Bernie's Beer Page

Burtonwood Brewery  The Unofficial Home Page

HomebrewingThe lowdown on DIY Beers

Favourite BeersThe best Real Ales around (in my opinion!)

Favourite Pubs The best Pub's around (also my opinion!)

Campaign for Real Ale I'm a member - why aren't you?

Pub Crawl the Thames - The first Instalment - Still under construction - More coming soon!

Other Beer Related Links - Some Links to other Links!

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Homebrew

My DIY Beer Page will include some of my own successes and failures along with links to other useful Homebrew sites on the WWW. However, it is still under construction so I would ask you to call again.

In the meantime, perhaps you would like to look at My Latest Brew or some of my other Beer Bits or Return to my Home Page or follow these links which were kindly provided by Birchy in NZ (there's your mention!)

The Cats Meow or Palmer House Brewery and Smithy or go to the Yahoo Search Homebrewing Section

My Favourite Beers

This section is still under construction. However, take a look at Burtonwoods' Fine Ales on the The Unofficial Burtonwood Brewery Home Page

You could also have a look at some of my other Beer Bits or Return to my Home Page

My Favourite Pubs

The Horse and Jockey - Widnes

This took over as my local after the quality of the ale in the Grapes started to drop. It's a bit closer and well outside of town so doesn't attract any passing trade. Most of the customers are local and have been visiting for years - thriving Dominoes and bowls teams give an indication of the type of clientelle! There are also weekly quiz nights and a monthly music quiz, a TV (usually only used for the rugby!) and music selected by the hosts, Veronica and Eric.

But the main attraction is the ale! Besides a very good example of Greenalls bitter, Ronnie and Eric, who returned to the pub in 1999, also have Tetleys and a weekly guest all very well kept and presented. The more popular guests will last only the weekend sometimes leaving a gap in midweek. Eric has tried doubling the order but then had problems with overstocking.....he's now trying to balance the supply with the demand!

Overall this is an excellent "boozer" with a very welcoming staff and excellent beer - try it sometime!

The Horse and Jockey, Birchfield Road, Widnes, Cheshire

The Grapes - Widnes

This was the best outlet for Real Ale that I knew of in Widnes, serving Cains, Tetley and Boddingtons and at least one, often two, guest ales. However, since Caffreys (yeuch) was introduced, the selection of ales has diminished and, at the time of writing (July 2000) there is no guest and the real ale available is very "average". There is still a very mixed clientele including students, youngsters and oldsters, and with many visitors calling in on their way from one end of town to the other, it can get very busy at the weekend. The vault, which houses a pool table and darts board, is larger than the lounge which has a small snug, and the taped music is always kept to a reasonable level. A TV in the lounge is usually tuned to Sky Sports though there is never any sound on to distract the non-sporting fraternity (ie me!) The pub was very well run and I never witnessed any serious disturbances despite it's proximity to the Town Centre. Because of the reduction in ale quality, this is no longer my local and I haven't visited it for some time!

The Grapes, 38 Widnes Road, Widnes, Cheshire - 0151 424 7338

The Lord Rodney - Warrington

Located opposite the Tetley Walker Brewery this large two roomed pub welcomes a huge mix of people. The large lounge side is nicely furnished and seems a natural habitat for the older couples, groups and business people, while the larger "Bar" side is home to brewery workers, music lovers, ale fans and younger, trendier couples and groups and also houses a pool table, darts board, TV and CD Jukebox. The well stocked bar normally features Tetley Mild and Bitter, Burton Ale and four or five guests, though the annual Mini Beer Festivals feature about a dozen guests at a time! The beers are helped down by live music on Friday and Saturday nights with a variety of styles covered including Blues, Rock & Roll, out and out Rock, Folk and even Irish music, but be warned - it's usually LOUD! A short walk to the main Warrington Central Railway Station takes you past Kentucky Fried Chicken, Chippies, Indian takeaways and Kebab Houses - just the job while waiting for the midnight train home!

The Lord Rodney, 67 Winwick Road, Warrington, Cheshire - 01925 234296

Swan Inn - Liverpool

This back street rockers pub also seems to attract other fairly diverse clients with a "cocktail" bar upstairs and has featured in the CAMRA Good Beer Guide (1995), Usually very busy, it did stock Marstons Pedigree, Oak Wobbly Bob and Owd Roger together with up to three guests and a handpulled cider - this has tailed of in recent years and on the last visit only one gues was available, while Wobbly Bob is no longer a feature. The Rock jukebox hasn't had it's records changed since the mid-70's and features loads of classics though some, more modern hits have been brought in to replace something that has worn out! The music is always very, very loud and can be heard from halfway down the street.

The Swan Inn. 86 Wood Street, Liverpool - 0151 709 5281

Coach And Horses - Tenby

A small, two roomed freehouse in this South-Wales tourist spot. The tidy vault has room for darts but not much else while the longer lounge has around 20 to 25 seats for the pub food. A good variety of food is available each night during the season and is excellently prepared in a tiny kitchen visible from the small rear yard. The food is complemented by Flowers Original, Flowers IPA, Boddingtons and Whitbread Bitter which, all coming from the Whitbread "portfolio", gives some idea of how "free" this pub is! Last visited in late summer 1995 when it was a nitrofizz -free zone, it is to be hoped that this real ale island among Bass's Worthington lake washing through the majority of this small towns 13 other pubs, remains unspoilt.

My Favourite Pubs section is in it's infancy though I intend to have lots of info here soon! Have a look at some of my other Beer Bits or Return to my Home Page

Campaign for Real Ale

CAMRA was founded in 1971 as a response to the rise of keg beer and a diminution of the ale supply chain and choice from the ever increasing take-over and closure of small brewers across the country.

The replacement of local, characterful cask ales with nationally branded bland keg beers from huge beer factories was abated and Britain regained some of it's real ale heritage in our pubs in the early 90's, assisted by legislation which provided for "Guest Ales" to be free of tie in the larger pub owning breweries. However, the emergence of large retail chains (eg Greenalls, which closed it's own brewery and Shipstones) and the concentration of beer production in four major brewery companies, has led to a reduction in genuinely "free" houses. This has, to some extent, been offset by the huge increase of "Micro" brewers and Brewpubs which have made inroads into the market assisted by the realisation by these large retailers and some of the brewers that there is a ready market for a quality real ale. Enter NitroKeg in the form of Caffreys (boo hiss). This has all the merits (?) of keg, being easy to handle and bland while not being as overtly flavoured by the gas used to dispense it and having a good image. This image was initiated by Tetley and Boddington advertising, with the big, creamy, smooth head which has allowed the brewers to rip consumers off for a long time by serving short measures while claiming that the customer wanted a large head! Now most brewers have their keg ales nitrogenated while Bass, brewers of Caffreys, have suffered a huge decline in the sales of that once fine cask ale Draught Bass. In addition to this, the large pub-owning chains have been ruthlessly "improving" Britains pubs, which usually entails ripping the heart and soul from a historic site to be replaced by a characterless psuedo-victorian interior or worse an Irish Bar! The Irish bar also serves to further Caffreys sales as this is an "Irish" ale! Well at least Caffreys does have some relationship with Ireland, being brewed there (as well as in mainland Britain), which is more than can be said for many of the other "Irish" NitroKeg Ales that emerged in 1995/96.

It is these twin evils that CAMRA is now primarily tackling; the retention of our brewing heritage and diversity of real ales together with the retention and sympathetic improvement of the great British Pub, in all it's many forms. These aims are encapsulated in the annual publication of the Good Beer Guide which includes both a list of pubs surveyed by it's members and a list of real beers produced by all the breweries in the UK.

CAMRA (The Campaign for Real Ale) is primarily a consumer organisation dedicated to the pleasures of Real (Cask or Bottle Conditioned) Ale and the British Pub. You can Visit CAMRA Now, check out my other Beer Bits or Return to My Home Page from here.

Beer Related Links

There is an excellent source of information on Breweries, Pubs and Beers at The British Real Ale Database and both Pauls UK Beer Page and DeeCee's Page contain a vast number of links to other boozy pages!

On the other hand you can check out my other Beer Bits or Return to My Home Page .