Some people keep score of the number of different beers they've drunk, and others tick off pubs in the Good Beer Guide. But how many have done the Castlehill Crawl eh? Me and my mate Si that's who.
In fact we even stopped at a warm up pub, The Kingston Arms, before we'd even started. Oh yes.
Swerved the Bass mind |
We passed the old Dale's brewery on the way, closed by Whitbread in 1958. Whitbread were so fond of closing breweries they even sold off their own in the end.
We passed over the bridge from the Town bit to the Gown bit for our first official stop: The Pickerel.
It was dead posh round here, the Cambridge universities having more money than you can shake a stick at. Cask beer was selling well though so well done students and tourists!
Stop two for us was the Castle Inn, an Adnams pub but I went for the beer from Cambridge Moonshine brewery and I'm delighted to say it was the beer of the day!
It was a big pub and we sat in the beer garden, which a helpful sign you could only see from the beer garden told you about.
Think it through lads |
The Architect opposite followed, Cambridge's first dedicated fish and chips and pie and mash bar.
Yes, I thought that was a bit odd too. We were still in the dead posh end of town so you could buy dead posh snacks for your dead posh dogs here.
The place also stank of fish so we sat outside. We headed up hill next to the pub at the far end of the crawl, The Grapes.
Entering here it was obvious that tourists and students don't like going uphill as it looked like they were about to have a meat raffle. More my sort of pub to be honest.
Then, much like our higher functions, it was downhill to our last stop the Sir Isaac Newton.
We finished on Old Peculier and slightly to the surprise of the person serving us (it not being at an end of the crawl) we got our last stamp.
Can't believe you swerved the Bass, Ed ! Bass in Cambridge rarer than in Woking.
ReplyDeleteI've done those pubs in Castle Hill many times, but never on the same night. Not the best in town, and cask sales have dropped over the year. Good to see the beer in the Castle good as ever.
Not sure it counts if you've not got five (5) different coloured stamps. I should have gone for the Bass though as the White Rat wasn't at it's best.
DeleteThe Kingston was a really good stop on the Cambridge Mill Road circuit (Crouch Vale Brewer's Gold was superb for years), converted to a bistro and only just re-opened as a boozer. Hope it gets enough trade to turnover the beer; I'll revisit again soon.
ReplyDeleteI'll definitely have to stop off for some Bass on my next visit.
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