Beers, Boats and Boozers, No.95

We were now on a bit of a deadline so we on.y spent one night in Boston before heading off up the Witham

The first bridge after Boston is Langrick Bridge and was only built in 1907 after 4 years of wrangles about who was going to pay for it. In the end it costs £9000, including the rights to the ferry that ran from just round the corner, and had conveniently sunk the week before the bridge opened!

We stopped that night on the pontoon at Dog Dyke. You can see the old 18th century bridge that is not in use for vehicles today, but it has served its time as it wasn't until 1992 that the modern bridge took over. You can just see it behind the old one. Helen likes this mooring as we are almost at the end of the runway at RAF Coningsby. It is where the Battle of Britain Memorial flight are based as well as modern Typhoons. She has a thing about aeroplanes so we she read that the Typhoons were on night exercise she was thrilled. Fortunately they finished before bed time as it consisted of them taking off, flying round and bumb landing before roaring off again!!

The next day the weather looked threatening but stayed fair as we chugged up the quiet navigation until we slotted on the pontoon at Kirkstead Bridge, which is handy for a walk into Woodhall Spa, so we did.

We did the tourist thing and wandered around the sites. We headed for the Tea House in the Woods for a cup of tea and a bit of cake. It was busy, but there was room outside. It started in 1907 and was a 'proper' place like Betty's in Harrogate. It then became an Italian restaurant before turning back to the tea house concept in 2014.

The Kinema in the Woods started life as the pavilion for the Victoria Hotel. When it burned down in 1920 the pavilion was sold off and became a cinema in 1922. It is the only permanent cinema that uses back projection on to the screen as the roof is too low for normal methods. The front row of the seating was deck chairs until 1953! The Victoria Hotem was where the spa was after health giving watres were discovered when sinking a coal mine. 

The Cottage Museum was opened in 1987. It was built a hundred years early from a flat pack kit sold by Boulton and Paul. It was owned by the Wield family that used to run bath chairs and donkey carts to transport the invalids around the town. Ghey also were avid collectors and the museum houses their 'stuff' and photos of the past.

We had arranged to meet up with a friend for a meal later so we crossed the bridge to try the Kings  just on the other side.  The pub is not very imposing from the outside but there was a really warm welcome and it was quite busy with folk after work. The food was good pub grub, cooked when ordered and didn't make a hole in then pocket. It was very nice indeed. There is a largish bar and a restaurant so plenty of room.

There was little choice on the beer front but they had Batemen's on hand pull so that was easily settled.  Bateman's was started in 1874 by George and Susannah Bateman who were farmers. She brewed for the workers and it was so good that they gave up the farming. In 1880 they moved to Salem House in Wainfleet and built a brewery next to the windmill that became their logo on every

  advert. They started out using good quality ingredients and have continued producing 'good honest ales' for four generations. The brewery is still family owned and independent. In 2002 they opened a second little brewery on site to run small batch beers and trials. They were the innovators in using fruit flavours in their beers and seasonal beers.

I went for the Bateman;s XB, 3.7%. In 1960 they were only producing three draft beers, a light and a dark mild and XB. It is a nice malty beer that went down well with gammon and egg. They use Lincolnshire grown Kincolnshire Pale and chocolate malts to give the nice colour and mixed with Goldings, Challenger and Styrian bobeck hops to get some fruitiness in the flavour too. The head was thin, the aroma was nice and ry with a promise of more, and the taste finished with a dry mouthful.