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Diary Dates!
Friday 27th August - Cock, Hemingford Grey, Social gathering at the Cock's Beer Festival
Summer Edition Newsletter Out Now!
Pub Guide
Opening Times
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Issue 142 Spring 2010 |
Download a copy as a PDF file - 1.0 MB |
MOST IMPROVED PUB OF THE YEAR |
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The Pig ‘n’ Falcon in St Neots has been selected by Huntingdonshire CAMRA for its latest ‘Most Improved Pub’ award. The Pig ‘n’ Falcon, formerly the Falcon, on New Street, was taken over in March last year by local CAMRA member and retailer John Nunn in a new type of tenancy agreement with Greene King that allows a virtually free choice of suppliers for cask beers to be sold alongside an extended Greene King range. Since the opening day in early April, the ‘Pig’ has won wide acclaim amongst local cask beer drinkers for its wide and constantly changing choice of typically up to ten guest beers and great atmosphere. John keeps most of his cask beers in a ‘tap room’, where beers are served on gravity direct from the cask. The beer range always features beers from local breweries, and the Pig ‘n’ Falcon is in the Huntingdonshire branch’s LocAle scheme. With at least 8 beers available all of the time, beers from Potbelly are regularly stocked, complementing the porcine theme of the pub, and these are supplemented by beers from Oakham, Buntingford, Elgoods, Milton, and many others. In the last 9 months the Pig has offered over 220 different cask beers. On the evening in January when CAMRA presented its award, the Pig was in the middle of a week long winter ales festival, with over 20 seasonal beers being available over the period. The Pig also does real cider and perry and always has two choices, often from local suppliers like Pickled Pig and Cassells, but also from Herefordshire and South Wales, like the award winning Gwynty Draig, Gwatkin, and Hartland. |
Unusually these days, the Pig does not serve food, but the range of snacks is extensive including 3 varieties of pork scratchings, and biltong. John has plans for more substantial snacks in the future, but the Pig will remain first and foremost a ‘wet’ pub, focussed on drinkers. In the last 9 months the Pig has become very well established on the local music scene and live bands perform typically three nights a week, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Local CAMRA member Nick Moore runs an ‘open mike’ session each Wednesday. The Falcon was a small one bar pub, but John has imaginatively created an extended beer garden, and on a busy Friday evening it’s not uncommon for there to be more people in the beer garden than in the pub! The Pig is very much a family business and is jointly run by John and his son Brett. John is pictured below receiving the award from CAMRA committee member Sonia Clarke. Huntingdonshire CAMRA will announce the winner of its latest Pub of the Year award in March. 
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