Easter Weekend and the sun is out, for now. I swear I haven't had a beer since this started. I'm torturing myself with these posts, but we are all in it together.
After St. Ives the Great Ouse becomes very pretty and you pass through several villages as you progress up stream, As we passed through Hemingford Grey we made a mental note to stop on our way downstream. Our idea was to make a quick dash to the head of navigation, scoping the place out as we went, and then knowing what time we had to linger stopping off at noted sites.
After Huntindon therre was Godmanchester and some very nice gardens and houses that kept Helen interested as we sailed by.
Brompton Mill is a posh restaurant that has things like a foraging course where you cook with what you find. I lovely spot though.
When we got to St. Neots we could either moor on the park side, or this floating pontoon by the theatre. As you can see we chose the pontoon, that has water on it too. And handier for the town. I had visions of the town being picturesque and with plenty to see. We were only out for a while but were a little disappointed. We were not that impressed by the pubs even but eventually made a choice
As you can see the Weeping Ash is a Wetherspoon's establishment. The building is an old Post Office that was built in 1913. Before that the land was the garden of a Mr. Medland who was a banker, and important man in the town, according to the pub website. When I look I find a William Medland as a local surveyor and auctioneer! His house was opposite and after his death in 1870's, followed by his Cwife's passing, the house was sold to the local Conservative party to be their club. The post office was built on part of the garden was on part of the garden that had been sold off to a Mr. Redman. The garden had been well known for its shrubs and trees, especially the weeping ash tree, hence the name. The Post Office had the telephone exchange upstairs until 1962 when the STD exchange came in. The Post Office moved out in 2006 to relocate to the High Street and Wetherspoon took on the property soon after.
The pub had their usual standard beers on, that don't excite me very much, and an extremely small number of other beers. I chose a beer from the Exmoor Brewery in the end. Exmoor is not a 'Jonny come lately' brewery as they were actually set up in 1979. The original name was the Golden Hill Brewery but this had changed to Exmoor the following year. They were actually set up in part of the old Hancock's brewery that started in 1807 but closed in 1859. The tower brewery and chimney are still land marks of the Somerset town of Wiveliscombe and where the beer is still brewed. It didn't take very long for them to make a mark as their Exmoor Ale became the Champion CAMRA beer and set them on the road to success. By 2015 they had to expand, and new premises were required. Mind you they only moved about 100 yds down the road. The move doubled their capacity and they are still going strong.
I had a pint of their strong bitter Stag, 5.2%. This beer was first brewed for bottling as it was created to celebrate the centenary of Somerset County Cricket Club in 1991. The days of Ian Botham and Viv Richards and Brian Close had passed but there was still much to celebrate. The beer went down so well it was decided to put it in cask and it has become one of their stable beers. There was a good head on the beer and the aroma was of hops, three different English hops are used. But the taste is definitely of biscuity malts. There is no doubting that it is a proper bitter,but well round and a very nice drink too.
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