The Fat Cat, West End St
It was Camra (Campaign for Real Ale) National Pub of the Year in 1999 and the Good Beer Guide's Beer Pub of the Year in 1998 and 2003. So is the Fat Cat free house (or Free Mouse, as the sign says) the best pub in Norwich? For real-ale buffs, the answer has to be yes. The locality is scruffy, it's awkward to find, the furnishings are rough and ready and it doesn't do food. But landlord Colin Keatley reckons his must be close to being the best beer selection in the country. He keeps a minimum of 25 real beers at any time, with 12 onhand-pumps and the rest tapped from the cask in one of two chilled tap rooms behind the bar. He stocks 30 Belgian bottled beers, 10 fruit wines and nine wines. And he buys from all over Britain and Ireland, from Belgium, France and Germany. He keeps best bitters, strong bitters, porters, old ales, barley wines, stouts, fruit beers, wheat beers, Budweiser Budvar, Bitburger Pils, and four Belgian ales: typically Liefman's Kriek, Leffe Blond, Timmerman's Peche and Dentergen's Wit. "But I still get people who are disappointed if they're really clued up and they want a particular beer," he says. Much of his trade comes from the University of East Anglia, about a mile away, and from the new Norfolk & Norwich hospital, built alongside the UEA campus. "But a lot of people put themselves out to come here," he says. The Fat Cat was built in 1877 to serve the terraced homes of workers in Norwich's now-defunct shoe industry. Keatley has managed topreserve or recreate the original feel by installing original partitions and fittings bought at auction and decorating the pub from his owncollection of "breweriana". He's also given punters a view into one of the two tap rooms by installing an internal window. "We've tried to enhance the old style of pub," he says. "It's all basic, but then people are spilling beer around the place, so what's the point in putting carpet down? We've done what the big boys have tried to do but can't quite get away with. You go in their places and the etched glass is just too modern, the tables are too well sanded." The Fat Cat is well and truly on the national, as well as Norwich, ale trail. "Norwich is highly regarded for real ale, so people will come here on organised tours of five or six pubs. There are a good 15 different real-ale pubs, so things are better than they've ever been for free houses and for real ale. They talk about national trends, with cask ale going down every year. But there are breweries like Fuller's and Shepherd Neame with London Pride and Spitfire that are doing really well. There are a hell of a lot of products that are very successful, like Harviestoun's Bitter & Twisted, which was the Camra Champion Beer of Britain last year. That's only 3.8% and I can't get enough of it.
