November 2023. Cambridge.
I think by law there needs to be at least one (1) new Top 100 pub every fortnight so that by March 2026 there’s a 1,000 of them and then we can apply a 10:1 devaluation or something.
Bit surprising that GBG perennial the Elm Tree hadn’t made my chart before, but then Cambridge has stiff competition close by from the Free Press, Champion and Blue.
In Sheffield this would be the Sheaf View, in Manchester the Angel; a quirky Proper Pub of the Old Skool, here tucked away in the leafy backstreet between Cambridge’s two dreadful shopping centres. Not that I ever buy anything apart from second-hand Lloyd Webber CDs.
Perhaps the best pub in the Charles Wells roster, which sounds like faint praise (see also : the best Shepherd Neame pub), but look at it !
A thing of great beauty, and having survived personal tragedy, pandemics and the comings and goings of Charlie Wells I reckoned the longstanding lady had the Tree is as good form as I’ve seen it.
In truth I was here as my train back to the ‘beach, Webber CD clutched to my bosom, was at noon and I needed an 11am pint before being aurally assaulted with “Joseph” highlights.
And there aren’t many noon, let alone 11am, openers in Cambridge, what with a distinct lack of Craft Union and Stonegate.
“Good to see you open at 11” I say.
“Pubs aren’t just about money, it’s somewhere for these fellas to come to and chat“. Spot on.
You don’t see enough “original” Adnams, either. I ask if I can have a straight glass rather than the jug the other fella has, and get a choice of four (4), prompting a discussion about the merits of these fat pint glasses.
Whatever, it works, the Adnams is a rich, chewy wonder, and if the little Google map on my phone hadn’t been showing I had 27 minutes to make the 1.5 miles to the station I’d have stayed for another.
Or a pre-noon Orval.
And that would have been a very bad idea (right).
retiredmartin 
“and the comings and goings of Charlie Wells”
I thought I remembered it as one of their pubs fifty years ago.
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Probably was, but the beers have moved and the agreement that saw Banks & Taylors of Shefford beers on sale in the Elm Tree has long gone. When I visited with Peter a few years back they had an excellent Pedigree on.
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I used to drink Banks & Taylors in the Eagle on Farringdon rod, that’s before it became the first gastropub.
Now I go for Banks’s and Taylors separately.
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They used to run six pubs, all in the GBG and all good. Think brewing closed during 2020 and now no more, but the Edwin Taylor Stout named after my grandfather was a classic.
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Coincidently Crewe Martin’s grandfather was The Reverend James Buckley.
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Who is Crewe Martin ?
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Martin Grosberg, first known from our November 2017 Proper Day Out in Crewe when the Hop Pole was most definitely NOT his “Highlight of the Day”.
Lives in Crewe, works in Stafford.
I’ve seen in three times this year ; handing over some Out Inn Cheshire magazines to him in the Shrewsbury Arms ; outside the Coach and Horses as I was walking from the railway station and he to it ; in the Stafford beer festival where he was serving.
Was Edwin Taylor famous for anything other than being the grandfather of retired Martin ?
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“Born in Crewe, Live in Crewe, Work In Stafford, Die in Crewe” ?
Edwin Taylor was, I presume, one of the founders of Banks & Taylor brewery. My grandfather was teetotal.
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But Banks & Taylor Brewery Ltd was founded by Martin Ayres and Mike Desquesnes in August 1982. What I don’t know is how closely related that Martin is to our Citra.
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Perhaps a relative ? Hard to find any information on the internet.
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Yes, that’s the internet for you.
Much nicer was a walk into town for the Carnegie library and then, oh yes, I could just manage a pint or two in the …….
Talking of which I was meant to be gone by now.
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Why isn’t it teatotal?
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Weren’t Banks and Taylor, the maiden names of the wives of the two founders of the brewery?
Ayres and Desquesnes, doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
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Paul,
Yes, fake Spanish lager wasn’t quite the thing forty years ago.
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One of my fave pubs! Nights get interesting when the Belgian beers come out.
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