Now and then, Angel, Caerleon

 The former Angel ph, Caerleon is now a Sainsbury's Local Supermarket

Bell wins Cider Pub of the Year

The award-winning Bell Inn at Caerleon has another feather in its cap as today it was announced that it has won 'Cider Pub of the Year 2011' for South & Mid-Wales.
The village pub, set on Bulmore Road, a short walk over the Usk bridge from the main part of the village, has gained a reputation for cider since the previous tenant decided to start offering up to 20 different ciders and perries, both on draught and in bottle. New landlord Lee Taylor has kept and expanded the range and the Bell is now firmly established as the cider drinking pub in this part of Wales.

Article I previously wrote about the pub:

Situated across the river from the Roman fortress of Caerleon, the late-medieval Bell Inn is unmissable with its large chimney stack projecting out into the road and honeysuckle growing against it. This type of building is known as a lateral chimney house and when originally built the fireplace would have heated a large open hall, the present ceiling and first floor being inserted in the early seventeenth century. The stone-built fireplace has been partly filled in with building stones over the years but its arch shows how big it used to be. A black metal wood burning heater now stands in the fireplace, nowadays ample enough to heat the pub in winter. Above the fireplace are hung some of the awards this pub has won throughout the years. The Bell was a coaching inn in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and next door was a large malthouse to produce the vital ingredient to the pub's beer.

On entering the Bell there is a restaurant area to the left and a bar to the right. Exposed stone walls, dark wooden beams and flagstone floors add to the ambience of this historic inn. Settles and wooden chairs provide the perfect resting place to sit back and enjoy the live Celtic Music on Wednesday nights or the Jazz & Blues Sunday afternoons. Paintings from local artists are displayed on the walls and are available to buy.

There are three real ales on the handpumps featuring beers from breweries such as Charles Wells, St Austell and Black Sheep. The fourth handpump is reserved for a cider from International Cider Producer of the Year, Gwynt y Ddraig and features a rotating cider from their range such as Dog Dancer, Black Dragon or Brown Snout. To the left of the bar is a chalkboard with the different ciders and perries available, the Bell specialises in cider and offers around 20 different types, both still and sparkling. The draught ciders are served from the cellar as well as from the handpump on the bar. The Bell has previously won CAMRA Cider & Perry Pub of the Year for Wales and has even been a finalist in the UK national competition. The ciders often find their way onto the Bell's menu, being used as an ingredient in their award-winning chef's recipes.

The Bell features a car park to the side of the pub and there is a split-level outside drinking area decorated with colourful garden plants towards the rear. The Bell also hosts regular beer and cider festivals throughout the year.Bell Inn, Bulmore Road, Caerleon, NP18 1QQ

Hanbury Arms, Caerleon

The historic Hanbury Arms in Caerleon has reopened after a refurbishment and owners SA Brain have brought this historic inn well and truly into the twenty-first century. The pub has had an extensive makeover and the interior appears more spacious than before as well as being better lit. The old, thick interior walls remain as do the large fireplaces. The separate restaurant area is still there, although with new tables. Menus on every table as well as the chalkboards advertise the extensive food range this pub has to offer. Daily specials on a chalkboard as well. The beer range is predominantly from Brains but with two guests from other breweries; the range today was Brains bitter, SA, Rev James, Marstons Long Hop and Greene King Abbot, okay it may not be a spectacular range but this is in a pub just outside of Newport so any range is a good thing.
To the side of the pub is a ruined tower, built by the Normans to defend the quay on the River Usk. Later, in the sixteenth century the Morgan family built this house alongside it and by 1720 it was in the hands of the Hanbury family of Pontypool who used it and the quay to trade iron from their Pontypool furnaces. it later became a pub with the name of the Hanbury Arms

 

In 1856, the Poet Laureate Alfred Tennyson stayed at the inn for 6 weeks and wrote Idylls of the King here.

“The Usk murmurs by the windows and I sit like King Arthur at Caerleon", he wrote, also writing, "This is a most quiet, half- ruined village of about 1500 inhabitants”.

In those days the Hanbury brewed its own beer in a separate building, now demolished that was to one side of the pub. The medieval bridge was also next to the pub and a new bridge was opened in 1810.

By  1891 the local rowing team had their headquarters here, no doubt well-supported by the owner who was an Oxford blue rowing champion. The slipway by the side of the pub provided easy access to and from the River Usk.

 The Hanbury Arms on the right and the now demolished brewery on the left

Licensees: 

1891 John Sherwood

Above: Price list from 1893

1901 Josiah Brown & Son

1904 Mrs Phoebe Rowe

1907 John Sherwood

1910 Merged with Eastern Valley Brewery Co Ltd under John Sherwood

1914 Hancocks Brewery of Cardiff

Hancocks ended up in the Bass Charrington Empire and in the 1990s the Hanbury had been sold to a small pub company who were later taken over in 2001 by Brains Brewery.

 In the 1950s Hancocks Brewery decided to illustrate their best pubs in prints featuring their dray horses

 A lot of artistic license was used in the picture, mainly that the bridge by the pub had been demolished by 1820 and Hancocks had not started to brew in Wales until the 1870s! The building to the right of the pub with the two chimneys is the former brewery.

Today the Hanbury Arms has a large car park and offers good beer, food all day and extensive outside drinking areas, whether overlooking the river or in the courtyard towards the front. The Hanbury Arms is also easly reached from Newport by a regular bus service:

 

Hanbury Arms

Uskside, 

Caerleon, 

Newport, 

NP18 1AA 

Google Map:

View Larger Map 

Bell, Caerleon - Beerex this weekend

Bell Inn, Bulmore Road, Caerleon, NP18 1QQ

www.thebellatcaerleon.co.uk

Open all day

Situated across the river from the Roman fortress of Caerleon, the late-medieval Bell Inn is unmissable with its large chimney stack projecting out into the road and honeysuckle growing against it. This type of building is known as a lateral chimney house and when originally built the fireplace would have heated a large open hall, the present ceiling and first floor being inserted in the early seventeenth century. The stone-built fireplace has been partly filled in with building stones over the years but its arch shows how big it used to be. A black metal wood burning heater now stands in the fireplace, nowadays ample enough to heat the pub in winter. Above the fireplace are hung some of the awards this pub has won throughout the years. The Bell was a coaching inn in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and next door was a large malthouse to produce the vital ingredient to the pub's beer.

On entering the Bell there is a restaurant area to the left and a bar to the right. Exposed stone walls, dark wooden beams and flagstone floors add to the ambience of this historic inn. Settles and wooden chairs provide the perfect resting place to sit back and enjoy the live Celtic Music on Wednesday nights or the Jazz & Blues Sunday afternoons. Paintings from local artists are displayed on the walls and are available to buy.

There are three real ales on the handpumps featuring beers from breweries such as Charles Wells, St Austell and Black Sheep. The fourth handpump is reserved for a cider from International Cider Producer of the Year, Gwynt y Ddraig and features a rotating cider from their range such as Dog Dancer, Black Dragon or Brown Snout. To the left of the bar is a chalkboard with the different ciders and perries available, the Bell specialises in cider and offers around 20 different types, both still and sparkling. The draught ciders are served from the cellar as well as from the handpump on the bar. The Bell has previously won CAMRA Cider & Perry Pub of the Year for Wales and has even been a finalist in the UK national competition. The ciders often find their way onto the Bell's menu, being used as an ingredient in their award-winning chef's recipes.

The Bell features a car park to the side of the pub and there is a split-level outside drinking area decorated with colourful garden plants towards the rear. The Bell also hosts regular beer and cider festivals throughout the year, the next one will be over the weekend of the 6^th to 8^th August and will feature live music and a barbecue to wash down the fantastic ales and ciders that will be available.

Google Map:

View Larger Map

Journey Planner:

NB Alight by the Ship pub before the bridge

Historic pub closes for refurbishment

Above: The Hanbury Arms, Caerleon as it is this week. Below: a few years ago

One of Caerleon's most historic pubs has closed, only for a much needed refurbishment though, the Hanbury Arms on the River Usk has been closed by brewers SA Brain for a major refurbishment ahead of the Ryder Cup which is being held nearby later this year. In recent years I have taken a liking to Brains pubs refurbishments - the Halfway, Pontcanna and the Maltings, Llandaff, both in Cardiff along with the Greenhouse, Llantarnam, are all stunning examples of what can happen if the effort and money is put into refurbishing a pub. So I look forward to a trip to Caerleon in the near future to check out the newly refurbished Hanbury Arms.

Red Lion, Caerleon

A two-roomed pub, bar and lounge are still strictly segregated here. Another good boozer, The separation of both bars is such that it seems like two different pubs! No surprise the editor goes for a pint of Fullers LP here - favourite brewery in a good pub. Another pub to revisit and write a lot about. Gleaming copper pipes and well-tilled gents, worth a look for a 1930s throwback.

Bull, Caerleon

Brew Wales was not expecting to find Vale of Glamorgan brewery Light Headed 4% in this pub. Another pub that deserves a book about it rather than a quick blog done on the mobile. This 15th Century pub is rather good despite the interior has been knocked around over the years. Medieval beams mingle with salved Roman worked stones and nineteenth century brickwork to create this archetectural smorgesbord of a pub. Still the beer is good.

White Hart, Caerleon

A bit of a surprise to see Everards Tiger in this pub but it turns out to be a permanent fixture on the bar of this 1920s built pub. Again in Caerleon this is another pub to revisit and write about the history of the site. Wood-panelled throughout, from the 1920s it is unfortunate that the internal partitions were taken down to create the island bar we see today. Built on the site of the former Roman gatehouse this is not a bad pub.

Hanbury Arms, Caerleon

I've always liked this pub. Tennyson stayed and wrote here, the pub was used as a courthouse years ago and now it is owned by Brains. The photo shows the Norman tower and the 16th Century river facing side of the pub. Beers on tonight are Brains Bitter, SA, Rev James and Abbott. Average pint of Rev here, a malty mid-range beer. A pub where the history is more interesting than the beer. Still one to make another visit to and write about another time. I can remember this pub having a dog wheel in one section. This was where a dog used to run a wheel to turn a spit in the kitchen. Think it all stopped in the 19th Century but the wheel (and stuffed dog named Alma) used to be on display here.

Pubs in Parliament

Thursday 26th March saw an Adjournment Debate in the House of Commons on pubs and only 5 members of the House could spare the time away from their subsidised bars and restaurants, shagging in their offices and tax-payer funded second homes to actually attend this debate. The teetotal Prime Minister was of course on his world tour, where he gave politicians in South America the chance to make fun of him in ways that are usually only reserved for Conservative MEPs.

Now Thursday afternoons are not the busiest times in Parliament as many MPs head off back to their constituencies on that day to be ready (sober) for Friday morning surgeries, but if the Members for Ribble Valley and Selby, hardly close to London, were able to attend then I would have hoped that other Members of Parliament would have been present in the Chamber.
The debate was launched by Laurence Robertson MP for Tewkesbury, who came up with some interesting facts:

• The Drinks Industry contributes £14.79 billion a year to the economy (Source: House of Commons library)
• Each pub contributes an average of about £90,000 in taxes
• 84% of pubs are family-run businesses
• 350,000 people are directly employed by pubs
• On average, each pub contributes about £3,000 to charities in their areas
• Since the last Budget, more than 2,000 pubs have closed, costing the Government £180 million in lost revenue, with the loss of 20,000 jobs
• In the Tewkesbury Constituency 11 pubs have closed since June 2005
• An increase in alcohol duty in the 2009 budget would result in an additional 75,000 jobs lost in the following two years. (Oxford Economics)
• 39 pubs a week are closing

The MP for Tewkesbury also raised the problem of the pub companies that own the majority of the pubs in the UK. When the Monopolies and Mergers Commission investigated the Big Breweries, they recommended breaking up their empires. For instance, Bass as a brewer also had 7190 pubs, today Punch Taverns has 9095 pubs (although they sold 5 to Fullers recently). If Bass had a monopoly that was considered unfair then why is it that a pub company that owns more pubs not considered an unfair monopoly?

There has been a report by the Select Committee on Business and Enterprise on the monopoly of the pubcos, but this is yet to be published. Laurence Robertson MP also stated that only 14% of pub closures are of pubs owned by the top six pubcos, a figure which is wholly out of scale in South Wales, where the I estimate the number is closer to 80%.

John Grogan MP for Selby raised the possibility of extending rate relief, already available to rural pubs, to pubs in market towns and suburbs, in fact to any 'community pub'.
Nigel Evans MP for Ribble Valley raised the point of the high charges for Sky Sports channels for major sporting events.

The last two paragraphs of Laurence Robertson's speech I print in full from Hansard below:
“We would like to see, as all small businesses would, an end to the drip-drip regulation that affects all businesses, but small ones disproportionately. We need to allow diversification—perhaps post offices could be put in pubs—and we need a simplified planning system for smaller planning applications. I have said that mandatory rate relief should be considered, and there should not be any increase in business rates this year. As I said, the inflation figure is now nil anyway.
I stand to be corrected, but I understand that the Government have not yet responded to the excellent report on the community pub inquiry produced by my hon. Friend and his team. Perhaps they could respond to the excellent suggestions in it. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say, and I thank him again for attending. Pubs are well worth saving, for the reasons that I have given—their economic value and their value to the community. To pinch a quotation from my hon. Friend’s excellent report, the writer and one-time MP Hilaire Belloc said:
“When you have lost your inns, drown your empty selves, for you will have lost the last of England.”
I think he had it about right”.

The Government response was given by Gerry Sutcliffe MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, who acknowledged that the ideas about the role community pubs can play are excellent.
“In many cases, customers are put off going to pubs in town centres, for example, because of the violence that takes place”.
So the Minister accepts that town and city centres have become no-go areas and yet this Government has done nothing to halt the domination of town centres by superpubs where the majority of the problem lies. Even the police agree the problem lies with the superpubs as in Newport they have asked them to use plastic cups on Fridays and Saturdays. By ask of course, insist is meant and certain superpub operators were only to glad to suck up to the Gwent Constabulary, although one pub owned by an independent brewery told the police where to go as their company solicitor said, “The request has no basis in law”. Until a Government can address this issue with Prima Facie legislation, rather than the whims of the local Bobbies, then we will still have the problems in city centres.

The Under-Secretary also stated that the government will will give a response soon to the Parliamentary Beer Club inquiry, although he refused to say what the response would be! Great that should help reduce pub closures! He also stated that the enterprise credit guarantee scheme has been extended to all types of smaller pubs and will simplify the process for making minor variations to licenses as well as increasing the stakes and prizes for pub gaming machines. Now is the enterprise credit guarantee schemes one of those ideas from the teetotal one-eyed Jock in 10 Downing Street which is not working? Great another pointless promise from the Government.

An interesting quote from the Under-Secretary was that “a representative of Alcohol Concern said that the idea of community pubs was a good one”. So the state-funded fake charity Alcohol Concern now supports pubs? I somehow don't believe that the leaders of the new Temperance Movement will ever support pubs, but then I am more cynical than an Under-Secretary at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, a part of the Government with a title that reminds one more of a totalitarian state of Hitler or Stalin, than of an elected Government.

Gerry Sutcliffe MP summed up the debate with, “The pub is a traditional part of life here in the United Kingdom, and we must do what we can to ensure that it continues. Pubs face many challenges, but I think we are all united in wanting to advance consistent arguments in favour of enabling as many as possible to survive......What we are talking about is responsible drinking, supervised drinking, and ensuring that people drink reasonably in a safe environment”.

So does that last sentence mean doormen for every pub? – already a fact in City Centres on Friday and Saturday nights – something that does not mean safer City Centres as the Under-Secretary already referred to. Or does it mean plastic cups in every pub? Or does it mean legislation to stop the dominance of the superpub in City Centres? Whatever it did mean, a Parliamentary debate on the pub that only attracts 5 MPs is not going to achieve any quick fixes for the industry, or for that matter any long term fixes. Halves of shandies all round for that I think.

Bell, Caerleon

Lee rings in the changes at the Bell

New licensee Lee Taylor is definitely ringing the changes in the Bell, Caerleon. But cider lovers need not worry as South Wales' unique and award-winning cider house is not about to change into a chav-palace or, as has happened to pubs to the west of Newport, a curry house, instead Lee has decided to change the opening hours of the Bell and open all day. As well as keeping the cider menu – 24 ciders and perries at the last count, the food menu contains ingredients from local farms, including Trealy farm, as well as local cheeses. The menu changes regularly and recently one popular dish was Gwynt Y Ddraig Haymaker Cider and Butternut Squash Soup.

Another new innovation is that from 1000 on Saturdays and Sundays, the Bell will be open for breakfast.

For those of you who do not like cider, the Bell is also keeping up its tradition of serving real ales including those of the nearby Cwmbran Brewery.

Lee hopes to continue the tradition of regular beer festivals at the Bell and the dates will be published here later.

Bell Inn, Bulmore Road, Caerleon, NP18 1QQ, open 11-11 Mon-Fri, 10-11 Sat, 10-10.30 Sunday.

The cider menu