local beer festivals and events - see page 20 - Nottingham CAMRA

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“Last Orders,Gentlemen, Please”Book ReviewIn southwest Derbyshire, the Swadlincote district has closestconnections with Burton on Trent only 5 miles away, and nearbynorthwest Leicestershire. For much of the 19th and 20th centuries thisarea was heavily industrialised as there were abundant resources ofcoal and clay. Development of early railways and canals was centralto this success, and the Burton & Ashby tramway was one of the fewinter-urban systems in the UK. Little remains of this industrial past,and today the area is something of a backwater as the major throughroutes avoid the town.Keith Gilliver’s erudite history of the district’s pubs reflects thesechanges. From the early part of the 19th century to date he has tracedalmost 140 establishments of which only 65 survive today. The earliestsystematic census of alehouses is Elizabeth I’s taxation survey of 1577,showing ten licensed sellers in the Swadlincote area - by name onlyrather than premises. Annual renewal of licences, and the licensing ofpremises were introduced later, and there are few sources of informationfor the next two centuries or more. Mr Gilliver’s earliest reliable sourcesare local trade directories starting around 1820, and the Burton Mailnewspaper archive.A section for each of 18 villages or townships presents a full listing ofall the pubs revealed by this research, helpfully pinpointed on sectionsof the 25 inch O S map. Smaller communities warrant only a singlepage, but even this includes a map, picture or press cutting. The largestsection of 14 pages covers Newhall, where there were once 33 pubs,presumably due to the concentration of industry around this smallvillage. Now just 7 are still serving. Following the 1904 LicensingAct, magistrates were able to close premises deemed superfluous orunsuitable, with compensation from a trade levy. It’s most interestingto find here extracts of the Licensing Sessions for March 1906, whenthere was full discussion of licences marked for “extinction”. Theseproceedings did not always result in closure - improvements to thepremises were often the alternative.Typical of the in-depth treatment is the coverpicture pub: the Admiral Rodney, Hartshorne. Itsearliest mention is in 1827 as the Lord Rodney,and it was bought at auction by Salts Brewery in1891, the sale notice appearing here. Salts wastaken over by Bass & Co in 1927, and the pubhad a major rebuild in 1958. It’s still serving today- as the Rodney. The adjacent building in this1950s photo is the New Inn,built in the early ’80s, and purchased at auctionby Worthingtons in 1896. This was closed in 1960under compensation arrangements, and, withadjoining property, demolished.Special mention must be made of the photographic coverage.Almost 100 pictures from a wide range of sources appear: thereare many early views of construction or alteration, and oftenphotos contemporary with the sale or letting notices taken fromlocal papers. Around 50 of these notices are reproduced in thebook, mostly from the late 19th century. A few trade postcardsproduced by licensees appear, and some other advertising materialincluding long-forgotten bottle labelsand beermats, so together with the mapextracts this book is especially wellillustrated for its 78 pages. Many of thephotographs are family snapshots, andunusually include pub interiors - othersare outings, or matches of darts orfootball teams, even a boxing school!There is special acknowledgment of thephotographic collection of Peter White.The Admiral RodneyTheWhiteHorse Inn313 Ilkeston RoadCorner of Faraday RoadPool - Darts - Pub Games - Beer GardenAlways a warm welcome andfriendly atmosphere at the HorseGuest Ales include Bombardier, Courage Directors,Marstons Pedigree, Old Speckled Hen plus othersGood Music PubThursday Night Live Music withGuitar Vocalist CrusoeFriday Night Classic Soul & Motown with DJ Terry MSaturday Two floors of 60’s & 70’s classics:Downstairs Rock & Roll with DJ ‘Rockin Dave’Upstairs Soul & Motown with DJ Tery MSunday from 5pm Classic Rock Tracks plus80’s and a mixed bag with DJ ‘FletchHave a great time at the White Horse0115 9703178The captions are especially informative andprovide useful information about openingand closing dates, name changes and so on.“Last Orders...” is a sequel to KeithGilliver’s earlier book “Just Time forAnother Quick Pint” - the history of the fourbreweries of Swadlincote and district, andsome of the pubs they owned. Both bookscan be thoroughly recommended as modelswhich all attempted pub histories could wellfollow. Copies can be obtained bycontacting the author: £10 each plus £1.50p&p: email address -keithgilliver@hotmail.comKeith Gilliver, 4 Frederick Street,Woodville, Swadlincote, Derbyshire DE118BX.The Falcon InnQuality Pub Restaurant• Adnams Cask Ales• Weekly Guest Beers• Good Beer Guide 2005• Friendly Traditional Pub• Excellent First Floor Restaurant• Quality Bar Meals AvailableCanning Circus, NottinghamTel 0115 978 2770www.thefalconinn.co.ukpage 22www.nottinghamcamra.org
Liquid Gold from the AndesOn holiday last year I think I discovered a place with more brewpubs tourist friendly. There we were shown the brewing process, which tookthan anywhere else in the world. What’s more, these brewpubs sold a place in a small room that also contained seating for drinkers. Wesort of cask-conditioned beer!were offered a tiny amount to sample, but the rest of our party dare notNo I wasn’t anywhere in the British Isles, indeed we only have a few try it so I helped out by tasting as much as I could, but still much lessdozen pubs that brew on the premises, although locally we are lucky than a quarter of a pint, insufficient to express a true opinion of thisto have the excellent Fox and Crown at Basford. It wasn’t North fascinating beverage.America either; although there are hundreds of brewpubs in Johnson the USA Arms, But then Lenton I struck lucky. We stayed overnight in the small town ofand Canada, Royal sadly Oak only Watnall a small percentage produce anything like aAgua Calientes, which is the base for visiting Machu Picchu situatedreal ale. Brewpubs exist in the rest of Europe but there are not many high up in the surrounding mountains. There I spotted a chichal, notand I do not recall any selling anything like a cask conditioned brew. usually found in tourist areas. I looked inside and could see the localsWe were driving out of the beautiful and ancient city of Cuzco in Peru sat round an small bare room clasping their stoneware jugs of chichiwhen I first started to notice long poles hanging out of the top of the and smiling broadly at me, a bit like Ena, Minnie, Martha and Albertdoors of the small village houses. These poles had a red plastic bag on in the snug of the Rovers! However my knowledge of Peruvian wasthe end in a sort of rough ball shape. When I enquired of our guide as zero and so I did not go inside as I would not be able to make themto their purpose I was astounded to learn that these were home brew understand what I wanted, they would surely have had me down for ahouses and the sign indicated that they had a fresh batch of beer for nutter (an accurate conclusion Newmarket, then! – Ed.) Instead Parliament I went Street into thesale. This was the invitation for the locals to gather in the front room small restaurant opposite where the girls spoke a smattering of English.of the house Three to imbibe Ponds the fresh Nuthall beer from stoneware mugs at a cost of There after using some sign language and continually repeating theBlacks Head Carltonjust a few centimes.Yes these are genuine brewpubs and what’s more I spotted hundredsof them on our travels through the magnificent countryside of Perufrom Cuzco to Machu Picchu, sometimes eight or ten on one smallvillage street. Apparently, it was the tradition to hang out a red flag toindicate beer was on sale, and I did see a few red flags, but apparentlythe red plastic bag on a pole was a cheaper and more durable option.Of course I was now desperate to visit one of these houses to samplethe beers. Our guide warned us that it was a strange brew and wouldupset our delicate western stomachs, but no way was I going to bewarned off that easily!I learned that beer that was brewed in these houses was called “chicha”and the brewpubs are called “chicharia” rather worryingly derived fromthe Spanish word “chichal”, meaning “saliva” or “to spit”! Chicha is atruly historic brew and the name comes from the beer’s early methodof production. Andean people for centuries had found salivato be an effective means for converting starches in grainsto fermentable sugars. Originally, the ladies who brewedthe beer started the process by masticating the corn; it wasthen spat out and left to ferment. This proved to be a slowand time-consuming process and so the current, moreefficient, method of making chichi gradually evolved thatdoesn’t include the chew and spit process!Corn is now left out in the sun to germinate, it is then groundand water is added which is brought to the boil and somesugar is added. After a three hour boil the liquid is strainedthrough a reed basket. Once the liquid has cooled, thesediment from a previous batch is pitched and fermentationtakes place over 3 to 6 days, and the chicha is generallydrunk before fermentation has completed, served directfrom the open fermentation pot.Interestingly, although it was around long before theirdominance, Chicha came to occupy a special place in theInca economic system because it served as a direct mediumof exchange, effectively a form of currency. This may seemstrange to us living in modern society, where money is usedto purchase goods and services. The Incas had no money,instead, they used an exchange system for all necessities of lifeMy continual questioning of our Peruvian guide, a proud descendantof the Incas, eventually wore him down and he agreed that we couldbriefly stop our coach at a chichal he knew to be particularly good andQuiz No 16 AnswersThe answers to quiznumber 16 on page 141) Norfolk 2) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 3) Chris Tarrant4) Livin’ Doll 5) Coventry 6) Peter, Phyllis & Roberta7) Paris 8) Dog 9) Alexandre Dumas 10) Mercury 11) 312) 80 minutes 13) Dried grapes 14) 1666 15) 1666word “chicha” they understood and went off to get me some from thechichal across the road, which presumably means it is also a beer-off!It arrived in a stone mug and the taste was interesting to say the least.It was a murky beige colour with no particular aroma. The taste wasvery distinctive, if anything similar to a rough cider or Belgian lambicand certainly not unpleasant. In fact it was rather refreshing in the heatand I quite enjoyed it. When I returned to our hotel my wife wasconcerned that it would upset my stomach, but I was ok and so thenext morning I took her with me to sample another one. OK•k I admitthere was a bit of gut rumbling afterwards but no real side effects andI would recommend anybody to try this fascinating brew.The irascible cellarmanPs. If you want to read more about this interesting beer and its history,Sir John Borlace Warren, Canning Circusan excellent article “Gold Of The Aqllakuna, The Story of Chicha” byBill Ridgely can be found at:http://xb-70.com/beer/chicha/aqllakun.htmServing ChichaChichafermentationvatlocal beer festivals and events - see page 20Chicha Flagpage 23
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Page 9 and 10: Ye Olde Saluation InnHounds Gate011
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