THE ALETASTER, ST. NEOTS

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Type micropubs into Amazon and two titles pop up;

Redundancy and Reinvention by [Milam, Susan]
99p
£13.48

The first of those looks like an extended blogpost on the early flowering of the “Scene” in Herne, Hartlepool and Newark.  If I invest the 99p I’ll let you know.

The second (published 31 March) is a weightier looking volume (220 pages) apparently packed with anecdotes from the micros around the country.  I’ll reserve judgement, but if you want to know what middle aged blokes say in small pubs you can, of course, just read BRAPA for free.  You don’t get characters like Judgey Jesus and Sam & Mick in micropubs.

As you’ll know, I care little for the Herne Guidelines; I like pubs to have real people of all ages who swear, smoke and play snooker, as long as there’s decent real ale and bench seating as well.

But I’m still pleased to see the arrival of The Ale Taster in St Neots last Friday, if only because it gives me an extra option on my Thursday afternoons there.

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It’s also a welcome replacement for a Batemans pubs that bounced in and out of the Beer Guide over the last decade.  The previous incarnation always felt like a micropub, and I note WhatPub uses “in the style of a micro” to describe the Ale Taster.

It certainly has the feel of a proper , cosy pub, that you get from game tables, and a range of seating areas allow you to escape the banter at the bar in a way that some micros don’t.

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Early micros seemed to stick to three or four quality beers at £3 or so to maintain quality, but I’ve seen double that recently in micros with limited hours.  The Ale Taster is starting with three that won’t draw the tickers but include a couple the locals will have heard of (Rev James, Wherry).  Lincoln Green from the barrel was cool and tasty (NBSS 3.5).

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Because she’s my PubMan of the month, I bought an interesting bottle from their fridge for Mrs RM. Lots of bottles under £3 is a decent selling point.

The real selling point was the lovely couple in charge of their first place, who chatted transport and planning issues for 20 minutes with me and another local, rather than comparing notes on hops and other micros. The mark of a proper pub.

Tonight I’m staying in the centre of Middlesbrough*, where it’s now actually illegal NOT to be called a micropub, even if your offer is karaoke and a gastro burger menu. Several of them won’t be in that new book I mentioned, such is the pace of change on Teeside, and the world of micros.

*A parmo-free night, I fear

Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

16 thoughts on “THE ALETASTER, ST. NEOTS”

  2. It probably seems like a proper pub because it was a proper pub and never a micro pub,it used to be called The Hog and Partridge and had five real ales on when i went in with my brother last year,the Long Man Session IPA went down a treat.
    There is a blog about our crawl round the St Neots area on the Never Ending Pub Crawl.

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  3. Haven’t come across those books. Did occur me times are ripe for a Good Micropub Guide but a print version would be far out of date in in a few months. Enjoy the Boro selection. Think there is a very new one called Bottles or something similar

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  4. The Micropub guide won’t be a very comprehensive or impartial guide as they were charging for entry. Needless to say we ignored the request!

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      1. I’ve seen it discussed on the Micropub Association forums, but don’t think it’s an official thing. Some owners saw it as a marketing opportunity whilst others saw it as a scam I think.

        Someone needs to put together a guide of all the pubs with a bar billiards table. There would be an entry charge of old sixpence still used to activate the table, to enable the author(s) to have some free games.

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      3. You should find our extremely basic website has all the info you need: http://www.stationhousedurham.co.uk/

        It may not be ‘open all hours’ but, barring catastrophes, always open when the sign on the door says it should be! But basically don’t come on a Monday or too early unless it’s the weekend – but you could’ve guessed that anyway 😉

        Drop me an email chris@… when you’re making your plans to head up!

        BTW, we had our staff Christmas outing at the HoS last Monday. We were there about 3 hours and drinking expensive bottles. Guess how many pints of cask we saw being pulled?

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