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Pub Guide

Falcon - St. Neots

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Opening Times

Issue 139 Summer 2009

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A LOOK BACK IN TIME
25 YEARS AGO

Since the late 1990s, Yorkshire brewers Samuel Smiths have been known for producing just one cask beer, the revered Old Brewery Bitter. But 25 years ago they launched two new cask beers, 4X Mild and Tadcaster Bitter.

A self-cook barbeque was introduced in summer 1984 at James Paine pub the Victoria in Huntingdon. Tenants Ted and Gill Morgan picked up the idea on a Spanish holiday. Customers were invited to buy steaks and sausages at the bar and cook them in the pub garden to enjoy along with Paines XXX and EG cask beers.

National brewers Scottish and Newcastle pulled out of a takeover bid for Cameron’s of Hartlepool following its referral to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission after a campaign by CAMRA.

Another national brewer, Whitbread, closed its giant Luton plant 25 years ago following a six-week industrial dispute. 300 jobs were lost at the plant, which had produced keg beers and lagers but no real ale.

St Neots CAMRA held a summer social in 1984 at Manns pub the Jolly Sailor in Ramsey. There was also a minibus trip to Peterborough and a short pub crawl visited the Hardwicke Arms, Arrington and the Queen Adelaide at Croydon. Branch meetings were held at the Old Ferryboat free house at Holywell and Tolly Cobbold pub, the Red Lion at Kneesworth. At Great Staughton a branch social visited Charles Wells pub, the New Tavern and Manns pub, the White Hart.

Summer 1984 saw the launch of cask Flowers IPA by Whitbread. Their Cheltenham brewery replaced its cask Whitbread Bitter with the new beer, which was destined to become a national cask ale brand and eventually survive the demise of Whitbread as a brewing name. Today it is brewed under licence by independent cask ale brewers for brand owners InBev.

Ipswich brewer Tolly Cobbold re-assured CAMRA 25 years ago that it was not pulling out of Cambridge after the closure of a number of their city pubs. The Foresters, Locomotive and Dewdrop Inn were all closed and the future of the Station Hotel was under question.

West Midlands regional brewer Banks’s moved north with the establishment of a trading estate in the Manchester area in a mixture of acquisitions and new builds. Banks’s was aiming for an estate of 15-20 pubs in the region by the end of 1985.

Also in summer 1984, Salisbury brewer Gibbs Mew launched Salisbury Best Bitter, a new cask beer brewed to an original gravity of 1042.

Meanwhile their local rivals Wadworth of Devizes was struggling to cope with demand for their new 1046 dark premium bitter, Farmers Glory.

10 YEARS AGO

Greene King’s new head brewer Iain Masson experimented with ginseng as an ingredient in Old Horny, a seasonal special cask beer for spring 1999. Iain had taken over as head brewer from Alistair Healey, who had retired after 22 years at Greene King and recently won plaudits from all directions for the new 4.3% alcohol Triumph cask bitter and a seasonal cask version of the epic bottled beer Strong Suffolk.

Breweries Vaux in Sunderland and Wards in Sheffield closed in July 1999 as owners the Swallow hotels group turned down a management buyout bid. Local protests included thousands of football fans raising red cards at a home match of Sunderland Football Club, which was sponsored by Vaux. And Vaux pub tenants mounted a bid to buy their pubs from the Swallow group in the face of talks with Pubmaster as preferred buyer for the 670 pubs.

Another legendary cask ale brewer exiting brewing was Mitchells of Lancaster, which blamed the national downturn in cask ale sales for its decision to close its brewery in July 1999. In 2009, despite recessionary times having returned, the strategy has been reversed as Mitchells, which has continued in business as a pub chain, have bought the York microbrewery as a source of its own real ales.

In summer 1999, CAMRA called upon the Office of Fair trading to block a bid by national brewer Whitbread for the pub estate of its rival Allied-Domecq, which would have given it a 12% share of the UK pubs sector.

CAMRA was fighting the planned closure of the Courage brewer in Bristol, then the home of Courage Directors and Courage Best Bitter. Owners Scottish and Newcastle announced in May 1999 that the site would close by the end of the year, and CAMRA was urging them to sell the plant as a going concern.

CAMRA’s St Neots branch held its 1999 summer meetings at the Royal Oak at Hail Weston, the Prince of Wales in Hilton and the Chequers, Little Gransden, and visited the City of Cambridge brewery.

Ten years ago, the Cask Marque real ale quality accreditation scheme was planning a network of brewery training courses to help licensees improve cellar skills before their Cask Marque inspections. Greene King, a founder member of Cask Marque, was one of the first breweries to offer its facilities for the new initiative.

CAMRA in North Bedfordshire was supporting villagers in Milton Earnest seeking to save their local, the Swan. Greene King had closed the pub in February 1999 and it was feared that they would sell the site of the large 1930’s roadhouse style pub for redevelopment.

CAMRA went on the offensive against ‘smooth’ nitrokeg beers. Its 1999 conference agreed to highlight the negative qualities of nitrokeg beers as well as pointing out the superior distinctive and varied flavours of real ales.

The well-regarded and pioneering Tap and Spile chain of managed real ale pubs was sold to Enterprise Inns after their hostile takeover bid for owners Century Inns and its 500-strong pub chain. The future of the Tap and Spiles was uncertain because of Enterprise’s status as a tenanted pub chain. The pubs were expected to be let individually or sold on.