DERBY, England

Is this the Real Ale Capital of England?

The 3^rd worst pub I have ever drunk in was in Derby quite near the football ground when Derby County was still playing at the Baseball Ground which is why I was there. It was a depressing pub with a terrible choice of beers and those they had were undrinkable. We moved on after one awful drink.

The 2^nd worst pub I have ever drunk in was in Derby about hundred yards from the previous pub I mentioned. Similarly run down and unwelcoming, it was another pub which made enough money to survive from the unfortunate football fans who used it every other Saturday and the brewery and landlord made no effort to make it a pleasurable experience. We had one terrible drink and moved on.

The WORST pub I have ever drunk in … I think you know how this story ends. That was in 1997 and was Derby County’s last year playing at that ground so I doubt any of those pubs exist now. I had not been back to Derby since then despite the irony of it having already begun to establish itself as the self-proclaimed ‘Real Ale Capital of England’ which is, of course, disputed by Sheffield, Norwich and other cities. Well, I recently had an opportunity to see how true their claim is.

As part of a friend’s stag weekend in the Peak District - of which I am unable to say anymore for legal, moral and good taste reasons - I had arranged a Sunday evening wander around some of the supposedly best pubs Derby has to offer. Starting, as most pub crawls do, at the railway station the seven of us immediately came to the pub that apparently started the real ale revival in the city back in 1987, The Brunswick Inn. Now one of several Derby pubs that brews it own beers it began specialising in guest beers from all over the country back when it was not particularly fashionable or common to do so. It is old-fashioned, full of character and had a roaring fire which, as always in winter, is welcoming. We tried all six of their own brews and there was another bank of handpumps that had some Everard’s beers (who now own the pub) and a few other genuine guests from the likes of Oakham. A solid start to a crawl but nobody raved too much about any of the beers although they were all kept and served in great condition. Oakham JHB was the preferred choice for most but Brunswick’s dark, strong Black Sabbath 6% got some plaudits and Rob said it was his favourite of all of them. Trev was not so keen on this pub.

Any group on a crawl is likely to all have different tastes in pubs and beers and I didn’t know what everybody would like which makes it all the more fun watching and learning from people’s reactions as you go from traditional old to modern new incorporating standard British beer styles with those from, say, Belgium and the USA. Derby did not offer an enormous variation in beer styles on this crawl compared to the likes of London and Manchester but that may have been the pubs we chose and the fact that it was a Sunday so some beers may have run out after a busy weekend. Similarly, all the pubs we went in were long established even if they may have evolved over the years.

 

Just a few yards on is the Alexandra Hotel which we happily went into to be greeted by a long narrow bar with eight beers available. Three of them were from the Castle Rock brewery who owns the pub and, as is expected in these parts, the other choices were made up of mostly local independents. As with most of the pubs we went in, remembering that this was a cold Sunday in mid-January between 4pm and 10pm, there were very few people drinking in there and a group of seven people entering never went unnoticed although never commented on. Castle Rock has suffered from Champion-Beer-Of-Britain-syndrome where demand for their great beer explodes and supply can never keep up without some compromise somewhere. Harvest Pale is a shadow of the beer it was a few years back but, as with all the pubs we drank in, the beer was served as good as you are ever going to get it which is essential on a pub crawl if you hope to come away with any useful info about what to look out for in the future and what to avoid. The Alex is a proper railway pub with railway paraphernalia covering much of the walls including a great, big, railway station digital clock the like of which you don’t realise you don’t see any more until you see one. There is a very nice relaxing feel to this place despite its basic, Spartan look. It is another place that oozes character but clearly not to everyone’s taste due to its lack of comforts. Ossett Treacle Stout and Amber Jasmine IPA got the accolades here. BHD liked this pub.

A walk along and over the River Derwent took us to the edge of a trading estate where we began to think there weren’t going to be ANY pubs never mind any good ones. We were wrong. So wrong. But not before we were half right.

I had read that the Smithfield had recently undergone a refurbishment and approaching it made me think that it had probably needed it but once inside I realised that someone had made a big mistake. It was hard to imagine what the interior of this pub must have been like just a few short weeks before because all semblance of character had been removed and painted over with a shade of (off) white paint the smell of which still pervaded the whole pub strongly. The bar was clean, bright, empty and soulless. It was like a museum where you felt compelled to speak quietly as you knew your voice would resonate around the walls and disturb the deathly quiet of the pace. Everything was so new and soulless but it was clear that the place was finished and this is how somebody wanted it to be. It was not unattractive or even unpleasant just unwelcoming and uncomfortable. Modern can be marvellous but clinical is usually unappealing. The beer choice was fine – Salopian, Oakham, Whim and Derby - and the quality of those beers was fine also but it didn’t feel like a place to linger and relax. Fortunately, there were seven of us so we were not so self-conscious of our conversation being so audible to the only other couple in the place. Only time will tell if such a drastic modernisation will be accepted and embraced by the locals or maybe it was an attempt to survive by being different to all the other traditional pubs in the area. It was not a bad pub but on a Sunday night it certainly didn’t have any charm. Maybe it needs to be full to create a more acceptable ambience but that really doesn’t seem likely to happen often because only a short walk away is the next pub.

 

Like a beacon, the Exeter Arms draws you towards it. Entering the bar is like coming home. Immediately welcoming, comfortable, relaxing and friendly – you feel like kicking your shoes off and looking for a sofa to lounge on. This was the first place we had tried that was busy and although that could have been because it was now 6pm and we were closer to the city centre it is more likely to be because it is just such a great pub. The lighting was a little more subdued and subtle compared to all the other places we tried and the distinct bar areas more cosy and warm than most. It is clearly a couples pub as identified, logically, by the number of couples in there but our small group didn’t feel out of place in the nook we found to seat us tucked around the corner from the main bar. The staff were very friendly, helpful and informative. There was a great choice of beers to be had from Dancing Duck, who own the pub, and several other local breweries. We all shared a pork pie and some olives to snack on and were all very impressed - so much so that there were comments from some that we should remain and order another pie and another round. But the rules of a pub crawl in an area that has not yet been visited state that you must move on no matter how good the pub you are currently in is or else it is no longer a crawl but becomes a … pub stay! I can’t think of what else to call it. So we moved on despite the grumblings of a few and they would thank me later … but not immediately.

Just around the corner from there is the Brewery Tap, so called because … well, you know. The brewery in question is the Derby Brewing Company, situated about half a mile east of the pub, where we had stopped on our way through two days before to buy a few polypins of their beers - Triple Hop and Hop Till You Drop - beers that fuelled the shenanigans of which I cannot speak but they had pleased every one of the attendees of the stag weekend. This is a spacious 2-bar local that has got modernisation right. Pleasant, bright and relaxing, the bars have light wood throughout with two clearly separate bars and, bizarrely, the hottest pub toilets I have ever visited. It was like a sauna in there! We had their rack option: a tray of samples of their own beers coupled with a bowl of local cheese which is a rare promotional device in England though very common in American brewpubs. A great idea it is too as you get to try a variety of beers so you can then buy a pint or whatever of the one(s) you liked most. The beers were all good and the local cheese excellent although I believe it was locally made cheddar and not actually Derbyshire for anyone concerned about that sort of thing.

 

Within a few minutes’ walk from there, and over the bridge, you are in Derby city centre. Again, seeing it on a dark Sunday evening may not show the city in its best light as the streets were deserted and no shops were open but then we were not really here for sightseeing or shopping. It’s not much of a walk to get to two historic pubs, the Old Silk Mill and Ye Olde Dolphin Inn. Both pubs had been mucked about with (a technical term) by the breweries or pubcos that owned them so had lost much of the charm that I’m sure they once had but they were not particularly inviting and a combination of loud, generic musak, surly looking locals and an uninspiring collection of mostly national beers on the bars made me decide our time would be better spent elsewhere. Also, I don’t like pubs called Ye Olde anything even if it is hundreds of years old(e).

Some people are uncomfortable about entering a pub and then leaving without making a purchase as it may seem to be a slur on the landlord/ladies/managers/owners/bar-staff. Well it mostly is but as pubs are in a service industry, and much of the price you pay for a pint is for the service provided by the establishment, then it is not unreasonable to inspect the place before deciding to make a purchase - you don’t usually buy a car without taking a test drive or get married without … that’s enough analogies for now, I think.

So with two of the central pubs heartlessly rejected could the third be worth stopping in? Oh yes. The Flower Pot is another old, traditional pub but it had a laid-back and timeless appeal. Several distinct drinking areas over a large area meant that you could still hold a conversation quite comfortably in the front bar whilst live music was taking place in the back. A very comprehensive range of beers included a few from the local Black Iris brewery whose beers had impressed me before. Other decent beers included those from nearby Black Jack and Whim breweries. Ed was impressed with the mushroom soup he had, although it wasn’t very hot, and James bought a sausage roll to tide him over as a meal in a city pub on a Sunday night is not that common so hearty snacks were most welcomed. I liked this pub. It was lively without being overbearing, busy without being uncomfortably so and the back bar serves several beers straight from the cask at weekends in addition to the dozen or so on handpump.

We still had time for one more pub so we retraced our steps back past the two olde pubs then headed out north of the centre. Just after walking underneath the ring road is a pub in a quiet location yet you would be unlikely to just stumble upon despite being so close to the centre and just by St. Mary’s Chapel. The Furnace Inn is a gem. When we walked in, at about 8pm on a Sunday, the place was deserted. I mean empty. But this was not because it was unpopular but we were fortunate to be here in a quiet period so we got on the dartboard and had much of the friendly, helpful landlord’s attention. We tried a couple of the house beers brewed by Shiny and a handful of other local ales. All were in fine condition and we were all more than satisfied to see out what we had left of the evening here but I had managed to postpone our transport pick up time by fifteen minutes which would mean we were able to visit the next pub on the list if it was worth visiting. It would be. The landlord asked me where we had been on the pub crawl and then said The Five Lamps did some great beers. He told me how to get there too: “You go down the jitty to the end, carry on and turn right at the main road by the kebab shop … you don’t know what a jitty is, do you?” He could tell from my blank expression. “Well, I was going to ask,” I replied. A jitty is an alleyway, apparently. When we had drank up and were saying our farewells he escorted us outside to show us the way. He said to us all, “You go up the jitty …” and was met by similar blank faces to the one I had given him. “Come on,” I said, “You must know what a jitty is!”

So we walked up the jitty to The Five Lamps. It’s on the main road in/out of the city so is effectively on an island between two one-way streets. It was certainly the most comfortable of the pubs we had been in. More couples and mixed groups than we had seen so far. I had recently read a review of this pub that described it as having “corporate feel” and I think they meant that it was clearly aiming for a more upmarket clientele than some of the more basic pubs. There are pubs that you would choose to go to on your own, or with a friend, or with a group, or with a partner, or with your parents and so on. They are rarely the same pub. The diversity is what makes pub crawls so special and it means you go in pubs you will never enter again and they may never be the same again: a snapshot in history. I would say this pub ticked all the boxes for most people. Maybe nobody’s favourite pub but it would be hard to find it unappealing. It had a great range of beers including the best of the night, for me, Buxton Blonde.

It was a great pub to finish on and our taxi arrived on time to take us back to our old(e) farmhouse in the Peak District just as the snow began to fall and lay. The pub crawl had been a great end to a wonderful weekend of debauchery involving [*DELETED ON LEGAL ADVICE*].

So I said I wouldn’t do travelogues in this blog and, what do you know, I’ve gone and done a travelogue! I’ve tried not to deviate from the essence of the piece though which is this: Is Derby the real ale capital of Great Britain and/or the world? Well, it may be a purely arbitrary title but it does have a ring of authority to it so it is worth commenting on. I think that by sheer numbers it has an extraordinary amount of different beers from different breweries available in a high percentage of their pubs which may be hard to match but in terms of variety and quality that may be contested. I know I am basing this on only nine pubs, and on a cold, winter Sunday evening at that, but I saw few beers from any of the more innovative breweries in the country. This was noticeable especially as some of them are reasonably local, such as Buxton, Raw and Thornbridge. The landlord of the Furnace Inn had told me that his range had been depleted by a busy weekend, and I think the beers we had just missed were worth inventing time-travel to go back and drink, but although most of the pubs beer ranges were extensive they were not always especially diverse. You may think I am being picky but don’t I have to be when the accolade of best in the universe may be at stake here? I saw no Black IPA, no Saison, no single hop varietals and not one of the keg beers that have been tearing up the place in London, Edinburgh, Leeds, Brighton etc. But then maybe that is why the title is ‘real ale capital’ rather than ‘beer capital’ or ‘bar capital.’

What Derby has done, so successfully, is introduce more good real ale into more pubs over the last 25 years until now when having a variety of well kept ales available is the rule rather than the exception and many of the beers are brewed locally if not on the premises. Many cities are not great to drink in because that never happened and that is why Derby isn’t being swamped by new bars opening in old shop premises because many of the old pubs have been regenerated because the local drinkers have demanded quality and choice. Obviously, with the general decline in sales of beer in pubs due to the ongoing recession there will be closures yet Derby has reputedly the best Wetherspoons in the country (Babington Arms) and it already has its first micro-pub, Little Chester Ale House, which specialises in craft beers, so Derby is hardly anachronistic. In fact, it’s a model for any town where the pubs are being shut down and converted to shops as it demonstrates that run down, unprofitable pubs can become a going concern again with just a little imagination, attention to detail and a few decent beers. That is, of course, if the pubcos/property developers that own them have any interest in rejuvenating a stock of classic, traditional pubs that is forever dwindling. Which they don’t because the buildings are worth more as land or as a new venture (supermarket, bookmakers etc) than as a pub. Ho hum. Still, enough publicans/ entrepreneurs/ small pub companies took the initiative a few years back in Derby to help perpetuate the interest and availability of good beer leading to a reputation that is hard to match; that’s why the seven of us were trudging around on a freezing Sunday night in a strange city: because of the promise of great beer. We were not disappointed.

So is it the best? Well I look forward to going back to some of those same pubs and to trying many more that I have heard about before I make my mind up. I have to stop writing now to go and remove the splinters from my backside.

Derby Pub Crawls:

I have not been to all these pubs but my research shows they are worth going to as well as the ones I have written about. Let me know if I’m right or wrong.

 

EAST

Brunswick Inn, The, 1 Railway Terrace DE1 2RU                           [Brunswick]                 (10  H)  Q

Alexandra Hotel, 203 Siddals Road DE1 2QE                                 [Castle Rock]               (8 H)               

Smithfield, Meadow Rd DE1 2BH                                                       [locale]                        (8 H)               

Exeter Arms, The, The Flat Exeter Place DE1 2EU                            [Dancing Duck]           (8 H)               

Brewery Tap, The, 1 Derwent Street DE1 2ED                                   [Derby]                        (12 H)             

 

CENTRAL

Old Silk Mill, The, 19 Full Street DE1 3AF                                        [Nat/Reg]                     (9 H & 3 G)    

Ye Olde Dolphin Inn, Queen Street DE1 3DL                                    [Nat/Reg]                     (6 H)               

Standing Order, 32 Iron Gate DE1                                                     [JDW]                           (8 H)   Q

Flower Pot, The, 25 King Street DE1 3DZ                                          [Black Iris, locale]     (15 H & 3 G) Q

 

NORTH EAST

Peacock Inn, The, 87 Nottingham Road DE1 3QS                          [Marston]                     (9 H)               

Little Chester Ale House, 4a Chester Green Rd DE1 3SF                [Craft]                           (4 H)               

 

NORTH

Furnace Inn, Duke Street DE1 3BX                                                     [Shiny]                         (8 H)               

Five Lamps, Duffield Road DE1 3BH                                                  [Evs, Buxton, Peak]    (11 H)   Q

Horse & Groom, 48 Elm St, West End DE1 3HN                               [Bass, Thornbridge]  (4 H&G)

Mr Grundys Tavern, 34 Ashbourne Road DE1 3AD                        [Mr Grundy, locale]  (10 H)             

Greyhound Inn, 76 Friar Gate DE1 1FN                                            [Derby]                        (10 H) 

 

SOUTH

Babington Arms, 13 Babington Lane DE1 1TA                                 [JDW]                  (18 H)    Q

 

WEST
Rowditch, 246 Uttoxeter Rd, California DE22 3LL                          [Rowditch]         (4 H&G)

New Zealand Arms, 2 Langley Street, New Zealand DE22 3GL     [Dancing Duck]   (11 H)             

 

H = Handpumps    G = Gravity dispense           Q = Quiet; no canned music             

Local breweries are underlined