A Real Ale Brewery Triple Whammy

Excitement was in the air as the four OF's ventured out on location to the Waterloo Arms in Southampton on Saturday 7th February  (with the permission of their wives of course).

The mission - to boldly go to a real ale pub we had never been to before (though living only a few miles away we should probably be ashamed to admit that).   The Waterloo Arms is a Hopback Brewery owned pub and we were delighted (if not amazed) to find that not only did it have a fine selection of its own beers on draft, but also beers from two other real ale breweries, Exeter Brewery and Downton Brewery.

Like kids in a sweet shop the OF's had initial difficulty in deciding which pint of beer to order, but soon settled down to a pleasant evening of tasting a selection of the ales on offer.  The collective sampling efforts of the OF's included: -

The Waterloo Arms bar, bursting with draught real ales.

Crop Circle (Hopback)
Darkness (Exeter)
GFB - now known as GB (just as well as I kept calling it GBH) - (Hopback)
Summer Lightening - (Hopback)
New Forest Ale - (Downton)
Quadhop - (Downton).


I wondered why, having lived in the area for many, many years, I (in fact we) had never discovered this lovely pub before.

The atmosphere was 'good homely pub' with friendly staff and customers making it feel like it was our local  (I wish), not to mention the food.  Ok then I will....




... there was undoubtedly some trepidation, as to whether the food would be better than a certain hostelry in the Ringwood neighbourhood, visited by the OF's after the Ringwood Brewery trip.  Could the Waterloo Arms rise to the challenge?  We needn't have worried as the steak & stilton pie  and fish and chips (not all on the same plate) were indeed excellent.

The OF's cheerfully tuck in.

And then there was the cheese baguette and chips, whose sheer size dwarfed the other meals...

Monster cheese baguette with chip mountain.

Anyway the OF's thought the food was very good, so compliments to the chef!

There was no doubt this was a great evening with fantastic ales, the time slipped by all too quickly and our taxi (courtesy of one of our good ladies) was waiting to take us home.  Definitely an evening and venue to be repeated before too long - after all there were other beers we just didn't get the chance to sample!

In time honoured 'Untitled' tradition we analysed the evening's discourse to determine what the title to give this OF's adventure.    The unanimous decision was ...

'I Never Knew There Were Two Breweries in Downton'

... a fitting tribute to the Hopback and Downton Breweries for a very enjoyable evening!

Time gentlemen please....

Pub Shed II - The Sequel

It is rumoured that this could have more sequels than Sylvester Stallone's Rocky... but much more enjoyable and a better plot.  Well it's early days - so who can say?

Anyway back to the gripping plot and on a cold and chilly January evening, the OF's met at the Poet & Hack to dispel the mid-winter blues with some real ale sampling.

Father Christmas (or to be more accurate, my son Andy) had brought me a lovely present of a 9 pint mini keg of Rudgate Brewery Jorvik Blonde Ale.

So a perfect candidate for the OF's sampling and (I think) the general verdict was a jolly good ale with a fruity smell of peaches and melon and a sweet smooth light hoppy taste.  Ok - I borrowed those tasting notes from the Rudgate website - but it was very nice!  Thanks Andy.

OF's looking pretty happy about the keg of Rudgate Jorvik

Not content with one guest ale the last OF to arrive, came bearing shopping bags of another guest ale from Palmers Brewery in Dorset (not to mention a bag full of bar snacks).  So excited were the OF's by this development that we forgot to take any more photographs of proceedings and got straight down to sampling Palmers Best Bitter and Dorset Gold both of which were found to be eminently drinkable.  One of our number was however tempted by a Ringwood Old Thumper, having unfortunately missed the opportunity to sample this fine brew at the Ringwood Brewery tour because 'time' was called.

It is 'customary' at the Poet & Hack to share a verse or two of prose or poetry and this evening the great Sir John Betjeman read us two of his poems entitled 'A Shropshire Lad' and 'Youth and Age on Beaulieu River, Hants' (from his Banana Blush recording).

So after our literary diversion, the evening wore on pleasantly and conversation wandered from one unusual topic to the next, until someone suggested that a wee dram of single malt might round off an excellent evening.  Luckily (or not as the case may be) the landlord happened to have a bottle of Laphroaig Quarter Cask to hand.  Much fun was had in sampling this whisky with its very strong smoky, peat flavour. and varying degrees of water were added to taste.   One OF suggested that the effects were still felt the following day, but as it was his first whisky -  and having started with such a strong flavoured one, perhaps that wasn't too surprising.

In the style of Alan Davies' Untitled TV programme, it was decided that the title of the evening's proceedings should be 'The Joys of Vinyl'.  Perhaps that might be better left unexplained - but I did say the conversation wandered!

Time gentlemen please......