Protz: selling European and real ales together

An invite to a debate means a visit north, to the Works, in Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire.

It was the ultimate no-brainer. I'd been invited to debate whether or not a pub that specialises in cask beers should also offer genuine European lagers. As the pub in question, the Works in Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire, is a fair step from my home base in the south-east, it was a long way to go to just say "Yes".

Of course, I said rather more than that. The Works sells several divine beers from the Timothy Taylor range as well as its own house beer, Works Wonders, brewed by the Phoenix brewery across the Pennines in Greater Manchester. Along with brewers from Taylor's, I talked my way through their beers as well as discussing the merits of the equally divine Czech lager Budweiser Budvar.

The audience was large, appreciative and well informed. I didn't need to explain at length the difference between Czech Budvar and American Budweiser. But I did stress my firm belief that there's a world of difference these days between lager beers such as Budvar, matured for 90 days, and global brands that are produced at roughly the same speed as a bobsleigh competitor travels in the Winter Olympics.

So there is, to use the trendy word of the moment, synergy between the likes of Taylor's Landlord and Budvar. Both are brewed with enormous care and devotion to detail. The brewers use the finest raw materials — malted barley and whole hops — without a grain of rice or corn in sight. In the case of Taylor's, its beers reach fruition through a secondary fermentation in the cask in the pub cellar, while Budvar slowly ripens in deep, icy caves beneath the brewery.

The discussion took place in an amazing pub. Forget "traditional". The Works is a modern establishment, fashioned from an old joiners' shop by the energetic Sara-Jo Cooper.

From the age of 24, she worked all round the world organising corporate events. The job was demanding. "You could do a breakfast event in Paris, an evening gig in Berlin and another breakfast event in Zurich the following morning. I saw people in their 40s knackered by the job. I didn't want that. I wanted to stay at home and have a family."

The Works​

So Sara-Jo from Huddersfield went back to Yorkshire and took over the joiners' shop with a leaky roof in 2004 and transformed it with such success that in 2007 she won the national prize for best pub conversion from CAMRA and National Heritage. The Works has a high vaulted roof, old church pews and deep, comfortable Chesterfields. "When the judges of the pub conversion awards asked me who my interior designer was, I answered 'eBay'!"

Long before the opening, there had been frantic weeks of work by every carpenter, plumber, electrician, and painter and decorator in Sowerby Bridge to get the Works ready in time for its inspection by the licensing magistrates.

"If I hadn't got the licence, I'd have been declared bankrupt," Sara-Jo says. "The budget had gone out of the window and the bank overdraft was blown. All the effort went in to getting the bar ready — there was no accommodation. I slept on the floor in a sleeping bag. Food came from a Tupperware box."

Sara-Jo got her licence and the Works was open, up and running. But she had to pay off the bank and, after a long day in the pub, she would go on her computer and work at her old job of organising events. But eventually the Works settled down in to a successful venue, attracting a wide range of customers from every social background. Sara-Jo now has a partner and two daughters and lives a normal life — if running a pub can ever be considered normal.

The large L-shaped bar that dom-inates the ground floor of the Works offers Taylor's ales, Budvar, the German Pilsener Veltins, and Erdinger wheat beer. Sara-Jo regularly sells Moorhouse's ales from Lancashire and draws guest beers from all over Britain. Works Wonders, the house beer, is brewed strictly to her recipe.

Running events​

Food plays a central role. The dishes are "cooked with love", she says, by women who work in the pub. "It's all fresh and there are no chips." The portions are generous, as I can testify. Arriving on a snowy night cold enough to freeze the blood in your veins, a vast vegetable stew got my internal juices flowing again.

Sara-Jo is not resting on her laurels. Her background in running events drives her to use the spacious upstairs room in the pub for debates, conferences, seminars, live jazz and blues, a theatre club and cinema on Sundays. "We might devote one Sunday to showing old Hitchcock movies," she says.

It would be a soothing experience watching Psycho with a glass or three of Landlord or Budvar. Perhaps Norman Bates wouldn't have killed his mother if he'd had some decent beer on tap, served in such a remarkable pub as the Works.