Take me to church

As a Brit, I obviously have a Brit level obsession with talking about the weather (what else would we discuss with our colleagues as we stare forlornly out the office window). I sometimes think that descent into middle age is directly proportional to the number of times you check the weather forecast. Despite the fact you can’t change things, and what’s going on outside often seems hopelessly at odds with the prediction anyway.

A couple of weeks ago, however, I didn’t have to check the Met Office website to know what would be going on in the skies up above. The fact that it was August Bank holiday weekend, coupled with our last camping trip of the year, made it a nailed on certainty that it would rain. Lots and lots of rain.

Clearly, as a Brit, I have also grown impervious to a bit of drizzle and so there was no chance that our trip - to Stoke Golding in Leicestershire, the village where Henry VII was crowned, heralding the start of the Tudor Dynasty - was going to be called off.

Yes, the Battle of Bosworth may only have taken place because Henry’s initial attempt at the throne had been scuppered by bad weather, but I felt far better prepared – having made detailed notes of the opening hours of all the pubs near the campsite, and remembered to pack a book, a waterproof jacket and a healthy dose of optimism….

Being prepared also meant thinking about what we were going to drink if we were tent-bound, and fortunately I found that Church End Brewery was only a few miles away from the campsite. 

Walking inside there's the welcoming and slightly nostalgic feeling of an old social club; hardly surprising, as that's what it originally started life as. With the freshly whitewashed walls and the smell of antiseptic soap, the loos reminded both me and the Ewing of primary school. This time without the Izal loo roll and with the addition of some racy advertising posters on the wall.

The brewery, you can see the workings through the glass window in the tap room, is clearly proud, and rightly so, of Goats Milk being named Supreme Champion Beer of Britain  2017 by CAMRA - I particularly like the 'Gloats Milk' poster by the bar - so obviously I had to have a pint. Say what you like about CAMRA, but they clearly know about ale, and this was a very good pint; dry and biscuity with a hint of lemon. Controversially I think I preferred the Folk a Cola, a refreshing golden bitter brewed for the Warwickshire Folk Festival. 

They were out of home made sausage rolls (boo) but they did have a range of pies and pasties from the nearby Rowley's butchers (yay). As well as being the spiritual home of the pork pie, the Midlands also produces the king of cheeses: Stilton.  So what could be better than a pork pie topped with the blue cheese. We also had a, very good, hot steak pasty; and possibly another pork pie.... 

Although it was still early on Saturday lunchtime I was already on my two pint limit (the Ewing was driving, plus knew we had to put a tent up...) so we got a 4 pint takeaway of the Irish Coffee Stout to take to the campsite. A beer the Ewing had been rhapsodising over at the brewery. A coffee and Jameson whiskey infused beer, this was as delicious as it sounded, although drinking it did hinder my attempts at helping sustain an erection. I think my wife was happy I kept my distance.

With the weather set to be biblical floods and plagues of locusts on Sunday, the one thing in our favour appeared to be that the George and Dragon, the Church End owned pub in the village, was offering a roast. Hot meat and potatoes, lashings of gravy, pints of well-cellared ale and shelter from the elements. Suddenly the rain didn’t seem so bad. That was until the Ewing phoned up to book and found it had been cancelled.

Initially this was fairly devastating news – a day trapped under soggy canvas, surviving on rations of cereal bars and and Pringles (although the second bit didn’t actually sound too bad) – but it quickly improved when she discovered the reason for the cancellation was because it clashed with Stoke Fest, the annual village beer/music/dog festival the lady on the phone excitedly recommended instead. Which is where – after several faintly hysterical, but strangely enjoyable, hours waiting for the rain to stop - we found ourselves.

Like all good village get-togethers there were hot dogs and burgers, and an ice cream van and a tombola and several, damp, dogs, dressed in their Sunday best from the dog show earlier. There was also some pretty decent live music, including young local lads playing ‘classics’ like Nirvana and Oasis, which they probably qualify as, which made me feel even more decrepit than I had waking up that morning, after a night on the camp bed.

Of course there was cask beer from Church End available in the beer tent, and of course that’s what we chose to drink, blasting through a couple of pints each of the excellent Gravedigger’s dark ale and the punningly named but less successful, What The Fox's Hat golden ale.

As well as a trio of pubs, Stoke Golding also has an Indian restaurant, so that's where we headed for some warming food (and it certainly helped warm the tent later that evening). They didn't serve Church End ale, but I did have a nice cold pint of Cobra lager, which was the perfect match with our chicken tikka-stuffed naan bread. My new favourite naan bread.

Monday dawned bright and sunny, which meant a happy morning drying out socks, a chance to read our books and drink copious amounts of campfire tea in the late summer sunshine. And, even better, the George and Dragon, normally shut at the start of the week, was open for the bank holiday for lunch and drinks.

After the Ewing spied and nabbed a homemade sausage roll and a gargantuan scotch egg to take home for later, I dove straight into a pint of the Old Englishman's Summer ale. Quickly chased with a pint of Gravedigger's ale, the wonderful roasty mild I had first sampled the day before, and my favourite of all their beers I tried over the weekend.

I was also overjoyed to see that they had faggots on the menu; one of my absolute faves and a must order whenever I see them, especially when served with the most glorious fresh cut chips, lurid mushy peas and  beefy gravy. Served piping hot, anointed with lashings of salt and gravy, there was no better plate of food to warm my, slightly damp and soggy, cockles. The Ewing also readily inhaled her fish and chips, hence the lack of photographic evidence.

Puds were of the resolutely old school variety which, again, filled me with little frisson of joy. Who could fail to be excited by a great wodge, of raisin-flecked, bread and butter pudding sitting in a lake of vanilla custard, or a paving slab of molten sticky toffee pudding in a lake of cold double cream. Both little moments of rib-sticking pleasure. 

On our way out the village we found this blue plaque which, in a wonderfully banal way had been attached to someone's modern brick gatepost. I don't remember much from my history A Level, but I do remember reading that the Winter King passed a law that stated 'that no Gascony or Guienne wines should be imported into any part of his dominions.' He must have sampled a pint of the Goats Milk.

Great oaks from little acorns grow - The Royal Oak

One of my favourite stories to recount on the blog – like that slightly inebriated, repetitive person you hope you don't get stuck with at a party - is from when Stealth was heartbroken and I, being a supportive friend, had arranged to meet up with her. Ostensibly to help her through her dark time, but also because I knew we could go to Tonkotsu for ramen, followed immediately after by a Jose Jose burger at Patty and Bun and, as long as she had a steady supply of beers and the odd gyoza, we would both be perfectly happy.

Thankfully, after 25 years of friendship, things still broadly follow the same pattern, although most recently it was me in need of a supportive kick up the arse. Cue a midweek dinner date which happily happened to coincide with Dan Doherty's - formerly of Duck and Waffle but also found sampling amateur cook's roasts and crumbles next to Mary Berry on the Beeb -  new venture, the Royal Oak, five minutes from Marylebone Station. Beer for both of us, slightly drunken ranting potential for me and possibly the hottest scotch egg in Town right now for Stealth. Because I’m nice like that.

As ever, I was there first, so had ample time to get stuck into a pint of Five Points Pils – The Heatwave, innit - from the well-curated beer list. My entertainment while waiting came from Dan himself being mobbed by adoring fans (not me, as I possess far too much Englishness, and hadn’t had anywhere near enough beer at that point) as he emerged briefly from the kitchen.

Thankfully Stealth wasn’t as late as I feared she’d be, and came sans bike, so there was less reflective garb to remove before she went to the bar. This time for pints of Five Pint XPA, sensibly a slightly lower ABV to lubricate my tales of woe.

Currently the pub has had the quick once over, in preparation for a proper refurb in the autumn, but any one on Insta recently would probably already have seen some pretty serious pub grub coming out of the tiny kitchen on Dan’s feed (unless you’re my wife, in which case you only see orphaned kittens and wonky vegetables on social media).

As mentioned above, probably the most iconic of these - can it be iconic after a couple of weeks, can something in breadcrumbs ever be iconic? - is the chorizo scotch egg. My feelings on eggs have been documented even wider than my feelings on boozing with Stealth, but she remains a huge fan (of me and the ouef), and seemed, by all accounts from the picture at least, very happy with this.

Far more to my taste was their clever reimagining of a sausage roll - not something I would necessarily consider in need of a revamp, but I’m glad they did it anyway - in the form of merguez sausages that had been wrapped in sheets of filo before being deep-fried and served with whipped feta. And at four quid for a brace, possibly the biggest steal in W1.

Stealth chose the starter-sized (still a hefty puck) tartare for her main, probably because it came with yet more yolk on top. I’m not sure if I was offered this, and declined, or if the question was ever answered, but there was precious evidence left to suggest it wasn’t a success.

I had the rabbit – a leg that had been confited before being breadcrumbed and deep fried – which was quite lovely and came with some excellent chicory in a punchy vinaigrette and a heap of baby new potatoes, that I was too upset to finish at the time but am possibly even more upset when I think back on not finishing them.

I did manage another beer though. Several more, although I attribute this partially to the fact that a summer rain storm swept through - the first and last proper rain I have seen in weeks – just as we were leaving and we were forced, like rats from a sinking ship, back to the bar. At lease our friendship continues to weather all storms.

Wycombe Bites - Heidrun

Like the old adage about buses, we’ve seen two ‘craft beer’ bars springing up within a stone’s throw of each other in Wycombe in the latter half of this year. Which is pretty revelatory for a town who’s drinking culture was until recently (like many other towns in England) dominated by ‘Spoons, Stella and Strongbow – the very beverage that bought me and my wife together, in the pub garden of the Antelope, July 2008.

The first of these to open was Heidrun, which, I presume, is named after the goat in Norse mythology who consumes the foliage of the Læraðr tree and produces mead for the warriors who have died in battle. I’ve yet to see any mead on their regularly changing beverage list, although they do always have Thistly Cross elderflower cider, which I first got into on a trip to Glasgow and remains dangerously drinkable. They also have a cute little courtyard garden that somehow manages to invoke a feeling of the South of France rather than South Bucks on a warm evening.

Inside is bijou but equally swish, with white and green tiled booths and a central horseshoe-shaped bar with stools covered in powder grey suede; soon, no doubt, also to be covered with stale beer and sticky fingerprints. The bar itself is dominated by their 20 keg and cask taps which regularly change - ergo so does the beer menu, which seems to have just been reprinted every time I visit as I seem to be perpetually hunting down the most up-to-date one.

One thing you can be sure of, once you’ve got hold of it, is there’s going to be some good beers listed. It's not just a mecca for hop heads either, as they offer a large selection of wines and cocktails from (very good) spritzes and sours through to Manhattans and margaritas and bloody marys to wash down brunch at the weekend.

Some of the keg beers I’ve sampled so far include; Burning Sky l’ete; Mikkeler's Ich Bin Berliner (the raspberry version); Buxton and Omnipollo's Lemon Meringue Pie and Thornbridge Lukas; all solid summery choices. There's normally some Kernel, Beavertown, and Magic Rock on offer and I’ve also drunk a lot of Siren, including Pompomocello, their Proteus IPA and the delightful Caribbean Chocolate Cake stout.

Cask beer, following a theme in this town, is less successful; a friend found their half of Brighton Bier pretty much undrinkable while the Ewing’s Arbor Umm Bingo and Stealth's Jaipur were served flat and too warm, making it taste incredibly sweet and syrupy. All beers, regardless of type or method of dispensation, are reserved in the same stemmed glasses, which might also upset the purist.

One thing that definitely won’t disappoint are the freshly baked sausage rolls. A giant cylinder of juicy fennel seed-flecked pork wrapped a carapace of crisp pastry, served with a homemade beer ketchup. Originally the aforementioned ketchup was more like a bowl of Heinz tomato soup, something I actually quite enjoyed, but it seems to be getting a little more substantial on each visit. The magnificent sausage roll itself remains peerless even if it is a proper knife and fork number, taking it out of true bar snack territory.

The scotch egg is equally swanky, coming encased in black pudding and served with mustard mayo and watercress. It looks very tasty, though - even for a vowed egg-avoider like myself. Oeuf fancier, Stealth certainly made quick work of it.

There is, however, a notable absence of crisps and scratchings, although you can get a tumbler of warm nuts for four quid. As nice as they are (and they are nice, as I got to sample a complimentary taster during one afternoon spent propping up the bar), I’d be just as happy with some posh crisps (preferable Pipers chorizo flavour, which I've discovered taste exactly like a saveloy). 

The rest of the menu is also on the spendier side for Wycombe, although they are clearly trying to lure in a different calibre of clientele than most of the surrounding establishments. I’m not sure how many takers there are for the £28 steak or the 18 quid pork chop, but the burger - at 13 quid, served with good parmesan truffle fries and more of their beer ketchup  – is decent; fluffy brioche bun, pink and juicy patty and lots of pickles.

The capable kitchen are equally adept at deserts and I would recommend the churros, served with a salted caramel dip. Even the Ewing liked these, despite her antipathy for the tubular doughnuts they serve in Spain, which was unfortunate for me as I had to share. I’m also still awaiting the baked custard tart with poached rhubarb to make it back on the menu.

As if beer and sausage rolls wasn't enough they have recently started offering beer flights - six quid for four quarter pints. If you really want to go for it you can go flying with wings, adding a portion of their buffalo wings to the mix for a tenner. You should definitely do that.

So, while maybe not quite in the league of Aegir - the ale-brewer of the gods who served his beer from a cauldron given to him by Thor, complete with glasses that never ran empty and parties that lasted all winter long (which is pretty much all the time in Scandinavia) - Heidrun is still pretty good for a new kid (boom) on the block.