Here’s the second of my blogs on my three-day Norwich City of Ale trip, today focusing on a few of the fantastic pubs that make for a crawl par excellence!
The bar in The Leopard
It’s Friday afternoon and I’m at the bar of The Leopard freehouse, on Bull Close Road, Norwich, ticking a Kernel IPA on Untappd. I’ve bonded with a fellow traveller, similar age, also on his own, City of Ale programme before him. Friendly enough, but didn’t look as though he wanted to become too familar, so no names were exchanged. “Ooh, that’s taken me to IPA level 35,” I enthuse. “Let me check mine,” he says. Seconds later: “Level 100.” I’m an amateur,” I counter, and we both laugh. Random strangers can be great. You’ll very rarely be let down. At least, not in the sort of pubs I’m interested in…
It’s a beautiful day. Georgia’s behind the bar and, in common with pretty much every venue I visit over the weekend, she knows her stock. I, too, am bar staff, in a brewpub predominantly serving cask ale, and I, too, like to lead the curious stranger to the pint which will best tickle their tastebuds. I can be a grumpy old bugger, though, especially with fizzy lager youngsters. The great people I’ve been served with at City of Ale have been uniformly welcoming and chatty, even the ones who don’t have much time, such as the fella run off his feet at The Murderers on a busy early Friday evening service.
The beer menu at The Leopard, and the pub exterior
Georgia also knows her customers. Literally all the locals, by the look of it. Again, another common trait in this friendliest of cities. Because while City of Ale is, on the face of it, a beer festival, it’s nothing without great pubs to serve the beer. It’s a cliche to say that pubs are at the heart of their community, but nowhere does this seem more true than Norwich. Even with some closures, there are a still a lot of pubs per head of population, and places like The Leopard have a lot of chimney pots around them. I can only think that TV watching can’t be a popular pastime here, a Netflix dead zone.
City of Ale offers visitors nine ale trails, each comprising six pubs. Drinkers can get a stamp in each pub and these earn a badge for each trail completed. Over the course of a month this is perfectly achieveable (having said that, I witnessed badges being handed out on day two of the festival!). I, however, had only three days. I created my own ale trail, a combination of greatest hits — the venues I had visited before and loved — and a couple of recommendations. Those pubs everybody says you have to go to when in Norwich. Fortunately, I have friends whose judgement I trust completely!
Hence, I found myself in The Plasterers, on Cowgate, on Saturday afternoon. Yes, stop shouting “You really hadn’t been to The Plasterers?!”. No, to my eternal shame, I hadn’t. I sat in a window seat, probably ill advisedly, with the sun burning through, put it was the prime spot to people watch. In due course I was joined by Kevin, a Yorkshireman who has been on a four-year pub crawl around the UK and had the Google map to prove. And, because it is a small world, a lovely trio from Plymouth, down my way, including Fran Nowak, husband of beer and food writer Susan Nowak, who alas couldn’t make it to City of Ale because of other work.
Dishing out the beer recommendations here was the delightful, chirpy ‘Linky’, a lookalike for a younger James May with, like Georgia, an in-depth knowledge of what was going over the bar top. As the pizza oven fired up, the pub filled, and more groups entered with their City of Ale programmes. A proper everyman, sorry everyperson pub, this one. All ages, all demographics, the way it should be. Any intention I had of having a quick couple of halves soon ended.
The beer menu, exterior, and back bar at the King’s Head
What the Leopard and the Plasterers have in common is great cask ale, but also a balancing craft beer selection. At the King’s Head, on Magdalen Street, the focus is purely on cask ale, and on the maltier side of the style at that. Here, when I visited, there was an older demographic, so I fitted in nicely! Again, plenty of City of Ale traffic (there’s a hope to boost Norwich pub visits by between 15,000 and 20,000 during the month-long event). The beer’s in excellent condition, and nothing more distracting in terms of noise that the low hum of conversation. There were even free onions available to a good home! A spot for contemplation, this, and in a lovely part of town, where even the charity shops have a sort of old world charm.
The bar and cellar at the Fat Cat Brewery Tap
When it comes to Norwich’s Fat Cat Brewery, one’s spoilt for choice in terms of local venues. The obvious place to head for is the oriinal Fat Cat pub, in West End, and it is delightful. As, I’m sure, is the Fat Cat and Canary, which I’ve yet to visit. But my FC spot of choice is the Brewery Tap, on Lawson Road, the furthest venue from the place I was staying in, The Rose Pub & Deli. And on a sunny day I was well in need of refreshment after I’d walked across the city! I wasn’t disappointed, going for a trio of Fat Cat halves (when in Rome, and all that). The Brewery Tap is home to the brewery that serves all three pubs. But in addition to Fat Cat’s own brews there’s a huge range of other beers, both cask and keg. Some of the cask is on handpump, some is served on gravity from the glass-walled cellar. A really mixed crowd here on a Friday lunchtime, plenty of room inside and out, oh, and one of the finest sausage rolls I’ve ever had.
The beer menu, bar, and cheese board at The Rose
Each of my three days ended, of course, back at The Rose Pub & Deli, on Queen’s Road, run by experienced licensee and vice-chair of the Campaign for Pubs Dawn Hopkins. And what a treat it was to get back to. This friendly, community corner pub doesn’t let you stay a stranger long. There are tall tables, soft sofas, bar billiards and the chance to meet resident rescue greyhound Rosie. There’s a choice of five cask ales and five craft beers, as well as an extensive selection of cans and bottles. From the kitchen come a selection of pizzas, my personal favourite being the blue cheese and chorizo, while there are also cheese platters for which you can build your own cheeseboard from a selection of deli favourites.
Stuart and Simon, AKA Weird Pancakes
My final evening, Saturday, was made all the more memorable by the presence of Vinyl DJs Stuart and Simon, better known as Weird Pancakes. Their playlist is eclectic, to say the least. Saturday’s went from Wes Montgomery to the Human League, Bjork to The Rezillos. I hope to see them (Weird Pancakes, that is, not The Rezillos), and the pub again soon. I realise I’ve barely touched the surface of Norwich boozers and culture, so clearly more experience is needed. Maybe next time, though, not via a National Express coach trip. 12 hours each way…
• Coming soon: the beer notes!
READ MORE: Norwich City of Ale, welcoming strangers from far and wide
