Beers, Boats and Boozers, No. 63.

We arrived back after  a quite long stay at home, a long weekend to France with my brothers and a barbershop chorus weekend singing competition. Once back we headed south again, but being late leaving Debdale we stopped below Foxton Locks.

We only had a short delay befor heading up yhe ten locks and 75' rise. We completed the climb in 45 mins.

There are occasional nice views through the hedges to the Welland Valley. It flows to the Wash and that is eventually where we were headed this year.

We moored up not too far at Bridge 46 near Husband Bosworth so that we could go into the village and post a letter. The village was in the Domesday Book of 1086 but didn't attract the Husbands part until the 17th Century. The Husbands denotes farmers (husbandry), probably to distinguish it from Market Bosworth not too far away.

There were once seven pubs in the village. This one still has the Phipps Brewery sign on it. It was the Grazier Arms. It obviously wasn't this one that we were aiming to call at.

The Bell Inn is the only surviving one left in the village. The village was of some import  and other outbildingsas it was at the crossroads of two turnpike roads. There are some lovely buildings around and there is a guided walk around the village. Leaflet available on line and from the shop. The first mention I have of the Bell was in 1787 when it was let or sold. A year later it was sold at auction and was said to  have a large yard, stabling for 14 horses. The building seems to have been rebuilt around 1815 and in another sale  was said to have a large kitchen, 2 parlours with convenient bar, 6 sleeping rooms in front and 2 at back, kitchen dairy, cheese room, brewhouse, 2 cellars with chambers over, out buildings with stabling for 24 horses with granaries and lofts over. A yard with pump and well with gardens and 5 acres of pasture. Despite being altered inside you can still see the coaching in layout. It was okay with a few people in too. I seem to remember that they did food, but I was more looking at the fact that they only had one hand pull for real ale!

Caledonian Brewery was started in 1869 by George Lorimar and  Robert Clark. George's father died when he was 18 and was well off. He spent a lot of time playing golf and mixing with the business men of Edinburgh. We he got to be 21 and inherited the family estate we had already decided to set up a brewery. Clark came from another brewery as the Head Brewer. A few years later they built a brand new up to date brewery and carried un until George died in 1936. At this time the outfit was purchased by Vaux's of Sunderland and in 1986 they decided to close the Edinburgh business down. However a management buyout of the brewery kept it alive and brewing. In 2004 Scottish and Newcastle were attracted to it as they had bought McEwans brewery and promptly closed it, but needed somewhere to produce the McEwans beers. A new Caledonian Brewery Co. started up from shareholders of the old company and they kept the recipes and brewery despite Scottish and Newcastle having 30%. They brewed their beers under licence. The new CBC bought Harviestoun Brewery in Alva during this period. By 2008 Scottish and Newcastle bought all the shares in the new Caledonian but not the Haviestoun Brewery so it continued there. S&N were then bought by Heineken! What a convoluted story that is.

Caledonian are well know for their 80/- and the IPA. They had the IPA on hand pull, so the decision was made. At 3.8% it is a good session drink. It pulled with a lovely thick white head over the white gold colour of the liquid, very pleasing to the eye. There was definitely plenty of citrus hop aroma going on too. The taste didn't really live up to the smell of the pint but at 3.8% I suppose that isn't too surprising. It was an okay pint, but as it has won over 40 awards including CAMRA Supreme Champion beer and World Champion Cask Ale, it must be me!