Now and Then, Railway hotel, Caerphilly

The old Rhymney Brewery pub, the Railway Hotel, Station Terrace, Caerphilly, was rebranded some years ago as a Plastic Paddy Palace, the Irish Thymes. It has recently been rebranded as Caerphilly Cwtch. It is owned by Enterprise Inn's Craft Union Pub Company, a managed division of the Pubco. The Caerphilly Cwtch seems as if it is keeping it's bad reputation despite the rebranding.

Now and Then, former Wellington PH, Nelson

The former Wellington Inn, High Street, Nelson is now the Wellington Stores, Rhymney Brewery Hobby Horse sign can be seen on the old picture

Now & Then, Lord Nelson Inn, Nelson

The Lord Nelson Inn, Commercial Street, Nelson, Caerphilly UA. The inn predates the village of Nelson, to which it gave its name.

Now & Then Church Inn, Bedwellty

Another former Rhymney and before that a Andrew Buchan's Brewery pub, the Church Inn, Bedwellty Road, Blackwood, Caerphilly UA. NP12 0BD. The Church Inn supposedly dates back to the sixteenth century.



A short distance away is the New Inn, which has kept it's Rhymney Hobby Horse sign

Above photo is © Copyright Jaggery and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Commercial Inn, Pontymister

Commercial Inn, Commercial Street, Pontymister, Risca, NP11 6BA
Open all day

The Commercial is situated on the main road through this valley's town and a short walk from Pontymister train station, on the Cardiff-Ebbw Vale line, or alternatively there is a bus stop nearby. Built in the late nineteenth century, the Commercial at first appears to be a typical street-corner local, however this gem of a pub is owned by local pub company Dragon Inns who have invested heavily in the pub to transform it into a multi-award winning outlet. The swinging red pub sign hanging outside the pub has the words 'Free House' emblazoned on it.

At the front of the pub, the covered veranda is heated and features benches and tables as well as a flat-screen television, smokers are well-catered for in this pub. There is also a large mural depicting some of the beers this pub has served over the years. The entrance hallway features doors to the lounge/dining room to the left and the public bar to the right, although the two rooms do meet up around the bar area. The carved wooden bar features five gleaming chrome handpumps, serving four real ales and a cider. The beer range is constantly changing but usually include something from the local Tiny Rebel Brewery of Newport as well as beers from breweries from across the country such as Abbeydale of Sheffield or Purple moose of Porthmadoc. A recent and rare beer on the bar recently was Black Falls Hopjam, a one-off, extremely hoppy special brew from Neath Ales. The cider is from Gwynt Y Ddraig. The Commercial Inn is a former local CAMRA Pub of the Year and holds Cask Marque accreditation as well. The many awards this pub has won over the years are displayed on the wall of the bar, together with the charitable donations the regulars have made to both local and national charities. Awards have come from not only CAMRA but from trade newspapers such as the Morning Advertiser and Publican, the Commercial Inn won Managed Pub of the Year for Wales for two years running.

The public bar area features a pool table and dartboard with electronic scoring board and there are flat-screen televisions throughout the pub, usually showing sporting events.

The Commercial serves food all day, both from traditional menus and chalkboard specials, with Thursday nights being grill nights.

Free WiFi is available via The Cloud.

Google Map:

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Traveline Cymru Information:
The Commercial is very easy to reach by public transport with bus stops outside and a train station (Cardiff-Ebbw Vale line) a short walk from the rear of the pub

Black Cock does beer festival

The Black Cock Inn on Caerphilly Mountain are holding their annual beer festival this weekend. More details here.
30 real ales and 6 ciders will be available over the weekend.

Live music to accompany your pints and last year had an Irish Jig Band plus a Hog Roast on the Saturday and a BBQ on the Sunday.

The £12 admission to the Real Ale and Cider Festival will include a commemorative glass and tokens for 4 pints/ 8 Half pints.

Google Map:

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Previous review of the pub here
Black Cock Inn, Waunwaelod Way, Caerphilly, CF83 1BD

White Cross Beerex

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A pub on the outskirts of Caerphilly will be holding a beer festival this weekend, starting on Friday 5th August and continuing throughout the weekend until Sunday. The White Cross, Groeswen A-B-C (Ale - Blues - Cider) festival always proves to be a popular event in this rural pub.

Beers will be served on rotation via the existing 3 handpumps on the bar plus two casks on gravity on the back stillage.

Cider list not available yet but 5 or 6 local ciders on offer. Entertainment Friday night and Sunday afternoon.

Heart of Wales		Llanwrtyd Wells
Innstable	6.8	Clue is in the name…I certainly think you will be Inn Stable after drinking this Powerful Pint. An ale with a bit of a kick is how it is described by the brewer, requires respect but has deceptive smoothness and easy quaffability.
Drovers	4	Smooth rounded session Bitter
Neath Ales		Neath
Witch Hunter	4.2	Ruch dark Ruby Ale, smooth and delicious
Gold	5	Citrus hop aroma and flavour
Monty's		Powys
Midnight	4	Multi award winning dark smooth creamy stout, full of dark malts and fruit flavours
Tudor		Abergavenny
Blorenge	3.8	A superb plae golden ale , bursting with citrus and floral aroma, long dry finish with pleasant after taste.
Skirrid	4.2	A Robust satisfying bitter with a rich mouth feel, well balanced flavours
Kingston		Monmouth
1503		Deep chestnut red, lightly hopped yet full of chocolate, coffee & malt Complexities
Humpty's Fuddle	5.8	Smooth IPA, warming, oaky-smokey tipple, slightly sweet floral nose, a balanced level of malt supporting the hops and a finally a subtle but slightly citrusy finish.
The Waen		Powys
First of the summer waen	3.9	Easy quaffable ale
Landmark	5.5	Siba Gold Champion, light in colour, an aroma of sunkissed hops and lemonbalm.
Bryncelyn		Ystradgynlais
Buddy's delight	4.2	Easy light ale, full of flavour
Vale of Glam		Barry
VOG IPA	4.6	NO name yet for this flavoursome brew,strongly bittered by Herkules hops, flavoured with Fuggles and Goldings, this is not a bland beer!

White Cross Inn, Groeswen, Cardiff, South Glamorgan CF15 7UT

Hop and Apple Festival at the White Cross

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The White Cross Inn at Groeswen, Caerphilly will be holding a 'Hop and Apple Festival' this weekend (October 23rd-24th). With ciders from Gwynt Y Ddraig and Blaengawny and the following list of beers it looks like a good weekend.
Moors (Somerset)
Revival 3.8%
A hoppy and refreshing bitter, light in colour but not in flavour

Woodlands (Nantwich)
Bees Knees 4.5%
A nutty, tan coloured beer influenced by the taste of Acacia honey

Vale of Glamorgan (Barry)
Wheats Occurring 5%
Refreshingly dry clear wheat beer, delicately flavoured with fine saaz hops

Box Steam (Wiltshire)
Chuffin Ale 4%
A traditional best, dark amber in colour light fragrant nose and pleasing hoppy character

Bullmastiff (Cardiff)
Special reserve 6.5%
A powerful ruby strong ale, well hopped with after taste of Butterscotch

Heart of Wales (Llanwrtyd Wells)
Welsh Black 4.4%
A fine Champion stout, full of liquorice flavour

Cotswold Spring (Gloucester)
Honey Bear 5.2%
A honey Wheat beer, smooth finish with honey aroma and taste

Goffs (Cheltenham)
Merlin 4.3%
Straw coloured hoppy ale

White Cross Inn
Groeswen
Caerphilly
CF15 7UT
From 12 Noon Till Late
Journey Planner:

A Caerphilly Meander

How to improve a pub

On a recent visit to Caerphilly I visited a couple of pubs as had some time to kill between buses home. Caerphilly really is crying out for a decent pub in the centre. Close to the bus station is the delightfully named Irish Tymes which appears to be the largest pub in the town and was once known as the Railway Inn when owned by Rhymney/Whitbread Breweries. Keg only so did not bother going in.

Further downhill is the M&B pub, the Kings Arms. Not too bad with Everards Sunchaser as a guest beer alongside up to 2 other real ales. Bright, clean, well-lit and popular with plenty of attentive bar staff, the Kings Arms offers the most consistent pint in the town. Not too many people drinking the real ales but quality not too bad.

Further down the hill again is the Court House, once a regular in the Good Beer Guide and even made it's own cheese some years ago. This should be the jewel in the crown of Caerphilly pubs, said to date back to 1320 with fantastic views of the castle to the rear, old stone walls and fireplaces this has everything you would want to see in a pub. Unfortunately it is let down by the management and staff. I should have been put off by the multitude of stickers in the front window telling me how many different CCTV cameras there are – always a nice way to welcome customers into your pub. The other windows were dirty and the remains of other window stickers were stuck on the panes. Only one handpump, serving Greene King Abbot – I only went for a half and it was an average half of an average beer. Walking towards the rear of the pub to look at the floodlit castle I was going to sit here but the tables were unlit – it may be saving a dolphin somewhere in the world but a dark and dingy pub does nothing to attract customers so I settled for a table in the front bar. A cheap speaker blurted out some piped music – if you are going to play music and pay the license for it then at least have a decent speaker system – the cheapest ones from Argos may be okay for a student bedsit but not suitable for a pub. Bizarrely in another corner Eastenders was blasting out from a wall-mounted television. Not that the half a dozen or so customers were interested in the music or television. The amount of laissez-faire shown by the customers was only matched by that shown by the barmaid who was busy chatting on the telephone when 3 customers walked in, went out the back and walked out again without so much as a acknowledgement from her. That's 3 customers lost who will no doubt tell others about the warm welcome they received in this pub. Sat at a table in the front bar I mistakenly put my arm down on the table, only for it to stick to the table, yes you have guessed it, this table had not been cleaned! Not the type of place to order food if their front of house cleanliness is not up to much. The table had also been vandalised by some chav who had seemed to think it was necessary to carve her name into the table top.

How to improve the Court House, Caerphilly (free advice):

1. Replace the present management/bar staff
2. Train bar staff in customer service and how to greet customers
3. Clean the windows of the pub
4. Clean the tables of the pub
5. Change the lightbulbs so they do not make the pub dark and dingy
6. Turn off the piped music or invest in better speakers
7. Turn off the television – who goes to pubs to watch Eastenders FFS?

Pubs are in a bad enough state already with falling customers numbers and if landlords are not prepared to do the simplest measures to encourage customers to go into their pubs then what hope is there for pubs like this? There is a rumour that Wetherspoons will be moving into the old Post Office building in Caerphilly, now that will no doubt cause around 4 Caerphilly pubs to close as this is what happens elsewhere in South Wales when a superpub opens. Should also give the other pub landlords a well-deserved kick up the arse to clean their pubs.

All in all the visit to Caerphilly was not entirely wasted, as on the way home I alighted from the bus in Machen and paid a visit to the White Hart for a superb couple of pints of Wye Valley HPA. The White Hart is a truly outstanding pub, decorated with wood panelling and other features from the liner the Empress of France which was scrapped in nearby Newport. Always an enjoyable pint to have here with friendly bar staff and chatty customers. A certain pub in nearby Caerphilly could do a lot to learn from the White Hart.

Worthy of a Blue Plaque?

It's not just Newport where the pubs are closing - this photo is of the Woodfield in Blackwood, formerly the Mason's Arms and the birthplace (or so he claimed in a television interview) of former MP Neil Hamilton. The pub was run by his grandfather.
The Mason's used to do a couple of real ales about 15 years ago - it has been years since I visited it and it did feature in the CAMRA Good Beer Guide. Think the brewery was Courage so the Mason's may well have been part of the Phillip's of Newport pub estate. Not sure which pub company owns it nowadays but the freehold is for sale.
Not even a blue plaque outside to mark the birthplace of one of the more colourful former Members of Parliament, if this had been a Labour MP the local authority would be naming streets after him.
Woodfield, former Mason's Arms
Bridge Street, Blackwood, NP12 1AX