The Westminster Arms

I have something of a soft spot for Kent's Shepherd Neame. It was their Bishop's Finger that got me into better beer than the keg swill I would drink as a younger man after all, as well as a friend in Prague having been a barman in an SH pub. Whenever I get back to the UK, which is nowhere near as often as I would like, I will pick up a few bottles of Shepherd Neame beers, usually the aforementioned Bishop's Finger, but also their Double Stout and even <gasp> the India Pale Ale. However, and for obvious reasons, Shepherd Neame pubs are few and far between in the Highlands of Scotland, and I don't think I have ever seen a Shepherd Neame beer on a beer engine at any of the pubs I frequent when I go home. Having a few days then in London was the opportunity to find the nearest Shepherd Neame pub to my hotel and dive into their range a bit more.

Given that my hotel was just yards from Westminster Abbey, said nearest Shepherd Neame pub was The Westminster Arms. On arriving at my hotel, being given the key, and heading up to my room, I opened the door to discover that it was still in the throes of being cleaned. As such, I ditched my main case, slung the bag I use as a laptop bag over my shoulder and wandered off to locate the pub and catch up with work over a couple of pints.

Thankfully it was a mere 3 minute walk, and what a delightfully charming pub The Westminster Arms is (photo credit: the image is from the Westminster Arms website). Apparently the pub has recently undergone a refurbishment, and as I went through the door, I was presented with an archetypal British pub, as Tweedy Pubs would say, "a pubby pub". Everything was wooden, there were nooks and crannies with stools and ledges for drinking at, and on the bar a clutch of handpumps. I knew immediately what I was going to have, partly because there wasn't Bishop's Finger on the pumps, but also because I wanted to start with something a little more sessionable.

I took my pint, went downstairs to the basement bar, and found myself a perch at a table, set my laptop up, and took my first ever mouthful of Master Brew.

Master Brew is Shepherd Neame's ordinary bitter, with an ABV of 3.7%, and clearly it is in the tradition that naysayers often deride as "boring brown bitter". It is, though, anything but boring, at least in my opinion. It was moreish, deeply, deeply moreish in fact. I think that first pint was gone before I had even been able to hook into the wifi and log into my email. I had to head back upstairs to the main bar to get a second pint as Master Brew wasn't on the downstairs hand pumps. One of the many things that I loved about this, and to be fair most other bitters I had in and around London, was they were properly bitter, with dollops of hop bitterness to scrape away the crystal malt character - weirdly I was starting to become sure I needed to do some experimentation with my house bitter. What was going on? Had it been on the pumps downstairs I might never have ventured from it.

It was during my second pint that a group of Americans made their way down to the basement, and proceeded to make me almost despair that real ale will ever be anything other than a niche in the US, so embedded is the collective ignorance of cask ale in the popular consciousness. Yeah, sorry folks, we writers can blather on as much as we want about places doing real ale, but it's not getting outside of our bubble. One of the group approached the bar and ordered a Spitfire, but a lady sat in the booth they had plonked in yelled across the bar to "make sure you get the Spitfire lager, not the cask, the cask is warm". Now, I prefer Master Brew and Bishop's Finger to Spitfire, but this notion that unless your beer is as cold as penguin feet it is "warm" really needs to be put to bed. I may have started ranting via text message to my long time collaborator, Mark. I had at this point moved on to Whitstable Bay Pale Ale for a palate reset, when across the bar I heard the most ridiculous thing I have heard in many years, and here I quote:

"don't tell the pastor we are in a pub drinking beer".

Admittedly I have some sympathy with this, given that when I was studying theology with a view to a religious calling, I would often go to the pub to unwind and the thought of being spotted gnawed away at my guilt riddled soul. But, you know, I don't recall ever announcing to the entire bar that I really shouldn't have been there, and to not share this information with the leadership of my church. It reminded me of folks I know who when in Prague moved their beer to the other side of the table for pictures, so their religious friends wouldn't think they were drinking when it hit social media. Thankfully, though painfully slowly as the group worked its way through their one pint of Spitfire lager for about 45 minutes, they eventually toddled off steeped in English sin, so I had another Master Brew, beautifully cask conditioned, at perfect cellar temperature, and everything a English bitter is at its best, or most ordinary, if you get my reference.

Having caught up with work, had a fantastic rambling chat with the lads behind the bar - top fellows! - it was time to find some food, maybe another couple of beers, which we'll get to, and get myself prepared for the conference I was in town for. Clearly though, if I ever find myself staying in Westminster again, the Westminster Arms will be top of my list for pubs to get back to, it was just a perfect afternoon of great beer in a proper pub.

Windsor the Second

Having left behind the warm embrace of the Windsor & Eton Brewery, picking up a copy of the local branch of CAMRA's latest magazine on the way out, I walked back to Arthur Road, past the appropriately named, though not yet open, Duke of Connaught.

I had a short list in my mind of places to visit, an amalgam of places visited by Tweedy Pubs in this video, and a few suggestions from folks on Reddit. First up on that list was the Carpenter's Arms, just down a narrow lane from Windsor Castle itself. Now, I have to admit, being an abysmal beer tourist - nothing new there if you know me - I didn't take that many pictures of the outside of pubs, but for the Carpenter's I did take a picture of the building opposite as it was just so funky.

I had snagged a seat opposite the bar in a bay window that was just delightful, and just as thrilling was seeing the pump clip of heaven on the bar.

Ok, sure, it's not a local beer in the furthest western reaches of Berkshire, but when you see Landlord on a beer engine, you drink it. It really is that simple, and it was as simply wonderful as you would expect. At this point in the proceedings news started filtering through about the sacking of Arne Slot from his role as Liverpool manager (head coach, whatever). Also distinctly not local, but something I haven't seen on tap for many a year was Budvar, so naturally I had a pint, and I almost wish I hadn't bothered. It wasn't bad per se,  it just looked deeply sad with the merest schmeer of foam on top of the liquid. My final pint here was the Nicholson's Pale Ale, the Carpenter's Arms being a Nicholsons pub after all, and it turned out to be surprisingly nice, I wish I had taken a picture really. Apparently the beer has Galaxy hops as well as the traditional Fuggles and Goldings combination, and it works really well. As with Windsor & Eton, I'd have happily stayed until the bus came, but other places needed visiting, and next up was The Corner House, so off I toddled.

Again as I stepped in, I was the only person in the place, and thankfully I didn't have to struggle to make a decision as to what beer was next. The bright blue pump clip made that decision for me.

Harvey's Sussex Best is a beer that I had never seen in the wild before. I have never seen it in the US, and so it was high on my list of beers to hunt out. It really is a pretty looking beer.

Unfortunately that first pint was distinctly vinegary, and the barmaid told me that she hadn't got round to pulling the lines through yet, and so a fresh pint was duly poured and that vinegar thing was no longer there. Setting to one side for a moment the idea that the barmaid served me beer that had been sitting in the line overnight, once I had a fresher pint I could kind of see what the fuss is about. This is such a quintessentially Southern English bitter, with notes of toffee, dark fruits, and a subtle sweetness in the background, all balanced expertly by the hops. However, I felt a pang of almost guilt at not really enjoying it as readily as I had various other beers that day, though that may have been a touch of palate fatigue at this point. 

I had a second anyway, before heading off to the final stop of the day, all the while aware that I had to get through security at Heathrow in order to fly to Inverness. The last place on the visit list, and the only place from which I have literally no pictures, was The Two Brewers, back up the road towards the Castle from the Corner House. My main reason for choosing the Two Brewers was that they actually have a beer list on their website, shocking as that may seem. As I mentioned in a previous post, pubs in England seem adverse to listing what beers they have on. Wine? Sure. Cocktails? We have a page for that. Beer? Good god man are you trying to encourage ruffians to drink here or something? They also had Fuller's London Pride at a very reasonable price, and so I had a few pints of that, sat at one of their various bars, keeping an eye upon the clock...

Make it back to Heathrow I did, through security and baggage drop off with no drama, only to discover nowhere was showing the Champions League final, and then eventually on to Inverness I went...

Of Guards and Fathers

It was 7.30am when my plane landed at Heathrow, the beginning of my 9 days back in the United Kingdom. Given the fact there was only an hour or so between that flight and the earliest flight to Inverness, I decided not to do a connection on the one ticket, and instead just get a separate ticket for the evening flight to Inverness. Thus I had the best part of half a day between flights, and as I mentioned in my last post, I decided to go to eschew the Tube into London proper, and get the bus to Windsor.

I had been to Windsor all of once previously, but I may have been about 12 years shy of being able to drink legally, and as such I don't remember much about that visit. There is though a family legend/inside joke that at some point whilst wandering near the castle, I asked my parents why it wasn't finished yet given the scaffolding that surrounded many of the buildings. I was then somewhat keen to walk by the castle to check up on progress in the intervening 40 odd years - there was still scaffolding to be seen, still not finished then I guess. It was getting pretty bloody warm by this point of the day, even though it was only 9.30 by now, so I took myself off along the river to get to my first planned stop of my tour of the town's hostelries.

It felt great to really stretch my legs after planes and buses, and also getting caught behind bimbling tourists (yes, I know) on the streets of Windsor in the early, comparatively, morning. Eventually I had to abandon the delights of a Thames stroll to amble my merry way through the Alexandra Gardens, through some railway arches and on to the taproom location of the Windsor & Eton Brewery.

Given that it was just a couple of minutes past opening time, I was the only person in the place, already with half a mind as to what my first beer of the trip was going to be, indeed my first beer in the UK since pre-COVID days, it had been that long. Alas the original plan went out the window as there was a problem with the Guardsman best bitter from the beer engine, so I went for Father Thames, a strong bitter - I am reticent to use the term "ESB" for strong bitters in the UK out of respect for the Fullers branding.

I had it in mind that as much as possible I would be drinking real ale while back in Blighty, and Father Thames set a pretty high bar, though I wasn't taking notes. According to the Windsor & Eton website this is actually a "winter bitter" brewed with local malt and Admiral hops. According to me, it was freaking delish, goodness me I love the marmalade thing that you get from Admiral, it is just a bit punchier than East Kent Goldings in this regard. The scrape of bitterness in the finish was enough to leaving me wanting more, and that first pint may have vanished in about four mouthfuls. Four mouthfuls of glorious real ale, all of those classic toffee sweet malt flavours, conditioned perfectly and at cellar temperature, the proper temperature if you are at all confused. If my fellow Brits cannot recognise that real ale is indeed intangible cultural heritage then they are lost beyond measure. So I had another while the magnificent bar staff sorted out Guardsman.

Once ready to be on parade, a pint was duly ordered, and being an army brat, I kind of geeked out on the pump clip, most likely for details a lot of folks would miss. For example, the central guard is a member of the Scots Guards, how can I tell? The tunic has buttons in sets of three, and the bearskin doesn't have a plume. Likewise the buttons and plumes are correct for the regiments being depicted, it's little things like this that I notice, yes I am weird. Fun fact, my great uncle was a guardsman during World War 2, Coldstream if I recall correctly (correction: it was the Grenadier Guards), back when regiments in the British Army had their own mechanical and electrical engineers. In the aftermath of the war, the plan to create the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, aka REME, was concluded, and my great uncle was transferred over to the new regiment. Anyway, the beer looked like this...

Another classic southern English bitter, this time of the best variety, and perhaps more "classic" than Father Thames, as it is hopped with Fuggles, Styrian Goldings, as well as Pilgrim. I love that this is a properly bitter, bitter beer, clocking in with 40 IBUs, about the same as my own house best bitter, and funnily enough the same ABV of 4.2%. There is something about the aroma of Fuggles, and Styrian Goldings does it too for obvious reasons though it is less noticeable, that always reminds me of pipe tobacco. That note was present, floating around with the usual earthy suspects that Fuggles brings to the table. Something about the word "earthy" makes me think of hearty peasants bringing in the hay, and maybe there is a whiff of grass and summer in the mix too. Maybe I was getting carried away, but I seriously started entertaining the idea of re-formulating my house bitter to have a darker variant in the roster...what heresy was Windsor making me entertain?

I spent a good few hours in the Windsor & Eton taproom before heading out into the wilds of Windsor to hunt down a few more of the pubs that I had put on my list to visit before I had to get the bus back to Heathrow and a plane to the Highlands. In those few hours I tried halves of some of their other beers, including Knight of the Garter, a 3.8% golden ale that was very much like a session American Pale Ale, bursting with the pine and citrus character of Amarillo, and Eton Boatman, a slightly stronger golden ale, that has more of a Southern Hemisphere hop character. Eventually though, head out I had to, there were other pubs to see, other breweries beers to try, and that will have to wait until another post.