Beers, Boats and Boozers, No.48.

The next day was to be our first full one underway on 'Holderness' and we headed further down the Trent and Mersey Canal.

Great Hayward Junction is usually very busy with great confusion as boats make the sharp turn in or out of the Staffs and Worcester canal and other hang about waiting to get on the services for water/rubbish etc. Today was all quiet however and when ever we see a vacant tap we usually stop and fill up. Helen went off to the Garden Centre to buy some stuff for lunch.

Despite being late March there were still plenty of hire boats in the yard. These add to the chaos I'm sure as they reduce the width of the navigation and when they set off on their first foray it can't be easy for them as it is a baptism of fire.

Past Shugborough Hall is Colwich Lock. There is often a bit of a queue here, but once again we had it to ourselves.

After Wolseley Bridge on the east bank is Bishton Hall, It was started in the 17th century and the east wing added in the 19th Century. It had been the St. Bede's Prep School until recently but the last I heard (earlier this year) it had been bought by Charles Hanson, of Bargin Hunt fame (one of the experts0 to run as an antique showroom and auction room. The chapel and gym would be the auction room and the rest of the house would be used to display their wares. It may be a great way to save the house as there wouldn't be much need to knock it about.

We were soon at Rugeley and found a mooring in this busy place. It is a stop over point for most as the major shops are very close to the canal so a cupboard filler trip can be undertaken. Walking through the town are these four sculptors celebrating the mining heritage of the area. As a school boy I went on a trip down Lea Hall Colliery here. These 9' tall 2 tonne concrete figures were raised in 2015. This one represent a mine deputy, as can be seen by his staff. The others show a rescue miner and a figure from the 1930's and later.

We stopped to have a look in the Crown. From the outside it looks a nice old building. Inside it had been drastically altered by the Craft Union pub Co. and there was loud music playing. Mind you it was very busy with after work drinkers.

I love these old tablets and brick works and this reveals that the Crown Hotel was once in the William Butler and Co. Ltd fold that took over Eley's Brewery from the Woolpack in Weston.

They only had a couple of real ales on the bar and I chose St Austell's Brewery Tribute. The brewery was started by Walter Hicks in 1851. He later merged with another Cornish brewery and kept the name going from strength to strength. The brewery is in St. Columb and the business is still run independently and  by  fifth generation family members. They produce about a million barrels of beer a year.

St. Austell's Cornbish pale ale 'Tribute', 4.2%, actually makes up 80% of those 1,000,000 barrels per annum, and selling a million pints for the first time in 2002. The brew started life being called 'Daylight Robbery' in 1999 as a seasonal beer and named after the total eclipse in August of that year. By 2001 it had become a permanent beer and had the name changed to 'Tribute' in honour of all those who had got the brewery through to its 150th Anniversary. It pours with a thin white head and a faint citric aroma to it. This pale ale has a fairly sweet taste and is a good standard pint to me.