It's just a Purbeck day...
The Isle of Purbeck in Dorset sails under false colours. It's not an island, rather a large promontory firmly attached to the rest of the county. But the streams, small rivers, lakes and the harbour at Poole do give a feeling of separateness, one that is emphasised by such old-fashioned seaside resorts as Swanage, with their 1950s, Kiss Me Quick appeal, and the distinctive local dialect. Purbeck has a lot of pubs. Many of them still carry the logo of Whitbread, though that company departed both brewing and pub retailing three years ago. Whitbread's presence in the area was the result of the takeover of a famous regional brewery, Strong's of Romsey, in neighbouring Hampshire. In spite of the ghostly presence of the Whitbread hind, there is now an abundance of choice on Purbeck. I am frequently struck by the gap between statistics and reality where cask beer is concerned, and nowhere is that gap more noticeable than on Purbeck. The people who compile their charts tell us, with chilling regularity, that cask beer will soon join the Dodo in the museum of extinct species. Yet, on the ground, a quite different picture emerges. A cynic might say that last month's Great British Beer Festival is not a true reflection of the state of the beer market as it attracts only the most dedicated lovers of cask beer a view made nonsense by a slow stroll round the festival to witness the large crowds of young people of both sexes relishing real ale. But, three hours from London, Purbeck also tells a different story. It was difficult to avoid special events built around cask beer. A beer festival at the Greyhound in Corfe Castle was coming to an end and had, according to the landlord, been a rip-roaring success over the bank holiday weekend. How strange: according to Nucleus Data in the Morning Advertiser last week, no one was drinking bitter during the heat wave. They had been voraciously in the Greyhound. A marquee had been put up behind the pub and by the time of my visit only a few of the dozens of jacketed and cooled casks contained beers supplied by national, regional and micro brewers. A few miles away, the Bankes Arms at Studland is a beer festival 52 weeks of the year. The bar groans under the weight of its handpumps, while pump clips attached to a beam indicate some of the vast number of beers the pub has served over the years. Now Jack Lightbown, who manages the pub with his parents, has added a 10-barrel brewery to the side of the old smugglers' inn. With his assistant Hamish Summers, he is brewing three beers, and such was the clamour during the bank holiday that I was unable to sample the main ale, Studland Bay Wrecked, as the casks had been drained. The brewing kit has been bought from the Quay Brewery in Poole. It is big enough to enable Jack to not only brew for the pub, but to supply Hall & Woodhouse with guest beers and the Beer Seller for wider distribution. In common with all brewers in Dorset, Jack Lightbown was gearing up to deliver to a major steam rally near Dorchester where the beer tent is a central attraction, and where, despite the wisdom of the statisticians, bitter heavily outguns lager. My wife, who is drawn to garden centres by powerful magnets similar to the ones that suck me into pubs, returned from a visit to Compton Acres, near Bournemouth, to inform me that the Gardens there was staging a beer festival. I bet some bright spark among the brewing fraternity had produced a special beer for the occasion: "Pint of Green Welly, please". The joy of my brief tour of Purbeck was spoilt by the disappearance of one much-loved inn. When I deposited my wife and sons at Wareham station for their annual pilgrimage to Weymouth, I planned, as always, to drop into the Railway Tavern for a pint of Ringwood's finest. Alas, the Railway Tavern is no more. It has become Monsoon, offering, I'm sure, delicious Asian cuisine, but no cask beer. Ah well, back to the garden centre... www.protzonbeer.com
