yeah, I'm lucky.

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 I think there may be many listeners like me feeling very envious of your list there of

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 local fantastic real ale pubs. It sounds amazing. So all this travelling and having to drink

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 pints as you do, do you have any favourite beers that you would give a name check to

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 at Carscales? The older I'm getting, I'm finding I'm going

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 for the more darker styles now. So, you know, the traditional bitters, I mentioned Titanic

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 Plum Porter before because I like my stouts and my porters. One traditional beer I really

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 like is Bass because it's got a bit of a cult following behind it as well. And I know there's

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 a lot of people out there who think it's, you know, just a bit of a boring brown bitter,

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 but I think it's fantastic. And there's even a chap on my Twitter who has a Bass directory

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 and he kind of tries to keep a record of which pubs sell Bass. I can't not mention Fuller's

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 ESB because quite often when I'm down in London, I will have my final pint in the parcel yard

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 at the King's Cross. If I was wanting to go for a lighter, poppier beer, Oakham Citra

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 is a big favourite of mine. And I love White Rat, which is a more local beer, which is

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 an Aussie one that they do up here quite a lot. Terrific choices. Si, it's been an absolute

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 pleasure. Thank you so much for being such an advocate of the good beer guide and pubs

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 and Carscale in general. You're a real good example to all of us Carscale beer lovers.

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 No, thank you, Alison. I've really enjoyed chatting to you. Cheers.

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 Well, I mean, just well, I've just picked up my edition of the good beer guide, which

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 up until today I thought was fairly well thumbed and had quite a bit of green highlighter in it.

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 But just having a quick look through, actually, I think this probably looks in pristine condition

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 compared to what Si's must look like. I can only imagine. My copies, actually, I'm looking

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 at the 50th anniversary copy. So mine is very pristine. I can't imagine how it contrasts to

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 Si Everett's. And I have this mental picture of him cross-checking his latest version against

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 previous versions to make sure he carries through all that important information and

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 pubs that he's highlighted. I bet he doesn't actually ever use the app, though, which I

00:14:03.760 --> 00:14:08.960
 know you're a fan of, Alison. Absolutely. I mean, I admire him for carrying his wee book around with

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 him, along with his mascots and all his snacks that he talks about on Twitter. But I'm a big

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 fan of the good beer guide app, which is downloadable from wherever you get your apps.

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 And it's super convenient because it's on my phone and wherever I'm planning a trip

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 or if I'm traveling there and then I can look up any good beer guide pubs. I can look up all pubs

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 on this wonderful app, but particularly focusing in on where the good beer guide pubs are,

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 it will help to direct me. And I'm very keen on registering which pubs I visited. And I use the

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 national beer scoring system on the app as well. So you can tap on the little button that says beer

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 scoring and there and then rate the beer that you're drinking. So it's a really good way of

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 contributing to the accuracy of the good beer guide. So it's a fantastic little tool.

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 I can see, though, why Cy Everett might prefer the book. I mean, if you if you spill a bit of beer on

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 the book, it's not an actual disaster. If you spill a little bit of beer while you're using

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 the app all over your phone, it is an actual disaster. But that brings us rather nicely to

00:15:10.720 --> 00:15:15.440
 our we're only here for the beer feature, which we do every episode. Of course, we we delve into

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 our copies of the good beer guide or perhaps we swipe on the app to find some of the pubs that

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 are on our lists to tick as well. So I'll start with one that if you're heading to the GBBF

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 Winter Festival and making a weekend of it in the area, then it's really worth a drive out from

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 Burton to another Staffordshire pub that had been on my must visit list for some time until I managed

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 to get there probably a few years ago now before the pandemic anyway. And that's the Utrey Inn at

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 Caldon, which is not far from Leek. Now, this pub, it's it's like taking a step back in time when

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 you visit. It does, of course, feature in the good beer guide, but actually the beer is probably the

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 least interesting thing about this pub. They have a number of real ales, notably Burton Bridge Bitter,

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 but inside it's just this Aladdin's cave of all sorts of things. There's a motorbike in there,

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 for example, and we found it a really welcoming place as well when we visited back a couple of

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 years ago. I can't really do it justice here, but if you've not heard of it, have a look online.

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 And I think they've got a 1940s event coming up in April, which sounds like just the sort of thing

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 that that is exactly what the pub is all about. It sounds a lot of fun. Definitely sounds like a pub

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 to visit if I'm up and up that way in Burton. The pub I'd like to recommend from the good beer guide

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 this month is the Ship and Shovel, which is below Charing Cross Station in London. I actually popped

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 in a couple of weeks ago with regular listener to the show, James Merrick, who's leaving London and

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 moving up to Macclesfield. I enjoyed a pint of Badger's Thirsty Ferret, which I'm sure is known

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 to many of our listeners. The pub itself is terrific. It's divided into two halves across

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 the alleyway, which you walk down to get to the pub. And the good beer guide helped me learn that

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 the pub commemorates Admiral Sir Cloudsley Shovel, whose fleet was grounded off the Silly Isles in

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 1707 with the loss of 2,000 men. Wow, that's a London classic, that pub, Simon. And it's in a

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 really central location, so it's a great one to recommend. Now, a couple of weeks ago, I had a

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 wonderful trip to Sheffield and had a fantastic time visiting pubs. I think we got into about

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 eight different pubs from the good beer guide while we were there. And there were some fabulous

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 beers and experiences, all really varied. We really enjoyed Callum Island. The museum there is fascinating

00:17:29.280 --> 00:17:34.639
 and there are a wealth of pubs, including the Fat Cat, where I enjoyed a Callum Island Pale Rider.

00:17:34.639 --> 00:17:40.000
 And there's the Callum Island Tavern, the Shakespeare's Island Cider House. And we really enjoyed the

00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:44.720
 wonderful list of real ciders at the Harlequin. There's some real obvious cider love and passion

00:17:44.720 --> 00:17:50.399
 there. And I had a couple of great ones from Newton Court Cider. I also picked up Beer Matters, the

00:17:50.399 --> 00:17:55.200
 local camera magazine, while I was there. And I learned that one of my favourite central Sheffield

00:17:55.200 --> 00:18:02.080
 favourites, Fagans, is going through some changes. The licensees, Tom and Barbara Boulding, are retiring

00:18:02.080 --> 00:18:07.520
 after an incredible 37 years. We're wishing them a wonderful, well-earned retirement and a bright

00:18:07.520 --> 00:18:12.240
 future for Fagans. Well, the night I was there, they had musicians jamming with fiddles and guitars,

00:18:12.240 --> 00:18:16.480
 and the atmosphere was great and the beer's super fresh. That's a couple of years since I've been to

00:18:16.480 --> 00:18:21.200
 Sheffield, but those pubs you've just run through, like the Fat Cat, for example, I've never been to.

00:18:21.200 --> 00:18:26.320
 So I have a growing list of pubs I intend to visit on my next visit to the city. Yeah, I haven't been

00:18:26.320 --> 00:18:30.720
 to the Fat Cat in Sheffield either. I was at college, at Richmond College, which shows how long

00:18:30.720 --> 00:18:36.880
 ago it was, because I don't think that exists anymore in Sheffield. About 30 years ago. And I

00:18:36.880 --> 00:18:42.560
 did go to quite a few pubs, actually, with my student friends, but not the Fat Cat. So there's

00:18:42.560 --> 00:18:48.000
 quite a few that I need to go back and revisit in Sheffield. Now, in line with the theme of this

00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:52.960
 episode, which is focusing on pubs, we're going to hear now from Stella Sims, who's chatting with

00:18:52.960 --> 00:18:58.320
 Dr. Clare Markham, who's the senior lecturer in Sociology and Criminology at Nottingham Trent

00:18:58.320 --> 00:19:02.560
 University. Clare's conducted some really interesting research, which reveals that pubs

00:19:02.560 --> 00:19:07.440
 have an economic, social and cultural role to play, which all benefit the communities that

00:19:07.440 --> 00:19:12.160
 they are rooted in. She's also identified a knowledge gap around what happens when a village's

00:19:12.160 --> 00:19:17.200
 pub closes. What's remarkable, as you'll hear in the interview, is that Clare herself doesn't like

00:19:17.200 --> 00:19:21.440
 alcohol. For her, going to the pub is all about meeting friends and keeping up with what's

00:19:21.440 --> 00:19:29.760
 happening in her village. I've lived in a village all my life, and during that period, I've seen

00:19:29.760 --> 00:19:36.320
 kind of pubs, shops, post offices, come, go, close, reopen. Whilst people have looked at the impact

00:19:36.320 --> 00:19:41.680
 of, say, post offices, they've never really looked at the pub. For me, that was a kind of a knowledge

00:19:41.680 --> 00:19:46.960
 gap that is really important that we understand what pubs mean to communities, what they mean

00:19:46.960 --> 00:19:52.240
 to individuals, and particularly how, when they close, the impact of that closure can impact

00:19:52.240 --> 00:19:58.800
 negatively on communities, villages, individuals, local economies, a whole range of aspects.

00:19:58.800 --> 00:20:04.240
 That's really interesting. It's the pub as a social space and a place in the village and

00:20:04.240 --> 00:20:10.000
 the community, not just as a place for drinking. If you take me as an example, I don't drink. I

00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:15.120
 don't like the taste of alcohol, but I still go to the pub quite regularly, because to me,

00:20:15.120 --> 00:20:20.879
 those spaces are more than just being able to drink. They're about meeting people. They're about

00:20:20.879 --> 00:20:27.280
 getting to know what's happened, either in the village or in the local area. Also, for me,

00:20:27.280 --> 00:20:33.919
 they're a way of getting to connect to the past. If you take my local, I know that my grandparents,

00:20:33.919 --> 00:20:38.399
 for example, used to go there, and I know where they used to sit. And there's something quite

00:20:38.399 --> 00:20:43.280
 nostalgic for me about being able to remember them in those spaces.

00:20:43.280 --> 00:20:48.639
 So you've done some research into the role of pubs in the community. Can you go a bit deeper

00:20:48.639 --> 00:20:53.360
 into how you actually carried out that research? What did your research consist of?

00:20:53.360 --> 00:21:02.480
 It was 66 interviews across 25 villages, speaking to various people from village residents,

00:21:02.480 --> 00:21:09.440
 through to publicans, through to other service providers around their perceptions and experiences

00:21:09.440 --> 00:21:14.720
 of the village pub and what it means to them. It was a grounded theory piece of research.

00:21:14.720 --> 00:21:20.160
 The ideas came from what people said to me, rather than me finding ideas and testing them.

00:21:20.160 --> 00:21:25.920
 The research found that pubs are more than drinking. They have an economic role. They

00:21:25.920 --> 00:21:32.400
 have a social role. They have a cultural role. And all those three roles link together. For example,

00:21:32.400 --> 00:21:38.000
 if you can get the cultural atmosphere of the pub right, people will enjoy spending time there.

00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:41.920
 If people spend time there, they often will spend money in there.

00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:46.240
 I guess your research would probably provide good data for people who want to create a

00:21:46.240 --> 00:21:51.120
 successful pub in many ways. My PhD actually does have a chapter

00:21:51.120 --> 00:21:57.680
 on practice, which highlights what my research shows, aspects that somebody may or may not want

00:21:57.680 --> 00:22:05.200
 to adopt or try within their kind of pub. It is worth saying that my findings were based on rural

00:22:05.200 --> 00:22:11.680
 Lincolnshire. So some of the findings will be unique to the areas where the research took place.

00:22:11.680 --> 00:22:17.520
 It's about kind of looking at the localities as well and looking at what people want within those

00:22:17.520 --> 00:22:24.480
 spaces. Other than being a place to drink, can you give a few interesting examples of pubs acting as

00:22:24.480 --> 00:22:30.800
 community hubs and social spaces and other uses, I suppose, other than just being a place to drink

00:22:30.800 --> 00:22:36.639
 alcohol? Basically, when you think about kind of pubs in rural Lincolnshire, a lot of people are

00:22:36.639 --> 00:22:42.560
 wanting what I've turned in my research as hybrid, by which I mean they want a lot of the modern

00:22:42.560 --> 00:22:49.120
 comforts of today's living, for example, Wi-Fi, good food, a range of different drinks, alcohol

00:22:49.120 --> 00:22:55.040
 and non-alcohol, mixed with some of the more traditional aspects of what they think rural

00:22:55.040 --> 00:23:01.680
 pubs used to be like. Last orders bell, open fire, swinging sign, a pub with a traditional name.

00:23:02.560 --> 00:23:07.360
 I call that hybrid because obviously if we're thinking about traditional village pubs,

00:23:07.360 --> 00:23:14.240
 historically, we're tending to think about spit and sawdust, but people don't want that. They want

00:23:14.240 --> 00:23:20.560
 the kind of the more nostalgic rose tinted pieces of the traditional pub, mixed in with the comforts

00:23:20.560 --> 00:23:28.800
 of the modern pub. A lot of pubs now are using things like book clubs, offering coffee, pubs are

00:23:28.800 --> 00:23:34.320
 often acting in rural areas as warm spaces. Older people in my research, for example, would often

00:23:34.320 --> 00:23:39.840
 talk about going to their local pub to engage in the library that was there and have a coffee with

00:23:39.840 --> 00:23:45.200
 their friends. So they were using it more as a coffee shop facility. Then they were kind of using

00:23:45.200 --> 00:23:51.120
 the books off the back of that, engaging in quiz nights. That led to them feeling more comfortable

00:23:51.120 --> 00:23:57.200
 going into those spaces in the more, if you like, traditional pub opening hours. There was a few

00:23:57.200 --> 00:24:02.640
 older women in my research who said that when they were younger, the village pub wasn't a space for

00:24:02.640 --> 00:24:07.680
 them. They weren't really accepted in that because obviously, historically, pubs have been gendered

00:24:07.680 --> 00:24:13.600
 spaces. But through their local opening up things like a library and a book club, they felt they

00:24:13.600 --> 00:24:18.959
 could go in the day. And once they'd started going in the day, that then gave them the confidence to

00:24:18.959 --> 00:24:24.399
 start visiting with friends and family in the evening. It was really nice how their perceptions

00:24:24.399 --> 00:24:29.040
 of the pub had also changed from being this space that when they were younger, they weren't meant to

00:24:29.040 --> 00:24:34.320
 go into, to now being a space that they could enjoy. How would you define the role of the pub

00:24:34.320 --> 00:24:39.600
 space historically? How have things changed, do you think overall, based on your research?

00:24:39.600 --> 00:24:47.679
 They were seen as very much a male domain, very much a space where men would go during or after

00:24:47.679 --> 00:24:54.800
 work before going home to meet with friends, refuel. They were always that social space,

00:24:54.800 --> 00:25:00.320
 but they were more of a social space for the males. And also within that, there was different

00:25:00.320 --> 00:25:07.199
 spaces for different types of resident. So for example, land workers versus land owners. Whilst

00:25:07.200 --> 00:25:12.800
 they were seen as social spaces, and they were social spaces, they were also very divisive in

00:25:12.800 --> 00:25:18.720
 some respects as well, and not as inclusive as they are today. And I think that is starting to

00:25:18.720 --> 00:25:24.400
 change. More people are recognizing that actually now they are spaces that are open to all. They are

00:25:24.400 --> 00:25:31.680
 spaces that are offering more. And they are spaces that people now are relying on, not just for kind

00:25:31.680 --> 00:25:37.760
 of somewhere to drink, but actually for some kind of community support. A few weeks ago, we had a

00:25:37.760 --> 00:25:44.400
 power cut. And it was quite nice to be able to go into my own village pub and find out that no,

00:25:44.400 --> 00:25:50.080
 it actually wasn't our electric per se, it was the whole village's electric. They were handing out

00:25:50.080 --> 00:25:56.080
 some candles and things like that until people got their electric back. So I think people are

00:25:56.080 --> 00:26:03.120
 now recognizing pubs as not only that space to drink, but also somewhere that is safe for them

00:26:03.120 --> 00:26:08.639
 to go if they need some help, particularly in rural areas. It's kind of like a third space that

00:26:08.639 --> 00:26:14.000
 is not your home, it's not your work, but you know that you can get some support if you go into there.

00:26:14.000 --> 00:26:18.399
 That is such a positive change. What do you think has caused this change?

00:26:18.399 --> 00:26:25.520
 One of the things before the pandemic that I think had an impact was the recessions in 2008.

00:26:25.520 --> 00:26:31.760
 So my research took place from 2010 onwards. And it was from that point where there'd been a lot of

00:26:31.760 --> 00:26:36.800
 kind of cuts to local services, particularly in rural Lincolnshire, people were having to

00:26:36.800 --> 00:26:43.360
 acclimatize to rural living more austerity measures. And I think at that point, there

00:26:43.360 --> 00:26:50.240
 became more of a value placed on rural services more generally. And I think the pub became seen

00:26:50.240 --> 00:26:56.080
 within that light as one of those services, particularly because obviously, they've had to

00:26:56.080 --> 00:27:01.200
 diversify in order for themselves to stay sustainable. Young people were starting to

00:27:01.200 --> 00:27:06.800
 seek out employment more locally. And the pub offered some of that through pot washing,

00:27:07.360 --> 00:27:13.280
 waitress service, all those kind of things. So I think it was becoming more embedded within

00:27:13.280 --> 00:27:18.560
 the community. I think a lot of pubs, I think a lot of landlords, I think a lot of kind of

00:27:18.560 --> 00:27:24.000
 different people were starting to see how the pub is embedded within the community. So let's take

00:27:24.000 --> 00:27:30.000
 advantage of that to our advantage and diversify into things that make it even more community

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:36.159
 focused. During the pandemic, some pubs that I know, for example, started to do grocery delivery,

00:27:36.159 --> 00:27:43.120
 they started to do meals on wheels. At that point, people were starting to not think of the pub as a

00:27:43.120 --> 00:27:49.040
 kind of a business. And I think that's when it started to drive more into that community psyche

00:27:49.040 --> 00:27:55.199
 that actually, no, the pub does give something. There are people who said to me that one of the

00:27:55.199 --> 00:28:00.239
 reason they moved to a village is because it's got a pub. They will really admit to me that they

00:28:00.239 --> 00:28:04.479
 don't use the pub as much as they feel they should, but they would have never moved to a village

00:28:04.479 --> 00:28:09.360
 without a pub because in their view, it's not a proper village. The village pub is in all of our

00:28:09.360 --> 00:28:13.919
 imaginations as the ideal place to go and the centre of life, I suppose, in a village.

00:28:14.560 --> 00:28:19.840
 Whenever you look at village pubs, historically, only a small percentage of the village have ever

00:28:19.840 --> 00:28:25.439
 actually used them. We're starting to see that more people are making use of them, for example,

00:28:25.439 --> 00:28:30.560
 one-off meals for families going to the library within them. So it's always been embedded within

00:28:30.560 --> 00:28:35.120
 village life, but the perceptions and the experiences are changing. It was embedded

00:28:35.120 --> 00:28:40.320
 within the kind of the male domain. Now it's becoming more embedded across the

00:28:40.320 --> 00:28:44.800
 village demographic population and people are using it in a different way.

00:28:45.360 --> 00:28:48.719
 What do you personally find most special about pubs?

00:28:49.439 --> 00:28:54.719
 It's the history and heritage that surround them. I like being able to go in and see

00:28:54.719 --> 00:28:59.280
 pictures on the wall that are located in that area and giving some history.

00:28:59.280 --> 00:29:05.600
 Yeah, that's a really, some really interesting points there from Claire Markham and particularly

00:29:05.600 --> 00:29:13.280
 the role that pubs play in our more rural areas and villages. And CAMRA continues to campaign on

00:29:13.280 --> 00:29:18.160
 issues to support pubs and encourage us to use them and not lose them. You might have heard of

00:29:18.160 --> 00:29:23.440
 assets of community value, ACVs. You can find out more about these on the CAMRA website. There's a

00:29:23.440 --> 00:29:29.680
 section about them there. Since 2012, community groups across England have managed to list more

00:29:29.680 --> 00:29:35.280
 than 2000 pubs as ACVs. And what it means is that if the pub comes up for sale as a development

00:29:35.280 --> 00:29:39.840
 opportunity, then the community will be notified. They'll be given the first opportunity to bid to

00:29:39.840 --> 00:29:45.520
 buy the pub. And it has worked in a lot of cases. A listing can also be an important consideration

00:29:45.520 --> 00:29:50.160
 in deciding the outcome of a planning application for change of use. And that's a really important

00:29:50.160 --> 00:29:54.400
 consideration in deciding the outcome of a planning application for change of use. And that

00:29:54.400 --> 00:29:59.440
 could prevent planning permission being granted and thus save the pub. But that's one of the

00:29:59.440 --> 00:30:04.960
 reasons why we see so many community pubs because that's how they've come about. And the community

00:30:04.960 --> 00:30:07.920
 has bought it and taken it on and run it very successfully.

00:30:07.920 --> 00:30:12.320
 Definitely. Now, many of our listeners will know that CAMRA has also been very vocal on the subject

00:30:12.320 --> 00:30:17.680
 of beer tax. We know that pubs are facing a triple tax whammy of one of the highest rates of beer

00:30:17.680 --> 00:30:24.240
 in the world. Unfair business rates burden and of course VAT on top. This high level of tax is

00:30:24.240 --> 00:30:29.040
 squeezing publicans and forcing them to either put up prices for consumers or close their doors

00:30:29.040 --> 00:30:33.840
 forever. The good news is that the government is now committed to introducing a new lower rate of

00:30:33.840 --> 00:30:39.200
 duty for beer sold in pubs, which should help to level the playing field between the price of beer

00:30:39.200 --> 00:30:44.320
 sold in social community settings and the cheap alcohol that you can buy in supermarkets to

00:30:44.320 --> 00:30:47.919
 get a beer for a low price. So, we're very excited about that.

00:30:47.919 --> 00:30:52.159
 And this is something that CAMRA will remain very active on and you've probably seen some of the

00:30:52.159 --> 00:30:57.840
 emails encouraging you to write to your MP recently in terms of trying to support some of our messaging

00:30:57.840 --> 00:30:59.520
 around beer duty.

00:30:59.520 --> 00:31:05.600
 I've been using those CAMRA links to send emails to my MP and they're really easy to use and I've

00:31:05.600 --> 00:31:11.120
 had replies from my MP on all occasions. So, it really is worth taking the few moments to follow

00:31:11.120 --> 00:31:14.560
 up on any of the emails that are being heard.

00:31:14.560 --> 00:31:19.439
 Yeah, I've certainly written to my MP following a prompt from a CAMRA email and I've got a feeling

00:31:19.439 --> 00:31:25.679
 that my MP where I live at the moment is actually a minister who has an interest in some of the

00:31:25.679 --> 00:31:31.120
 business activities from the Treasury concerning pubs. So, I shall make sure that I do follow

00:31:31.120 --> 00:31:34.159
 those emails and write to him again if I need to.

00:31:34.159 --> 00:31:38.639
 Brilliant. Now, the Summer of Pub was a big campaign that we covered on the podcast last year

00:31:38.640 --> 00:31:43.600
 and it was a Pubs Matter campaign too. And campaigning is a really big part of CAMRA's activities.

00:31:43.600 --> 00:31:47.520
 So, if you're concerned that a pub near you might be closing permanently or being sold for a

00:31:47.520 --> 00:31:51.600
 different use, then your branch may well be able to get involved.

00:31:51.600 --> 00:31:57.360
 Now, we're going to move over to our virtual host this month of Burton and it's time to hear from

00:31:57.360 --> 00:32:01.120
 Nick Antona about the Winter GBBF that the branch is hosting.

00:32:01.120 --> 00:32:06.639
 I have two roles really when it comes to CAMRA. I have my national role as the Chairman of the

00:32:06.639 --> 00:32:11.520
 organisation and then I also have my role as a member of Burton and South Derbyshire branch

00:32:11.520 --> 00:32:15.439
 and the things I do for my branch as an ordinary member, if you like.

00:32:15.439 --> 00:32:21.840
 As the National Chairman, I spend a lot of time dealing with national issues, lobbying Parliament

00:32:21.840 --> 00:32:28.000
 and our MPs, writing on behalf of the campaign to people in the Treasury to try and get them

00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:34.000
 our views across and get them to see how CAMRA would like taxation, pub planning and all that

00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:39.120
 sort of stuff carried out by them in central government. I also spend a lot of time chairing

00:32:39.120 --> 00:32:44.960
 CAMRA's board. As a National Executive Member, I am the Chair of the Board of Directors and our board,

00:32:44.960 --> 00:32:51.040
 the National Executive, has to operate in exactly the same way as a company out there.

00:32:51.040 --> 00:32:56.640
 We are a registered company and so we have to comply with the rules and regulations of the

00:32:56.640 --> 00:33:04.640
 company law and all of that other legislation. So I do spend an inordinate amount of time doing

00:33:04.640 --> 00:33:11.120
 board-like activities and board responsibilities there. But then there is the other side to being

00:33:11.120 --> 00:33:16.400
 the National Chairman. I do have that opportunity to get out and talk to the members and lead the

00:33:16.400 --> 00:33:22.160
 local campaigns and lead other things, depending on where that is across the country, locally,

00:33:22.160 --> 00:33:28.400
 wherever. But I do get that chance and therefore I do show up at regional meetings, beer festivals,

00:33:28.400 --> 00:33:33.520
 branch meetings sometimes if needed. Then you take a step back from that national role. In Burton and

00:33:33.520 --> 00:33:38.160
 South Derbyshire, I hold a number of committee roles. I'm the publicity officer for the branch,

00:33:38.160 --> 00:33:44.160
 I'm also the public affairs officer, so I'm at the forefront of communications with the local

00:33:44.160 --> 00:33:49.520
 press and helping my chairman in the branch kind of fulfil that role of campaigning locally. I'm

00:33:49.520 --> 00:33:54.639
 involved this year with the Great British Beer Festival winter, which we as Burton Branch offered

00:33:54.639 --> 00:34:00.080
 to host for this year. So we put our hands up and I've been involved helping with setting that up

00:34:00.080 --> 00:34:05.280
 and organising that event. And I've taken again the publicity role for that and I've been responsible

00:34:05.280 --> 00:34:10.239
 for pushing a lot of our social media publicity, communicating with the local press to get the

00:34:10.239 --> 00:34:15.120
 story out there and signing off all of the campaigning and publicity material for that

00:34:15.120 --> 00:34:20.159
 event. And then the final bit of that is I've helped run the national competition for the

00:34:20.159 --> 00:34:24.639
 Champion Winter Beer of Britain, which we're hosting here in Burton during the festival.

00:34:24.639 --> 00:34:29.199
 And there I've kind of helped with the beer order and making sure that we've got everything we need

00:34:29.199 --> 00:34:34.880
 in place, setting up the team to support that and Chief Judge and Coordinator Christine Krine,

00:34:34.880 --> 00:34:40.000
 who's been inviting judges on our behalf to come along to the event. So it sounds like rather a lot

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:44.639
 going on, Nick. Tell us something about the festival and the setting this year.

00:34:44.639 --> 00:34:49.440
 This year, the Great British Beer Festival winter is being hosted in Burton on Trent in the historic

00:34:49.440 --> 00:34:55.040
 Town Hall. The Town Hall was built back in Victorian times by the Bass family for the town.

00:34:55.040 --> 00:35:02.080
 It's a beautiful Gothic interior, to be honest, with stone arches up the sides and passageways,

00:35:02.080 --> 00:35:07.280
 with a nice vaulted roof and a stage and a balcony. And then it's also got a number of

00:35:07.280 --> 00:35:11.280
 other supporting rooms. We're taking over the whole Town Hall this year, which we normally do

00:35:11.280 --> 00:35:15.600
 for our own beer festival in Burton to host the Great British Beer Festival. It's a historic

00:35:15.600 --> 00:35:22.640
 building which the Burton branch has run nearly 40 beer festivals at. So we know very well how to

00:35:22.640 --> 00:35:28.640
 work with the building and make the building work for us and make sure that we utilise all the space

00:35:28.640 --> 00:35:33.760
 available to get as much beer in and as many customers through the door as we possibly can.

00:35:33.760 --> 00:35:39.040
 This year, we are opening on the Thursday early. We normally, as a Burton Beer Festival,

00:35:39.040 --> 00:35:43.360
 wouldn't open until Thursday evening. But because we're hosting the competition and we're judging

00:35:43.360 --> 00:35:48.480
 during the day, we've decided to open at 12 o'clock on the Thursday of the week. We are

00:35:48.480 --> 00:35:53.440
 looking to get the competition over with by about one o'clock so that we can open the competition

00:35:53.440 --> 00:35:58.160
 room for people to come and try the champion beers as and when they're available. And then

00:35:58.160 --> 00:36:03.680
 we will open as normal all through the Thursday evening. So we're looking to get the competition

00:36:03.680 --> 00:36:09.440
 until 11 o'clock. And then on the Friday, we are open again from 11 till 11. And then Saturday,

00:36:09.440 --> 00:36:16.000
 we're open from 11 till 10, I believe. What we'll be looking to do during that time is bring a range

00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:20.399
 of beers from across the country, being a national festival, we have gone out of our way to try and

00:36:20.399 --> 00:36:24.799
 bring beers in not just for the competition, which are national and cover the whole range of the

00:36:24.799 --> 00:36:29.440
 country. We've tried to make sure that the main hall offering reflects a national festival as

00:36:29.440 --> 00:36:35.680
 well. So we will have beers from Scotland right down to Cornwall and across to Kent and Essex and

00:36:35.680 --> 00:36:41.200
 East Anglia and Wales, all in that festival available for people to try. We've gone out of

00:36:41.200 --> 00:36:46.000
 the way this year to sort of bring in some quality local brewers and all the local breweries in

00:36:46.000 --> 00:36:50.560
 Burton and surrounding areas in the branch area we're representing at that festival. And we've

00:36:50.560 --> 00:36:55.760
 also brought in some great sponsors in the form of Titanic from North Staffordshire, which is in

00:36:55.760 --> 00:37:00.720
 the county we're hosting the festival in. And we've also got Thornbridge who's got a brewery bar

00:37:00.720 --> 00:37:06.160
 at the event. So there will be some great beers on offer. We've also thought of all other types

00:37:06.160 --> 00:37:11.280
 of drinkers. So we will be having a cider bar, a range of ciders from across the country and

00:37:11.280 --> 00:37:16.720
 looking at the list here from Herefordshire, from Devon, from Glamorgan in Wales, Dorset and

00:37:16.720 --> 00:37:21.600
 Leicestershire. So we've got a range of ciders from across the country. And then to complement

00:37:21.600 --> 00:37:27.440
 that, there will be a gin bar, which will offer various craft gins selected by Norrie Porter,

00:37:27.440 --> 00:37:32.960
 who's running the bar for us. Norrie was involved with running the bar in London in August. So we've

00:37:32.960 --> 00:37:38.080
 got some experienced gin people there. We've got some quality cider and we've got some excellent

00:37:38.080 --> 00:37:44.480
 beer, all complemented by local food from a local retailer who's providing the hot and cold food

00:37:44.480 --> 00:37:48.480
 offering this year. Sounds like you've got it all covered. Sounds absolutely fantastic. I'm sure

00:37:48.480 --> 00:37:52.480
 everyone's looking forward to it. Is there anything in particular, Nick, that you personally are

00:37:52.480 --> 00:37:57.200
 looking forward to? I always love the competition element. Having previously been the Awards

00:37:57.200 --> 00:38:01.440
 Director and being responsible for Champion Beer of Britain and Champion Winter Beer of Britain,

00:38:01.440 --> 00:38:06.160
 I'm really looking forward and having seen and been quite closely involved with making sure that

00:38:06.160 --> 00:38:11.600
 the beers that we are going to be judging for Winter Beer of Britain are there. I'm really keen

00:38:11.600 --> 00:38:16.560
 that that goes well and we come out with an outstanding winner. I'm really looking forward

00:38:16.560 --> 00:38:21.440
 to being involved with that competition on the day, being able to talk to all those independent

00:38:21.440 --> 00:38:25.759
 judges that we've brought in and share the experience of being involved with selecting

00:38:25.759 --> 00:38:30.480
 the Champion Beer this year. Absolutely brilliant. And I'm sure many people who are visiting you up

00:38:30.480 --> 00:38:34.799
 there and visiting the Great British Beer Festival will be popping in to some of the local pubs in

00:38:34.799 --> 00:38:39.120
 your branch. How are you getting on with your pub of the year competition up there, Nick?

00:38:39.120 --> 00:38:43.440
 Obviously last year's winner, the Old Royal Oaky in the Marketplace, is going to be opening a

00:38:43.440 --> 00:38:48.160
 Founds pub, their first pub. They've done really well out of it this year. The support they've had

00:38:48.160 --> 00:38:53.760
 from the people in Burton and visitors are far and wide coming to check them out. And obviously

00:38:53.760 --> 00:38:58.240
 they went on further into the pub of the year for Staffordshire. Unfortunately they didn't win it,

00:38:58.240 --> 00:39:03.040
 but then the local pub did have to compete with the overall national champion, the Tamworth Tap,

00:39:03.040 --> 00:39:07.920
 which is 10 minutes down the road on the train. So they did well in the regional competition,

00:39:07.920 --> 00:39:12.320
 but unfortunately didn't get through. At the moment, this time of year is when we in the

00:39:12.320 --> 00:39:17.920
 branch are selecting our next pub of the year and we will be announcing that in March. But between

00:39:17.920 --> 00:39:23.760
 the beginning of December and March, we have a team of judges. There's about eight, nine of us

00:39:23.760 --> 00:39:29.520
 who are visiting the shortlisted pubs and we've got 15 pubs on that shortlist. We're getting around

00:39:29.520 --> 00:39:34.480
 the branch area independently and judging them against the national criteria. It's not an easy

00:39:34.480 --> 00:39:39.040
 job. We have some fantastic pubs in and around Burton branch area. The festival programme,

00:39:39.040 --> 00:39:44.240
 which is available imminently, contains a list of all those pubs in the shortlist and others that

00:39:44.240 --> 00:39:48.000
 we recommend. And it's the centrepiece of the programme with a map of all the other pubs to

00:39:48.000 --> 00:39:52.400
 visit while you're up here in Burton. And the pubs are looking forward to supporting you. Some of them

00:39:52.400 --> 00:39:57.120
 are putting on wonderful supporting beer festivals. Some of them are putting on tap takeovers with

00:39:57.120 --> 00:40:02.080
 breweries coming over to have their range of beers in the pubs, in addition to what they normally

00:40:02.080 --> 00:40:06.320
 serve. Others that are opening early. One of our local Marlborough pubs, the Weybridge, doesn't

00:40:06.320 --> 00:40:10.880
 normally open till three or four o'clock in the afternoon. It's opening at lunchtime. And then

00:40:10.880 --> 00:40:16.080
 there's others that are laying on special music events just to support the event in Burton.

00:40:16.080 --> 00:40:20.320
 I bet everyone's looking forward to coming up, visiting the pubs and obviously the highlight

00:40:20.320 --> 00:40:25.760
 being the festival. Fantastic. The comments I've seen all over the posts on Facebook and direct

00:40:25.760 --> 00:40:29.680
 contacts we've had asking for beer lists and everything it is, how very much people are

00:40:29.680 --> 00:40:35.040
 looking forward to the opportunity to come into Burton and experience Burton pubs and the festival.

00:40:35.040 --> 00:40:38.800
 A lot of them are making a day of it. A lot of them are making the weekend of it.

00:40:38.800 --> 00:40:44.080
 Most of the hotels seem to have been fully booked. So people are having to look at further afield. So

00:40:44.080 --> 00:40:48.960
 it's going to be a very successful week weekend for Burton and the festival and the pubs.

00:40:52.800 --> 00:40:58.960
 The GBBF Winter runs between the 16th and 18th of February. So it may already have passed by

00:40:58.960 --> 00:41:04.160
 the time that you hear this podcast. But if you're listening as one of our early listeners,

00:41:04.160 --> 00:41:08.399
 it's in the beautiful Burton Town Hall. The tickets are unfortunately sold out,

00:41:08.399 --> 00:41:12.720
 but hopefully you've managed to get tickets. You managed to get along there and have an amazing

00:41:12.720 --> 00:41:17.359
 time. And also local pubs in Burton are all set up for people visiting the festival.

00:41:17.359 --> 00:41:21.759
 There's a map in the programme to help visitors navigate their way around. And some of the pubs

00:41:21.759 --> 00:41:27.359
 are running small festivals of their own as well. So if you're local to the area, but perhaps you

00:41:27.359 --> 00:41:32.080
 hadn't been planning to go to the festival, hadn't managed to get tickets this year, then pop into

00:41:32.080 --> 00:41:37.360
 Burton and support some of those pubs running their own festivals as well. I have to echo what

00:41:37.360 --> 00:41:40.960
 you've just said there, Claire. Some of the comments I've seen on social media and elsewhere

00:41:40.960 --> 00:41:46.240
 in the run up to the festival really outline how much local pubs are pushing the boat out to try

00:41:46.240 --> 00:41:51.279
 and cater for people who are visiting Burton over the few days that the festival's on. So if you are

00:41:51.279 --> 00:41:55.600
 up there and you're planning to go to the festival, do try to get along to some of the local pubs as

00:41:55.600 --> 00:42:00.080
 well. And don't forget, of course, that everything we mentioned on the podcast, you can find more

00:42:00.080 --> 00:42:05.520
 details about them on the show notes as well and all the web links that you need. And we've been

00:42:05.520 --> 00:42:11.840
 talking about the Summer of Pub campaign earlier. Now, I don't know whether either of you have ever

00:42:11.840 --> 00:42:17.759
 taken part in an ale trail, but they have certainly been a feature of Summer of Pub last year. It's an

00:42:17.759 --> 00:42:22.640
 opportunity to get out and visit pubs that you might not be familiar with. Many branches have

00:42:22.640 --> 00:42:27.040
 got involved with them in town and city centres. I suppose you might think there's, you know,

00:42:27.040 --> 00:42:32.240
 is this just a pub crawl? But actually, with specific camera branch events, they make an effort

00:42:32.240 --> 00:42:37.120
 to publicise ale trails. They encourage people to visit perhaps the less well known ones, the

00:42:37.120 --> 00:42:41.600
 slightly off the beaten track pubs. And again, as we've mentioned, they often tie in with the local

00:42:41.600 --> 00:42:46.240
 beer festival as well. I haven't actually done any ale trails myself, but growing up in the town of

00:42:46.240 --> 00:42:50.800
 Dumfries in southwest Scotland, looking to the neighbouring region of Ayrshire and Wigdonshire,

00:42:50.800 --> 00:42:56.320
 they've got a very active camera branch and they are promoting a walking and bus trail on the Isle

00:42:56.320 --> 00:43:01.520
 of Arran. Now, the trail that they've laid out includes visits to eight pubs around the island,

00:43:01.520 --> 00:43:06.400
 including a visit to the island's brewery as well. Four of those pubs offer accommodation,

00:43:06.400 --> 00:43:10.880
 so there's no excuse not to make the most of staying on the beautiful Isle of Arran.

00:43:11.520 --> 00:43:15.600
 I was lucky enough to visit the island a couple of years ago as part of celebrations for my

00:43:15.600 --> 00:43:21.200
 parents' 50th wedding anniversary. And as well as enjoying some of the Isle of Arran brewery's

00:43:21.200 --> 00:43:26.960
 beers on the island itself, I stopped in for a tasting at the whiskey distillery on the island.

00:43:26.960 --> 00:43:29.919
 And Alison, I'm sure that is something you would love to do one day.

00:43:29.919 --> 00:43:34.480
 Oh, absolutely. I love the Isle of Arran whiskey. In fact, it's been Burns

00:43:34.480 --> 00:43:38.160
 at night in the last couple of weeks, and I've run a lot of whiskey tastings to celebrate that.

00:43:38.160 --> 00:43:42.240
 We've been showing the wonderful Robert Burns single malt, which is distilled

00:43:42.240 --> 00:43:47.759
 by the Arran distillery. Absolutely a delicious sweet dram. I'm slightly disappointed to learn

00:43:47.760 --> 00:43:52.320
 that there aren't very many cider trails, which I think should certainly be a thing alongside

00:43:52.320 --> 00:43:57.680
 ale trails and particularly in the better known cider areas. I did hear of a couple,

00:43:57.680 --> 00:44:03.920
 Nottingham Camera Branch had a cider saunter last year with 26 different pubs to visit as part of

00:44:03.920 --> 00:44:09.200
 it. All of the pubs were stocking a range of draft real cider and perry, including at least one from

00:44:09.200 --> 00:44:14.160
 local East Midlands producers. If you visited eight pubs, it meant you qualified for a free

00:44:14.160 --> 00:44:18.960
 pint of cider or perry at the Robin Hood Beer and Cider Festival in October. Around half the

00:44:18.960 --> 00:44:24.319
 participants covered 16 or more pubs on the trail, but only one person got to all 26, and that was

00:44:24.319 --> 00:44:29.359
 Amy Chandler, who also happens to be the cider bar manager at the festival. Well done, Amy.

00:44:29.359 --> 00:44:35.440
 Good work. Camera Branch in Cambridge last summer encouraged their members to design their own ale

00:44:35.440 --> 00:44:40.799
 or cider trails as part of Camera's Summer of Pub campaign by making a map available and then

00:44:40.800 --> 00:44:45.440
 suggested they made up their own route, either on foot around the historic city centre or public

00:44:45.440 --> 00:44:51.040
 transport if going further afield. Yeah, I'm aware of quite a few similar to that in my part of the

00:44:51.040 --> 00:44:54.880
 world. I think both the Ipswich and East Suffolk branch and the Colchester and North East Essex

00:44:54.880 --> 00:44:59.120
 branch have in the past had similar trails to the one that you mentioned in Nottingham, where you

00:44:59.120 --> 00:45:03.600
 have a card and it gets stamped at every pub that you visit, and then if you go to all of them, or

00:45:03.600 --> 00:45:08.480
 if you go to a certain number, you can claim a prize if you visit the related beer festival as

00:45:08.480 --> 00:45:13.600
 well. But I'm more interested as well in some places where there are ale trails that, although

00:45:13.600 --> 00:45:18.720
 they're supported by Camera, they're actually run by other organisations. So in Bury St Edmunds,

00:45:18.720 --> 00:45:24.000
 the local business improvement district uses its app to run an ale trail, and that features

00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:29.840
 not just pubs but breweries and independent beer shops in Bury St Edmunds as well. So it'd be great

00:45:29.840 --> 00:45:34.560
 to hear of some of the Camera branches perhaps putting an ale trail on an app, and if your

00:45:34.560 --> 00:45:39.279
 branch has already done that, do let us know and perhaps we can feature it in a future podcast.

00:45:39.279 --> 00:45:45.520
 Yeah, there's also a superb beer trail and I think a craft cider tour up in Leeds from my

00:45:45.520 --> 00:45:50.640
 fellow Pommelier David Dixon, so if you're up in that area that's probably worth a try. Now I don't

00:45:50.640 --> 00:45:58.160
 know about you but I'm feeling a bit peckish now, and it's time to join Christian Gott over in Jersey

00:45:58.160 --> 00:46:06.960
 and we're going to have our live cook-along. I'm going to be making a real classic dish that

00:46:06.960 --> 00:46:10.960
 takes part of our French heritage, so we're very close to the coast of France.

00:46:11.839 --> 00:46:18.720
 A lot of our street names and place names are in French and the sort of semi-official language

00:46:18.720 --> 00:46:26.160
 of Jersey is an old sort of Norman style French. We were part of the protectorate of the Duke of

00:46:26.160 --> 00:46:33.279
 Normandy and for a long time the toast was always to the Duke of Normandy rather than to the

00:46:33.279 --> 00:46:38.399
 to the monarch in Britain, and the monarch in Britain held that title as well. So I'm going

00:46:38.399 --> 00:46:43.359
 to make Moulse Normandy or Alan Normandy which is made with cider instead of wine.

00:46:44.080 --> 00:46:49.440
 That is a really really classic sort of French Jersey dish. Brilliant, that sounds absolutely

00:46:49.440 --> 00:46:55.520
 delicious. Now you're going to be cooking that with cider. I always wonder, Christian, why is it

00:46:55.520 --> 00:47:01.840
 with that lovely fresh seafood that we do cook that with either wine or beer or cider? Obviously

00:47:01.840 --> 00:47:06.640
 we're focusing in on beer and cider with this podcast, but what does that do for the cooking?

00:47:06.640 --> 00:47:12.000
 Beer and cider does lots of things, but principally what we're looking at here with this dish is we're

00:47:12.000 --> 00:47:19.120
 looking at the acidity and whether it's wine or cider or lemon juice, you need something to lift.

00:47:19.120 --> 00:47:25.440
 And acidity, one of the things it does is it gives a freshness and it lifts the flavours of the dish.

00:47:25.440 --> 00:47:33.840
 You can use it as a seasoning. If you think of when you get a nice piece of cob battered and you squirt that lemon juice all over the top of it,

00:47:33.840 --> 00:47:39.200
 you can almost use it as an alternative to salt and pepper. So the reason we're putting the cider

00:47:39.200 --> 00:47:44.480
 into this dish is to cut through the richness of the cream. Jersey cream's really really rich.

00:47:45.040 --> 00:47:50.160
 Mussels are quite a rich dish as well, so that acidity just lifts the flavours.

00:47:50.160 --> 00:47:53.600
 It's not just any old cider you're using today though, is it Christian? You're using something

00:47:53.600 --> 00:48:01.839
 very special. Yep, so keeping in with using the local produce, local mussels, local cream, I'm

00:48:01.839 --> 00:48:09.200
 using a La Robilene dry cider, so that's from a producer on the island. And again it comes back to

00:48:09.200 --> 00:48:16.480
 that Norman heritage, there's a tradition of growing a lot of apples and cider production

00:48:17.120 --> 00:48:21.200
 across the Channel Islands actually, not just in Jersey but in Kearns as well.

00:48:21.200 --> 00:48:27.439
 So what's the first step today? We're going to peel, now on the recipe that we're going to be

00:48:27.439 --> 00:48:33.919
 using I've put shallots but you can use a small onion. Effectively what we're doing is we're using

00:48:33.919 --> 00:48:39.919
 a version of a Moulse mariniere where you would use white wine and we're just going to replace

00:48:39.919 --> 00:48:46.240
 it with the cider. So what I'm doing now is I'm peeling the onion ready to go into my pan

00:48:46.240 --> 00:48:51.919
 and I'm going to start chopping that in just a minute when I've taken the outer skin off.

00:48:51.919 --> 00:48:59.600
 What's next then Christian after the onion? So the next ingredient I'm going to do is bacon. Now

00:48:59.600 --> 00:49:04.879
 different recipes if you look this up online, some Moulse Normandy use button mushrooms finely

00:49:04.879 --> 00:49:11.359
 sliced but the majority of them use bacon. So I'm using some smoked bacon because I like the flavour

00:49:11.360 --> 00:49:17.920
 of smoked bacon. So what we're going to do is we're just going to sweat the bacon and the onion down

00:49:17.920 --> 00:49:26.080
 for about two or three minutes until the onions are starting to soften and the bacon is starting

00:49:26.080 --> 00:49:31.680
 to cook through. We've got the bacon in, we've got the onion in, what's going to go in the pan next?

00:49:32.240 --> 00:49:36.880
 So the next thing we're going to put in in a moment and you will hear that one because that's

00:49:36.880 --> 00:49:43.760
 going to be quite noisy is the mussels. So I've prepared the mussels in advance. There's a lot of

00:49:44.960 --> 00:49:50.000
 I think stress when people talk about mussels and people sort of worry about how to do them.

00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:55.440
 There's a few quite simple tips. If you get mussels from a reputable fishmonger

00:49:55.440 --> 00:50:01.360
 they should be fresh enough. If you're worried what you do is when you take them home if they

00:50:01.360 --> 00:50:06.800
 look open, if you give the mussel a quick squeeze, if it closes that means it's still alive and it's

00:50:06.800 --> 00:50:14.160
 fine to eat. If it doesn't close then you discard that and you don't eat it. The second one you do

00:50:14.160 --> 00:50:18.880
 is you discard any mussels that, and I've just found one that I've missed earlier, any mussels

00:50:18.880 --> 00:50:23.920
 that have got a broken shell they won't be alive so you get rid of any of those and the mussels

00:50:23.920 --> 00:50:29.360
 that you've got left give them a rinse into the tap. Don't store them in tap water, they don't

00:50:29.360 --> 00:50:35.840
 like the chlorine in tap water so just give them a rinse, pour that off and you should be great to go.

00:50:35.840 --> 00:50:40.960
 So are we ready to cook them Christian? We are, my onions are starting to go clear,

00:50:40.960 --> 00:50:50.320
 my bacon is starting to look cooked so I'm going to tip, there we go, into my pan and basically

00:50:50.320 --> 00:50:54.800
 what we're going to do is we're going to steam the mussels so they're going to produce a little

00:50:54.800 --> 00:51:00.240
 bit of juice themselves but we need that cooking liquor and this is where our cider comes in,

00:51:00.240 --> 00:51:06.399
 we're pouring a generous glugging. If you've got a pan, this is the time now where you can just,

00:51:06.399 --> 00:51:09.520
 if you're going to manage to, you've got a pan with a lid, is you just put a lid on

00:51:10.240 --> 00:51:14.640
 and so what's going to happen is that that cider and the mussel juices are going to start to steam

00:51:15.839 --> 00:51:20.799
 and that's going to cook the mussels and this is a really quick process, it's about

00:51:21.600 --> 00:51:26.240
 three to four minutes. Wow okay and how's it smelling because obviously we're all desperate

00:51:26.240 --> 00:51:32.560
 to know what that fragrance is like. There is something about mussels when they're cooking

00:51:32.560 --> 00:51:40.720
 and it is absolutely amazing. So what's the next step once we're ready? So the next step is, now

00:51:40.720 --> 00:51:45.759
 if you were doing a classic Moore's marinade with the wine, you would leave that and if you're

00:51:45.759 --> 00:51:52.000
 dairy intolerant you could, you can quite happily just use that as it is, serve it,

00:51:52.000 --> 00:51:57.840
 just chop some parsley, check the seasoning, you're not going to need salt, mussels are salty

00:51:57.840 --> 00:52:01.600
 enough and you've got bacon which is salty as well but you might need a little bit of black

00:52:01.600 --> 00:52:07.040
 pepper in there and some parsley and it's still going to give you an amazingly tasty sort of

00:52:07.040 --> 00:52:13.120
 cooking liquor to dip some crusty bread in but we are going to go the whole hog and we're going to

00:52:13.120 --> 00:52:19.120
 put some thick cream in there as well just to really sort of finish the dish up. It's terrible

00:52:19.120 --> 00:52:23.120
 isn't it? It's like 10 o'clock and both of us are thinking I'm gonna have to go and eat now.

00:52:26.080 --> 00:52:29.920
 I should have just got a flight to Jersey instead of Helia and come and see you. I don't think I've

00:52:29.920 --> 00:52:34.400
 ever eaten mussels at 10 o'clock in the morning but I'm stood here thinking well that's my breakfast.

00:52:38.319 --> 00:52:45.120
 Cream's in yeah so I'm looking and and I think probably it's a time now just to sort of tell

00:52:45.120 --> 00:52:50.640
 the people who are listening so you should hopefully see your mussels are starting to open

00:52:51.279 --> 00:52:59.120
 and there's little plump fat mussels all looking absolutely delicious so I've put the cream in

00:52:59.120 --> 00:53:04.000
 and what we're going to do now is we're going to leave the lid off because what we want to do now

00:53:04.000 --> 00:53:10.000
 is we want to reduce it and we want to sort of thicken it up the cream and the cooking liquor

00:53:10.000 --> 00:53:15.120
 is just going to reduce down and it's just going to make it a little bit thicker so it coats the

00:53:15.120 --> 00:53:20.480
 mussels nicely and it makes that delicious sauce that sort of everybody thinks of when they think

00:53:20.480 --> 00:53:26.320
 about eating mussels. I'm using curly parsley and if you hold it tightly in your hand you can use

00:53:26.320 --> 00:53:31.120
 your scissors again rather than trying to, I know chopping parsley is another one of those sort of

00:53:31.760 --> 00:53:38.640
 on a chopping board it's a bit of a pain if you don't have the sharpest of chef's knives available

00:53:38.640 --> 00:53:44.319
 so I just sort of hold it really tightly in my fingers and just snip it with scissors that's

00:53:44.319 --> 00:53:53.839
 going in a little grate of fresh black pepper going in there as well so that's bubbling away

00:53:53.839 --> 00:54:01.120
 that the mussels are nicely coated with the sauce and that's it you know we're sort of almost done

00:54:01.120 --> 00:54:08.880
 there another minute it's such an easy nutritious dish to do you know and it's great for people who

00:54:08.880 --> 00:54:14.480
 have got busy lives and you know for a supper dish it's wonderful. I'd really like to know how's the

00:54:14.480 --> 00:54:20.720
 cider drinking I'm sure you've got a little left of that La Robelina cider. I poured myself a little

00:54:20.720 --> 00:54:24.960
 a little bit out the bottle but unfortunately again at 10 o'clock in the morning it's quite a

00:54:24.960 --> 00:54:29.279
 big bottle and you don't need that much in the recipe. That'll be fine in the fridge until later.

00:54:29.280 --> 00:54:33.520
 Yeah it'll be fine in the fridge until later. I mean the first thing you notice is it's got a

00:54:34.240 --> 00:54:41.600
 really fine mousse that it's tiny bubbles and that's because they the Normandy way of making

00:54:42.480 --> 00:54:48.480
 cider is almost like champagne so it's got a similar style yeast and it's got those really

00:54:48.480 --> 00:54:53.520
 fine bubbles there is a little bit of sediment in the bottle so the bottle it's bottle condition

00:54:53.520 --> 00:55:00.560
 and they leave a little bit of yeast in there an extra yeast in there so it re-ferments in the

00:55:00.560 --> 00:55:04.880
 bottle so it's got that natural fizz just like champagne but they don't take the sediment out

00:55:04.880 --> 00:55:13.120
 and when you taste it I mean it's oh it's just Jersey summer and it's floral and it's oh it's so

00:55:13.120 --> 00:55:19.840
 lovely I could just be sat in a meadow somewhere under an apple tree and it's it's crisp it they

00:55:19.840 --> 00:55:26.000
 it they do a dry and a medium I'm trying the dry it's crisp it's bright it's refreshing it's

00:55:26.000 --> 00:55:32.080
 lovely. It sounds beautiful now you've got two real cider makers there on on the island of Jersey

00:55:32.080 --> 00:55:36.640
 apart from Le Robelyn which you're tasting at the moment looks absolutely fantastic there's also the

00:55:36.640 --> 00:55:41.280
 Le Mer wine estate that are making cider on Jersey just a little way around the coast

00:55:42.320 --> 00:55:46.960
 and then over in Guernsey you've got Roquet Cider Farm is that the right pronunciation?

00:55:46.960 --> 00:55:55.280
 That is that's that's that's very very very good pronunciation so Le Mer do a whole range they do

00:55:55.280 --> 00:56:03.440
 wine and cider and Roquet is very very popular in Guernsey and a lot of the pubs sell it on draft

00:56:03.440 --> 00:56:10.800
 as well so Le Robelyn cider the the people there they have they have quite a big events business so

00:56:10.800 --> 00:56:18.720
 if we have any fates or or festivals they have a a bar they sell they make their own sausages they

00:56:18.720 --> 00:56:26.160
 sell loads of delicious cider on tap obviously yeah it's big business over here it's it's very

00:56:26.160 --> 00:56:31.280
 you know it's a very important part of our hospitality industry. That's fantastic and

00:56:31.280 --> 00:56:37.520
 of course what I would do what I have done is take a look on the real cider and perry producers map

00:56:37.520 --> 00:56:42.960
 that's on the camera website and if I'm going off anywhere on holiday like if I were coming to Jersey

00:56:42.960 --> 00:56:46.960
 or Guernsey I can take a look at that map and I could see where the real cider producers are and

00:56:46.960 --> 00:56:52.080
 go and seek them out and do and have a visit so that's gone on my bucket list now Christian I

00:56:52.080 --> 00:56:58.720
 shall be coming over and getting myself some cider. Brilliant thank you Christian so much

00:56:58.720 --> 00:57:04.400
 I don't know whether you've about to start tucking into your muscles? I am yeah I'm going to transfer

00:57:04.400 --> 00:57:09.920
 them to a bowl I'm going to take a nice picture so that you can have a picture I'm gonna I'll make

00:57:09.920 --> 00:57:15.440
 you really jealous and send you a picture of exactly what I'm going to tuck into and then

00:57:15.440 --> 00:57:20.080
 yeah it's breakfast. Cheers Christian have your wonderful breakfast and thanks so much for cooking

00:57:20.080 --> 00:57:28.080
 that for us. Now you know what that means don't you I want to go back to Jersey and Guernsey and

00:57:28.080 --> 00:57:32.800
 visit those cider makers there I actually spent a couple of months on Jersey and Guernsey opening

00:57:32.800 --> 00:57:37.840
 restaurants in the early 2000s and I really enjoyed it now I've got a reason to go back

00:57:37.840 --> 00:57:42.640
 eat Christian's food and visit cider makers. Christian will be back with us again in a couple

00:57:42.640 --> 00:57:48.320
 of episodes time to cook with beer and some of the recipes look mouth-watering if you're inspired to

00:57:48.320 --> 00:57:53.760
 cook that fab sounding moule and cedar dish then hop onto Christian's blog and there's a link to it

00:57:53.760 --> 00:57:58.800
 in the show notes to this episode. As a long-time listener and now presenter of the pod I'm trying

00:57:58.800 --> 00:58:02.400
 to think back through all the episodes I've listened to and I think we're really pushing

00:58:02.400 --> 00:58:07.040
 the boundaries this time with a live cook-along certainly the first one that I can recall.

00:58:07.040 --> 00:58:11.120
 Of course mussels is a dish that you can cook very quickly so it was perfect dish to showcase

00:58:11.120 --> 00:58:15.920
 in this segment and again just thinking of the of mussels and beer it brings back memories of going

00:58:15.920 --> 00:58:20.480
 to Belgo restaurants in London and enjoying some some fresh mussels there alongside some

00:58:20.480 --> 00:58:25.920
 terrific Belgian beers. Ah Belgo Simon I used to work with them and in fact help them put together

00:58:25.920 --> 00:58:31.360
 their beer master program to teach their teams all about the Belgian beers it's one of the places I

00:58:31.360 --> 00:58:37.600
 got my obsession with Belgian beer from. Well the recipe sounds really delicious I unfortunately I

00:58:37.600 --> 00:58:42.000
 developed an intolerance to mussels some years ago and haven't really been able to eat them since

00:58:42.000 --> 00:58:47.680
 which is a shame because I really love them and I do sort of occasionally try to eat one or two

00:58:47.680 --> 00:58:51.520
 and see that whether the intolerance thing will go away and I can build up tolerance again.

00:58:52.160 --> 00:58:57.440
 I'll spare you the details but it hasn't really worked. Oh Claire I'm so sorry that's a shame

00:58:57.440 --> 00:59:02.960
 um I've got some good news as well because Camera have just announced very many congratulations are

00:59:02.960 --> 00:59:08.880
 due to the club of the year and that's Marden Village in Kent. Clubs in this competition are

00:59:08.880 --> 00:59:14.560
 selected by Camera volunteers and judged on their atmosphere, decor, welcome, service, value for

00:59:14.560 --> 00:59:20.000
 money, customer mix and of course the quality of their beer and cider. Runners up this year include

00:59:20.000 --> 00:59:25.840
 the Cheltenham Motor Club in Cheltenham, Dobcross Band Social Club in Greater Manchester and Barnton

00:59:25.840 --> 00:59:31.280
 Cricket Club in Merseyside, Cheshire. Marden Village Club in Kent was completely renovated

00:59:31.280 --> 00:59:37.040
 in 2017 to produce a lovely light airy and friendly atmosphere. This is a grade two listed

00:59:37.040 --> 00:59:44.320
 community hub and it boasts six real ales generally from local microbreweries and local real ciders.

00:59:44.320 --> 00:59:50.240
 There's a snooker and darts team for its members. It sounds amazing congratulations to Simon Banfield,

00:59:50.240 --> 00:59:54.720
 Marden Village Club's Stuart and his team. I can only echo what you said there Alison and

00:59:54.720 --> 00:59:58.560
 congratulations to Simon and his team and it certainly sounds like a club that's worth visiting

00:59:58.560 --> 01:00:04.560
 if you're down in the Kent region. Now as we come to the end of this episode it's your regular

01:00:04.560 --> 01:00:09.919
 reminder that you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram by searching for Pubs Pints

01:00:09.919 --> 01:00:15.040
 People and of course we'd love to hear any feedback or suggestions for future episodes from you

01:00:15.040 --> 01:00:21.839
 either via the social channels or of course you can drop us an email at podcast at camera.org.uk

01:00:21.840 --> 01:00:26.000
 and of course in between episodes don't forget you can keep up to date with all the latest news

01:00:26.000 --> 01:00:33.920
 from Camera in Camera's online newsletter What's Brewing at wb.camera.org.uk.

01:00:33.920 --> 01:00:39.680
 And next time we're here we're off to, well virtually off to Manchester and we'll be chatting to

01:00:39.680 --> 01:00:46.240
 Matthew Curtis about his new book. Sean will be coming along to step in as a guest host as well

01:00:46.240 --> 01:00:51.040
 and there's so many fantastic beers and breweries to come from the Manchester area

01:00:51.040 --> 01:00:56.240
 that it'll be a lot of fun. I'm already making a note to get in touch with a friend of mine who

01:00:56.240 --> 01:01:02.720
 knows some fantastic pubs in Manchester so that I can make sure I've got my only here for the beer

01:01:02.720 --> 01:01:07.200
 pub selected. In fact I might have to do what Alison did and have a list of about 25 of them I think.

01:01:07.759 --> 01:01:12.240
 I have to say if we were to get together to record an episode in person together I think

01:01:12.240 --> 01:01:16.480
 Manchester would be one of the cities really high on the list of places we'd want to to convene

01:01:16.480 --> 01:01:23.920
 together in. Absolutely but before we do go let's have our last orders from us all and I recently

01:01:23.920 --> 01:01:31.200
 had my first taste of a beer from Neptune Brewery on Merseyside. I tried their fantastic oatmeal

01:01:31.200 --> 01:01:38.960
 stout it's called Abyss it's a 5% ABV a lovely smooth and chocolatey hints of licorice a little

01:01:38.960 --> 01:01:44.160
 bit of coffee flavour in there as well. We found it on cask at a local real ale pub in Ipswich

01:01:44.160 --> 01:01:49.120
 actually but I think you can get it in cans as well so perhaps check availability on the brewery's

01:01:49.120 --> 01:01:54.480
 website there. We'd driven to the pub unfortunately so we had to take a takeout home with us to enjoy

01:01:54.480 --> 01:01:59.600
 another pint of it at home as well but I should be looking out for that one again. I've seen Neptune

01:01:59.600 --> 01:02:04.240
 on cask in a few pubs and also beer festivals and I have to say I've never been disappointed with any

01:02:04.240 --> 01:02:08.080
 of the the beers from Neptune so definitely a brewery whose beers are worth seeking out.

01:02:08.080 --> 01:02:14.960
 In terms of my last orders my recommendation is Thornbridge's Carlotta a 7% Mexican stout with

01:02:14.960 --> 01:02:20.400
 cocoa and chillies. If you're wondering how good it is I couldn't resist snapping up a case of 12

01:02:20.400 --> 01:02:25.840
 which was part of Thornbridge's January sale on their website so one down 11 cans to go.

01:02:26.720 --> 01:02:32.720
 That sounds fantastic. This month I have been so excited we've been running a fantastic beer

01:02:32.720 --> 01:02:40.319
 fantastic beer on cask from Burning Sky Brewery called their Extra Stock Ale 2020. This is an

01:02:40.319 --> 01:02:46.560
 amazing old-fashioned style of beer that they have taken a long time to produce. It's a beer that was

01:02:46.560 --> 01:02:52.560
 traditionally kept and it picks up some fascinating flavours from mixed fermentation. So this was one

01:02:52.560 --> 01:02:58.319
 with some incredible aromas, reminded me a little bit of a lambic ale so we had sort of lemon and

01:02:58.320 --> 01:03:04.560
 smoke full of flavour on the mouth with some fruit and black tea. It was something really special.

01:03:04.560 --> 01:03:10.000
 It's not a light beer at 7.2% but certainly one to try if you can. I think there's still some

01:03:10.000 --> 01:03:16.000
 available in bottles from Burning Sky's own website. For cider this month I've been enjoying

01:03:16.000 --> 01:03:22.320
 a single apple variety called Portwine of Glastonbury which is from Hex Family Cidery

01:03:22.320 --> 01:03:28.080
 in Somerset and I've also had a very special experience as part of a London wassail. Now in

01:03:28.080 --> 01:03:34.799
 January it's a tradition to celebrate the wassail and we did that in style with One Tree Hill cider

01:03:34.799 --> 01:03:40.160
 who are down in Honour Oak Park in South London and we were making a lot of noise in the orchard

01:03:40.160 --> 01:03:46.319
 pouring cider around the roots of the tree and hanging toast in the branches in order to praise

01:03:46.319 --> 01:03:50.880
 the tree and make sure that it's ready for a fantastic harvest in the coming year. So a really

01:03:50.880 --> 01:03:56.880
 exciting event. Yeah and talking of cider before we finish on our last orders because I did say

01:03:56.880 --> 01:04:02.320
 in the last episode that I was going to try and make a news resolution to have a few more ciders

01:04:02.320 --> 01:04:09.280
 over this year and I tried one from Bernard's Cider in Norfolk, Bannerman Norfolk and Monty's

01:04:09.280 --> 01:04:15.200
 Double. I think it's quite a well-known cider actually from them. It's 6% though so it was a

01:04:15.200 --> 01:04:19.920
 little bit strong. I think I only had a half this time around but I'll certainly be looking out for

01:04:19.920 --> 01:04:27.120
 it again. Found it at a local pub and really nice to taste a locally produced cider. I should be

01:04:27.120 --> 01:04:32.560
 looking out for theirs again in some of the other ones that they produce because they're all

01:04:32.560 --> 01:04:38.080
 fermented by naturally occurring yeast, nothing added, nothing taken away. So a lovely range that

01:04:38.080 --> 01:04:44.240
 they have from South Norfolk. But that's just about it from us for this episode. We need to say

01:04:44.240 --> 01:04:49.280
 thank you of course as we always do to the team behind the podcast without whom we couldn't do

01:04:49.280 --> 01:04:54.640
 all this. That's the team at Camera Headquarters of course who help putting it all together,

01:04:54.640 --> 01:05:00.560
 our script writers, our team of editors as well, of course all our contributors and interviewees

01:05:00.560 --> 01:05:06.000
 and interviewers who take part in the podcast. Thank you to everyone for this episode but a

01:05:06.000 --> 01:05:11.680
 special thank you not just for this episode but for the entire series and the entire podcast since

01:05:11.680 --> 01:05:16.880
 we began and that's to Katie Wiles, one of the first presenters of the podcast. But not only that

01:05:16.880 --> 01:05:22.400
 she was the inspiration behind it. Without Katie the podcast wouldn't be here. She brought the

01:05:22.400 --> 01:05:29.120
 first episode of Pubs, Pints, People. It was released in lockdown in April 2020 and she

01:05:29.120 --> 01:05:33.760
 started everything. We can't thank her enough really. Katie you've done brilliantly. I think

01:05:33.760 --> 01:05:42.000
 we're going to hear a few little clips from those early days of Katie. Welcome to the Camera

01:05:42.000 --> 01:05:51.280
 Podcast. Pubs, Pints and People. Hello everybody. It's the Camera Podcast. We are live in lockdown.

01:05:51.280 --> 01:05:54.960
 I mean it sounds like we're in a pub somewhere but actually the reality is folks like many of

01:05:54.960 --> 01:06:00.320
 us across the country we are indeed at home. So this is the inaugural podcast from the campaign

01:06:00.320 --> 01:06:06.000
 for Real Ale. We want you to stay connected with the brewing and pubs industry, learn a bit more

01:06:06.000 --> 01:06:11.120
 whilst we're in lockdown, keep up to date with what's going on and just have a bit of fun. We've

01:06:11.120 --> 01:06:15.680
 got some great topics coming up for you. We're going to be speaking to people like Roger Protts

01:06:15.680 --> 01:06:21.440
 about beer writing, learning all about cider and the history behind that and the history of beer

01:06:21.440 --> 01:06:26.160
 making. So there's some great topics coming up. We'll be having really good interviews and today

01:06:26.160 --> 01:06:31.279
 we're going to be learning about the unsung heroes of the beer industry. Let's all raise our glasses

01:06:31.280 --> 01:06:45.920
 to Katie. Cheers!

01:06:48.320 --> 01:06:53.680
 How does a free case of beer sound? Yes you can grab a case for free courtesy of our pals at

01:06:53.680 --> 01:07:03.359
 Beer52 by going to www.beer52.com forward slash people that's the numbers 5 2 in the 52 and

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 covering the meagre postage cost of £5.95 and what's more as a special offer for our listeners

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 they'll throw in two extra beers for free so that's 10 unique craft beers. Beer 52 is actually

01:07:16.399 --> 01:07:20.960
 the biggest beer club in the world. Each month they send their members a case of beer from a

01:07:20.960 --> 01:07:26.720
 different part of the world and this month it's an absolute belter. Their great European road trip

01:07:26.720 --> 01:07:32.720
 case takes in the best beers from across the continent. So try a crisp refreshing Pilsner

01:07:32.720 --> 01:07:39.360
 from Norway's Lervig Brewery and a monster 7.5 double IPA from Sweden's Dürges Brewery.

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 On the dark side this month there's a smooth stout from Copenhagen's Thule. There's also beer

01:07:45.920 --> 01:07:53.040
 from Croatia, Poland, Germany, Serbia and Austria among others. And if dark beer is not your thing

01:07:53.040 --> 01:07:58.560
 you can choose the light only case. Also included is the ever insightful ferment magazine and a

01:07:58.560 --> 01:08:04.160
 couple of tasty snacks and even if after all that you're still unsatisfied you can simply pause or

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