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Pub Guide

Opening Times

Issue 141 Winter 2009-10

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A LOOK BACK IN TIME
25 YEARS AGO

The revered brewing company Theakstons were the victims of a successful £3.07 million takeover bid from Blackburn brewer Matthew Brown, who were quick to give guarantees that the independent image, beers and production facilities in Masham and Carlisle would be retained.

Blackburn’s other brewery, Thwaites, was also on the takeover trail 25 years ago, as they obtained Lancaster brewer Yates and Jackson in a £5m deal. Thwaites were more blunt about their plans. The plant would close by January 1985 and Thwaites said that no Yates and Jackson beers would be made at their Blackburn brewery.

Mickles Brewery ceased trading 25 years ago after operating for around 2 years from premises at Lilley, near Luton and then at Walkern near Stevenage, where they rented a part of the former S.Wright’s brewery. Mickles Birch and Oak Bitters had become well known in the local free trade.

St Neots CAMRA were bemoaning the impending loss from their area of Greene King’s cask pale mild, KK, after the beer was dropped from Eaton Socon pubs the Old Sun and George and Dragon.

Work began in late 1984 to convert the historic Cross Keys in St Neots into a shopping mall. Unfortunately, after planning consent had been granted, the agents received enquiries from purchasers wishing to buy the former Paines pub as a going concern.

Another Paines pub, the Crown at Great Staughton, was on the market at an asking price of £70,000.

St Neots CAMRA held a meeting at the Olde Sun in Eaton Socon and there were winter socials at Whitbread pub the George in Fenstanton and Charles Wells pubs the Angel in St Neots, the Crown and Cushion, Great Gransden, the Dragoon in Brampton and the Barley Mow at Hartford.

Watney pubs the Robin Hood in St Ives and the Black Bull at Brampton were the latest to receive the strong draught bitter Founders Ale, a real ale then produced by the group’s Ushers brewery in Trowbridge, Wiltshire.

The Seven Wives in St Ives won a company award for the biggest percentage sales increase in May and June 1984 in the managed house chain run by Hamden Hosts, part of owners the Grand Metropolitan Group which also owned the Watney Mann and Truman brewery group.
10 YEARS AGO

St Neots CAMRA held monthly meetings at Batemans’ newly acquired Lord John Russell in St Neots and the Prince of Wales at Hilton. There was a minibus tour of pubs in Colne, Bluntisham and Needingworth and a Christmas social at the Green Man, Leighton Bromswold following its win of the coveted CAMRA Cambridgeshire Pub of Year award for 1999.

St Neots CAMRA ran its Winter Ales Festival at St Neots Town Football Club in January 2000 with a range of warming ales from East Anglian craft brewers, including Buffys 9X, Elgoods Reinbeer, Mighty Oak Bingle Jells, and Cyclops from the newly-opened Milton Brewery in Cambridge.

Richard Naisby set up Milton Brewery in late 1999 with business partner Tony Brooks following a chance meeting in Pakistan around three years earlier. They designed the brewery and put the 15 barrel plant together using mostly second hand reconditioned brewing vessels. Remarkably for such a venture, their initial range of beers – Pegasus, Jupiter, Cyclops and Minotaur – was so strong that it remains as a major part of the Milton range in 2009.

Another new Cambridgeshire brewer in late 1999 was Roger Payn, who opened Payns brewery in Ramsey using equipment from the defunct Nix Wincott and Nene Valley breweries.

A famous real ale off licence, the Jug and Firkin in Mill Road, Cambridge, closed after owner John Harling put the Good Beer Guide listed shop up for sale after 18 years at the helm. The Jug and Firkin was one of a handful of specialist real ale off-licences nationwide, dispensing a range of real ales to take away from casks set up in the shop.

A number of East Anglian brewers made new forays into Cambridge in late 1999. Elgoods acquired the Waggon and Horses at Milton. The Kingston Arms was taken over by Lidstone brewery, who were to move their brewery from Wickhambrook, near Newmarket, into the pub’s cellar. And the Alma Brewery pub in Russell Street re-opened as a Ridleys pub.

All night drinking on licensed premises became legal for New Years’ Eve at the turn of the millennium. The Government issued a deregulation order for this single occasion, dashing the hopes of some that it would be allowed every year.

Sussex brewer King and Barnes was reported to be confident of victory and had CAMRA’s support in a battle against a hostile takeover bid from their neighbours Shepherd Neame of Faversham in Kent.