Beers, Boats and Boozers, No.73.

We had a walk around Peterborough and also managed to renew our week EA licence at the Tourist Information Centre. As you have to give 24hr notice to use Stanground Lock we had an extra half day in Peterborough so made full use to visit the museum, cathedral etc etc.

Peterborough Cathedral was fantastic and we were lucky enough to turn up just as a free tour was starting. There was too much information to take in but a real insight into the church. The fan vaulting is a remarkable feat, and so beautiful to behold.

This is the promenade at Peterborough. The river is wide and traffic noise minimal but I would park away from benches as folk seem to congregate there in the evenings drinking. Water and pump out are about half way down. It is a short distance to walk into town. It was not very long after leaving before turning onto the Middle Levels and arriving at the lock.

The water on the Middle Levels takes you past the old clay pit that supplied the brick factories that can be seen. It seems that atleast some of them are still working as there was smoke from a couple of them. The one on the right was the tallest chimneys in Europe at one time, at 400m!

The next and only other lock of the day was the other side of Whittlesey and not the easiest to work but we were soon on the move again and heading form March.

Luckily for us there was room on the town moorings so we were soon off for a look around. The Hippodrome was close by and as it was a Wetherspoon's it would be rude not to call in. As you can see the pub was a former cinema that was built by the March Amusements Co in 1929. It had a little over 900 seats and could be used for stage performances with five dressing rooms and a stage door etc. In the 1960's a new company had bought it and by 1970 films were stopped in favour of Bingo, the fate of many cinemas at the time. Later attempts to reintroduce films failed until the circle was redeveloped into the cinema with comfy seats and all mod cons with Dolby Sound etc. Bingo continued below. It was once again bought in 2009 and the films stopped but bingo continued for a bit longer until it was once again sold, this time to Wetherspoons and the pub opened in 2010.

Wolf Brewery was set up by Wolfe Witham who was part of the Norwich Reindeer brew pub in the 1980's. The first set up was a 20 bl plant in Attleborough in the old Gaymers Cider site in 1996. It increased to a 25 bl in 2006 and by 2009 it needed to move to a purpose built set up and bottling plant a couple of miles up the road in Besthorpe. They use local ingredients and seem to be very successful supplying over 300 outlets.

I tried a pint of the Lupus Lupus which is of course the Latin name for a wolf. It is 4.2% blonde beer with a nice colour and pleasing head. The taste, while hoppy is not over citrus and allows the barley to come through too. It was a very satisfying drink and I will look out for other Wolf Brewery beers.