Walking, Fish and Chips, and Beer

Today is Wednesday, and I don't have classes on Wednesday. ("Why don't you . . . call me some time, when you . . . have no class") So I decided to take what should be the first of many walks into Grantham. A normal person would walk a straight line into town. It's around two miles each way. But since I started by dropped the two youngest off at school, and then was geocaching along the route, it ended up being a fourteen mile round trip. I had my GPS with me to measure distance, and I really wish I had enabled the "bread crumb" feature so I could see the whole path.  There was some backtracking and roundabout walking, and stops at two pubs. Which brings me to the actual purpose of this post.



That is, the caching was great. It's a good way to see parts of a town you'd not otherwise visit. I got a great view of the town from up on one of the hills. Here's a bad picture from a cellphone camera.

In the dead center is St. Wulfram's, a medieval church. It dominates the town.

A person can get mighty thirsty on such a long walk. Hungry, too. So I stopped at a place called the Blue Pig to get a hand-pulled ale. Grantham and the surrounding areas have, and have had, a number of "blue" pubs. The pubs and their odd names originated in an early 19th century as a marker for Whig candidates for Parliament. Folks who supported the Duke of Rutland from Belvoir (pronounced "beaver") castle drank at one of the many "blue" pubs in the area. Ale would often be colored blue as a means of expressing solidarity for their political party. Voters were paid ten guineas per vote per candidate in the fiercely contested 1802 election—the equivalent of around $1300 in purchasing power today.

Whatever else the Blue Pig was in 1802, it is today a very small, wood-paneled place that shows obvious age. The interior is dark and small, and there's a small, coal-burning fireplace that helps keep the place warm. I know it's not environmentally friendly, but I like a coal fire. It has a certain smell to it that's warm, comforting, and industrial. I love it, and you'll know what I mean when I write that it's one of those smells that, when I first smell it, always calls up very specific memories and feelings. There's a dart board that seems to get regular use, a few tables, some electronic gambling machines, and four or five hand-pulled beers. In short, it's exactly the kind of place in which I could waste a great deal of time sitting around staring at the coal fire.

The beer is no longer colored blue, but I did pick a local ale to try. On the first try the server pulled the pump a few times and then the keg ran out. The glass was full, but she didn't want to serve it to me, declaring that the leavings would foul the taste. OK, no problem. I ordered a different local beer, an Oldershaw Caskade. I'm not going to write about that one here because it, too, was at the end of the cask. The server just didn't realize it. There were floaters in the beer, and it definitely had a yeasty taste to it. So with a great deal of remorse (as well as hunger) I moved on.

I headed back to the Tollemache, which I had visited last week. I had a few CAMRA coupons for discount beer and I wanted some food, so it seemed like a good choice. I found the place quickly and ordered some fish and chips and an ale.

My first beer was a Rutland Beast, produced in nearby County Rutland by The Grainstore Brewery, which I've mentioned in a previous post. This was a hand pulled ale. I found almost no hop aroma to speak of. It had the kind of rich, creamy head that comes from a hand-pulled beer, and maybe supplemented by a bit of wheat malt. The color was reddish-dark with some ruby red highlights. The flavor had hints of caramel and an earthy feel to it and a bit of a bitter aftertaste. There was a smooth, soft mouthfeel that I associate with hand-pulled beers. Rutland Beast clocks in at 5.3% ABV, so this isn't something to have a lot of. It would be a good one for having one of on the way home from work, though.

Lunch looked like this:

That's fish and chips and "smashed peas"—a British delicacy. And you'll see the Rutland Beast sitting there. Of course it was completed before the fish and chips, so I ordered a Newberry Wyke HMS Warrior to fortify me for the walk home. Newberry Wyke is a local Grantham brewery started by a couple of homebrewers. The HMS Warrior is a hand-pulled golden ale with a soft hoppy aroma.  The creamy head and golden straw color with a a bit of sunlight edging might remind people of a lager, as might the light bitter aroma. This had a deeper hopping than the Rutland Beast and lighter aftertaste. But the maltiness was all ale. I sensed a bit more of a cooked corn DMS at the finish, but nothing that would prevent me from trying it again. At 5% ABV this, too, is not exactly a session beer.  But I could have a couple of these and be contented.

The fish and chips were fairly normal, nothing to spend time on. I spent a bit of time talking with a few of the local punters. I asked about the local breweries, which they all seem to like. One of the nearby breweries—and I didn't catch which one they were discussing—was universally declared by all present to be "rooobish." It was a fun conversation, some of which I could actually follow. All in all it was a good day for a walk.