New brewery and visitor centre for Belvoir - Nottingham CAMRA

Bread and Bitter opens
Mapperley rocks in time for Christmas
Early December saw the long-awaited opening of Castle
Rock Brewery’s latest addition to its award winning chain
of pubs, the Bread and Bitter on Mapperley top.
Tucked away behind the Plainsman, a Greene King house at the
junction of Woodthorpe Drive with Plains Road, the Bread and
Bitter occupies the shell of the old Judge’s Bakery, whose ovens
finally went cold in 1991. Indeed, the fronts of those same ovens
have been retained as a feature in the spacious, L-shaped interior,
as have some of the original, white-glazed brick walls, now
adorned with a wealth of interesting pieces of breweriana and the
many awards won by Castle Rock beers in recent years.
The floor is mostly wood
but gives way to flagstones
in the adjoining annex,
which has more of a
conservatory feel to it and
provides much needed
space for additional seating. Another particularly attractive and
original feature is to be found in the ceiling panels and bar canopy,
where illuminated stained glasswork
has actually incorporated real bottles,
specially flattened and assembled for
the purpose. Peer closely and some
of the brands can still be identified.
James Halfpenny, an experienced
member of the Castle Rock team, is
the man in charge and he tells me that
a cask-conditioned cider is scheduled
to join the impressive array of 12 ale
handpumps before too long. “We have
three pumps dedicated to Castle Rock beers”, James tells me.
“Harvest Pale and Preservation Ale are permanent, whilst the third
will rotate around the rest of the Brewery’s portfolio”. Bateman’s
Valiant and the powerful Thornbridge Jaipur IPA are also regulars,
which leaves space for seven ever-changing guest beers, including
a pump permanently dedicated to mild. Needless to say, there is
also an interesting selection of continental bottled beers and even
lager drinkers have not been entirely ignored.
On the food side, breakfast is served from 9.00 am to midday,
when the main meal service commences and continues until 8.00
in the evening. Home baked pizzas are something of a house
speciality and other daily specials are displayed on a chalkboard
opposite the ovens, all carefully prepared by Nulda Lewis and her
team in the kitchen.
“Nulda comes from Montserrat in the West Indies”, James
explains. “Her Caribbean Chicken is prepared to her mum’s own
secret recipe and is likely to become one of the pub’s signature
dishes”.
All in all, it has been well worth the wait. The Bread and Bitter
represents a very welcome addition to the county’s pub stock and
to Mapperley in particular. It has all the hallmarks of another
Castle Rock success story in the making.
Barrie Judge and Betty
Holmes check that all's
cooking nicely at the
opening of the Bread
and Bitter. They are with
Chris Holmes (left) and
James Halfpenny (right)
12 www.nottinghamcamra.org February/ March 08