Beer bars of Newport

It's ben a few years since I last did a video with You Tube Beer Reviewer Simon Martin so we recently met up in Newport for brief history lesson on the pubs and former breweries of Newport

 

Murenger in the Telegraph

Newport's very own 'Haven in a Superpub Ghettto', the famous Olde Murenger House has made it into the Famous Grouse Famous pub list in the Daily Telegraph.
The Sam Smith's owned pub and CAMRA Good Beer Guide regular has been a haunt of mine for years, I can remember the days of Musuem Ale (bring it back Humphrey!) and still pop in regularly now as it is the best pub in the City Centre.
The Murenger House was one of the first pubs I ever wrote about on this blog, way back in 2007 and the post can be found here.
Other Welsh pubs featured in the Famous Grouse list are:
Black Boy Inn, Caernarfon

Located in Caenarfon Castle, The Black Boy Inn is a cosy and popular pub.


The Golden Cross, Cardiff
The Golden Cross is famed for its spectacular interior and the exterior is also rather impressive.


The Neuadd Arms Hotel, Llanwrtyd Wells

Come here to enjoy their Heart of Wales Brewery beers and watch the World Bog Snorkelling Championship.


The Packet Hotel, Cardiff Bay

The Packet is one of the last remnants of the old Cardiff docks.


The Royal Oak Hotel, Roath

Built in 1896 or earlier, The Royal Oak has a boxing ring on one of the upper floors, with boxing photographs covering the bar walls.


Ye Olde Bull's Head, Beaumaris

Ye Olde Bulls Head is a historic Welsh pub, having been visited by Charles Dickens, and furnished with an original ducking stool and antique weaponry.

All on the Daily Telegraph website here

Well done to Brains for getting three of their pubs in the list - Packet, Royal Oak and Golden Cross.

Newport Publican celebrates 20 years behind the bar

 Above: There is no truth in the rumour that Al Murray based his most famous character on Rob Jones of the Murenger!

Award-winning publican Rob Jones has recently celebrated 20 years of managing one of Newport's finest pubs, Ye Olde Murenger House. A regular entry in the CAMRA Good Beer Guide, the Murenger is famous as the 'Haven in a Superpub Ghetto' - with its no chav policy and sportswear being banned - polo shirts and rugby shirts excepted as, of course, they would be - the Murenger is one of the best pubs in the City. The Murenger does not have bouncers outside on weekends as other pubs do - the main reason for this is that if Rob does not think the customer is suitable they do not get served - a policy that has served Rob and customers well for 20 years in this grand old Tudor building.

Above: Ye Olde Murenger House, High Street, Newport

Rob previously worked for Sam Smiths in the Swiss Cottage pub in Chalk Farm, North London before returning home to his a native town to take on the reigns of the Murenger. During his time running the Murenger, owners Sam Smith's have restored the building with their sensitive refurbishments and Rob has even introduced a charity bookshelf made from the timbers of the old bar into the pub. 

And a blast from the past below, from the archives of the South Wales Argus, Rob Jones with hair! 

Some history about the Murenger House is available here.

Murenger House - 1970s

Here is a photograph of my local pub, Ye Olde Murenger House, taken in the 1970s. Now I have previously written about the Murenger in one of the first posts I ever did back in November 2007. In the 1970s the Murenger House was in a perilous state, having to be propped up with scaffolding to prevent it from collapsing as in the photograph above. Buses were diverted from High Street to prevent vibrations from damaging the Tudor builing any further and it the future did not look good for the building. Luckily Sam Smith's Brewery of Tadcaster, Yorkshire stepped in to repair and save the building. Today the Murenger House is a thriving pub with good beer (its in the Good Beer Guide) and good conversation. Well done Sam's!

Organic Cherry Beer

Okay the last Sams beer of the night. After the tastebuds being overwhelmed with the stouts earlier have decided that something different can only bring them back. Step forward Sam Smith's Organic Cherry Beer at 5.1% ABV and available in a 330 ml bottle. Brewed at Sam's other brewery, the Melbourne Brothers brewery in Stamford, Lincolnshire and blended and bottled at the Old Brewery in Tadcaster, this is an interesting addition to the range. A cherry red colour of this organic beer leads to an intense aroma of, well cherries, think Black Forest Gateux in a glass. The taste is again of cherries with a swoop of flavour over the tongue. This is not a sweet beer though, the bitterness of the cherries comes through very well. A beer to cook deserts with I think or even as a marinade, for venison I think. Right off to poach a deer.

Oatmeal Stout

Well it is the season for dark beers and where better to have a few than the Murenger in Newport. On the Sam Smiths Oatmeal Stout now, there are not many pubs or even breweries that carry 2 different stouts in their range. Sams even have a third, the Extra Stout on draught, but keg only. Back to the beer, again Oatmeal Stout is in a 550ml bottle and is an intense black beer with a slight reddish hue, the aroma is of roast coffee and dark chocolate. The initial taste is a sweet bitterness, followed by the intense aftertaste of bitter roasts that form the astringent lasting flavour that lingers. Not as strong in flavour as the Taddy Porter but a good flavoursome stout that is worth trying.

Taddy Porter

Sam Smith's Brewery is very traditional or set in its ways as some might say. This is even shown in the size of their bottled beers which are 550ml instead of the more common 500ml. Its a bit of a suprise when you are used to pouring a 500ml bottle into a pint glass and suddenly realise this bottle is not going to fit! Anyway the Taddy Porter is 5% and is an intensely black beer with an aroma of roast malts and fruits, am detecting caramelised apple in the aroma. The taste is a bittersweet flavour at first before the tongue is swept by a tsumami of roasted and charcoaled taste sensations. As the beer warms up, it came straight from the fridge, the full complexity of Taddy Porter is revealed. Lots of flavour and lots of taste, packed into a beer from the oldest brewery in Yorkshire.

Old Brewery Bitter

Not a Welsh beer, but brewed at Sam Smith's in Yorkshire and available in Ye Olde Murenger House in Newport for the bargin price of £1.90 a pint. This brown coloured ale is drawn from oak casks - Sams are the last brewery to do this on any scale. Wadworths still employ a cooper but you hardly ever see their wooden casks apart from in a few of their pubs. I think the wood does impart some flavour to the beer, tannins are noticable in the aftertaste of the OBB and the harsh, bitter flavour of the beer is not to everyones taste but I like it. Its a shame the brewery no longer produces the stronger Museum any more but that's what you get with this brewery which does not even have a website. Back to the beer. Live blogged from the Murenger on the Sony Ericsson k550i

Murenger - haven in a superpub ghetto

Newport is not a great place for good pubs, however Ye Olde Murenger House on High Street is the notable exception. Owned by Sam Smith's brewery of Yorkshire, the Murenger serves Old Brewery Bitter drawn from the wooden cask. The building dates back to the early 1500s. Have written about this pub on previous blog entries so not going into all the details here but if you are ever in Newport it is well worth visiting. The price of the OBB is a competitive £1.90 a pint and there is no music or TVs in the pub. Time for another. Live blogged from the Murenger using the Sony Ericsson K550i.

Ye Olde Murenger House Charity library

The best pub in Newport, Ye Olde Murenger House, has a charity library with which customers can choose a book for 20p. Not really a library as you get to keep the book and of course you can donate any spare books you have to the shelves. The shelves are made out of the wood from the former bar, rescued from the skip when the Murenger was refurbished some years ago. With the motto "Libraries Gave Us Power" emblazoned on the top of the shelves, the Murenger charity bookcase is another addition to this great pub. Oh and please do not attempt to donate any Dan Brown books, no one wants them, the charity shop opposite refuses to take the overfill and they end up in the recycling bin!

Ye Olde Murenger House - paintgate update

Further to my previous update - it appears the choice of colours for the outside of the pub was left to the painters themselves, without any reference to listing building status or the local council. Despite Brew Wales best attempts no one from Newport Council was available to comment on this flagrant breach of planning law on Friday afternoon. Hardly suprising as this weekend is a bank holiday and it is well known that council employees regularly have an extra holiday. In fact Brew Wales witnessed a few members of the planning department actually drinking in the Murenger this afternoon. Ok lads, obviously to busy to return my phone calls, along with the so called PR department of the council who are more interested in producing a local rag with positive council stories (Pravda had nothing on it) rather than field inquiries from the press. But then the PR experts employed by councils still regard the MSM as the major organ of communiction to the public and phone calls from mere bloggers are not worth replying to. Afterall with the South Wales Argus now being printed in the Midlands, the local government officials who are responsible for dealing with the press have their new deadlines to deal with according to the copy deadline of US company Gannet. Not suprising no one from Newport Council was available to comment. Note: Newport Council were first contacted 1215 friday and Brew Wales asked for a quote about the vandalism of the Murenger House. The council chose not to reply. Hoons the lot of them.

UPDATE: Newport Council finally got back to me and agreed that the current paint scheme is not in keeping with a Grade II Listed Building. Letters are starting to fly.

Murenger - not glad to be grey

Ye Olde Murenger House is an unmistakable black and white timber-framed Tudor pub in the City Centre of Newport. Or was, owners Sam Smiths of Yorkshire decided to repaint the Grade II listed building in grey-green gloss with an off-white plaster! Now I have always been supportive of Sams in the past, they saved the Murenger from collapse but a colour scheme such as this is not suitable for a building of almost 500 years of age. If the present customers are not happy, then those who haunt the pub will be up to their usual tricks tonight. Have only just looked into this story and cannot find any listed building consent on Newport council website for this makeover and Brew Wales is waiting for a call back from the council over this bodged repainting.

Week in Week Out - new series

New series of the hard-hitting report programme. With an estimated five pubs going out of business in the country every week as a result of both the recession and the smoking ban, the show questions what role licensees have had in these rapid closures.

Filming Week in Week Out in Ye Olde Murenger house, Newport.

Media Wales give their piece on 5 pub close in Wales ever week here.

Great Pubs of Wales

A new series of Great Pubs of Wales begins on Thursday July 17th at 1930 on ITV Wales. The first episode in the series will look at the Old House, Llangynwyd and as usual John Sparks and the crew will be visiting historical pubs around Wales. For the first time they visit a city centre pub - Ye Olde Murenger House in High Street, Newport.

John Sparks and the crew take a break whilst filming.

Pat gets interviewed about the ghosts of the Murenger House.


Whilst John the Quiff gets interviewed before bursting into song with the rest of the choir.


For more history on the Murenger House check out a previous blog entry

Murenger House

Pub of the week 05/11/07

Ye Olde Murenger House
“A haven in a superpub Ghetto”

The name Murenger comes from the person responsible for collecting taxes or murages for the upkeep of the town walls. Since the town was destroyed in 1294, 1316, 1321 and 1402 it appears that the walls were not that good. The original Murenger’s House was a stone structure situated elsewhere in High Street and was demolished in the 19th Century.

The first mention of this building was in 1533 when it was the town house of the local landowners: the Herberts of St Julians Manor. The traditional date of the building is 1530 but may be earlier. In the Tudor room upstairs, there are plaster mouldings on the ceiling of intertwined Tudor roses and Spanish pineapples, symbolising the marriage of Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon. The union lasted from 1509 until 1533 but the last eight years were widely known to be a bit shaky to say the least, so a date in the earlier part of the marriage can be attributed to the building.

In 1541 Sir Charles Herbert was the High Sheriff of Monmouthshire and would have stayed and entertained at this large, solidly built Tudor town house. By the 17th Century the building had become a pub, the Fleur-de-Lys, a name which stayed until the 19th Century when it acquired the present title.

In the 1970s the building was in serious danger of total collapse – scaffolding was erected on the street outside and buses diverted in case vibrations brought further damage. Luckily Sam Smith’s brewery stepped in and bought the place in 1980 and conducted an extensive refurbishment, reopening in 1983.

The Murenger underwent another refurbishment in 2003 and reopened with the bar moved and more nooks and corners to drink in. Sam Smiths still own the pub and the Old Brewery Bitter is served from the wooden barrel, one of the last pubs in Wales to do so. For other drinkers there is a range of lagers and even a Yorkshire-brewed wheat beer, comparable to any Bavarian-brewed weiss bier.

In a building this old, as well as the regular customers, it comes as no surprise that there are a few customers who have been there for a lot longer than a few pints. These hauntings include a serving wench, an elderly man and a ghostly figure of a woman who appears in the top upstairs window. However, sightings are rare since the citizens of Newport tend to scare the undead off every weekend!

The Murenger House does look slightly out of place in modern Newport; a Tudor building in a City with architecture from the 19th and 20th Centuries. If you visit the pub then have a look at the photos of old Newport on the walls – this 3-storey building stood out in the 19th Century as one of the tallest buildings in High Street – today it is dwarfed by neighbouring buildings on either side. The Murenger is a remarkable survivor in this City which, unlike other city centres was not destroyed by the Luftwaffe but by the incompetence of the town council in the 1960s and 70s. It's thanks to Sam Smiths Brewery that this pub will be with us for another 500 years.

Ye Olde Murenger House, 53 High Street, Newport, NP20 1GA