KIRKHAM BIERHAUS – FYLDE UNDER “OK”

January 2024. Kirkham. Fylde.

By a massive stroke of misfortune we’d managed to pick a day to visit Blackpool just as Jane was escaping to Preston. We were destined to repeat all of Jane’s errors the very next day.

One more tick on the way to the sea, with the Kirkham Bierhaus the latest GBG “small pub” debutant in that string of agricultural villages you’ve never heard of and will never visit.

Virtually contiguous (love that word) Wesham has the Proper Pubs and the professional football club that Jane will no doubt support once bored with Blackpool and Preston, but Kirkham has the micros and the ancient signage.

It also has the talking wall.

I tried to get it to talk to me about windmills on the Fylde coast by waving my QR scanner at it, but it just ignored me, as if I was in Chatteris or something.

The main road in Kirkham is being dug up so they can install a tram stop to link up all the West Lancs micropubs by 2030, in time for Simon’s visit.

Looking at that sight, I was convinced the Bierhaus was shut, despite reading a Facebook post from that week promoting their poker night.

Eventually we found our way in, greeted by (I presume) German bier hall style trestle tables, a few Old Boys on the Pils and a sense of bewilderment that this was in the Guide. But that’s the beauty of GBG24.

There was a bewildering array of potential places to buy a beer. Mainly German beer.

This one,

or this one ?

Well, the one with the half-cut local standing at the bar, I guess.

While I attempted to take my Ayinger Hell back to Mrs RM, who’d sat well out of sight, the chap regaled me with stories of “er indoors” and how he’d come to name their house “Llamedos” (thing Dylan Thomas and Llaregub).

“Why do we say men have grey hair but women have silver, hmm ?“.

I’m a sucker for this type of conversation, even if my own contribution is 1% of it.

Finally, he nipped outside for a fag, Mrs got her lovely beer (the cask White Witch was good, too), and AC/DC started up.

A bit like the street art in the alley outside,

nothing in Kirkham seemed to make sense, but that’s OK.

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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.

18 thoughts on “KIRKHAM BIERHAUS – FYLDE UNDER “OK””

    2. Angus Young out of AC/DC once said “It annoys me when people say we’ve made eleven albums that all sound the same. We’ve actually made twelve albums that all sound the same.”

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  2. His father started brewing Ayinger brau in Tadcaster when Humphrey was still in short trousers. That ended in 2006.

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  3. Maybe it’s a distribution thing, but that German beer list is pretty unimaginative. I don’t think there’s anything on it that isn’t brewed by a multinational company. It’d be a bit like going in a British craft beer bar in Germany and finding that the options were Carling, Guinness and John Smith’s Smooth.

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  4. Languages were never my strong point but I think PRIVATBRAUEREI might translate as Private Brewery.
    Ayeringau bears little resemblance to Oxford’s College breweries or brewhouses in large country houses such as Shugborough Hall and so I think “private” might have a definition in Germany that differs from what we’re used to here.

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    1. I think it means that it’s a privately owned company rather than one whose shares are publicly listed, roughly equivalent to a family owned regional brewery here.

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      2. In lieu of death duties following the 4th earl expiring in 1960 Shugborough Hall passed to the National Trust who reduced the fully equipped Victorian brewhouse to a shell. A log fired replacement was subsequently installed but the beers, largely from lack of temperature control during the mash, were dreadful and I was pleased to only imbibe a couple of pints.

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