NO MAN’S LAND

February 2024. Austrey. Warwickshire.

“That pub looks familiar !”.

Yep, the Bird in Hand at Austrey went straight in to my “Half a dozen pubs in Warwickshire” even before this blog got there, so I’ve now got a job on to find something else out to say about it.

The most interesting thing is that location, near No Man’s Heath near the borders of four counties. “No-Mans-Heath was formerly an extra-parochial tract“, explains Wiki, as if that explains everything.

Austrey is a pleasant little village of 1,527 souls, some nice timber,

those first signs of Spring,

and a 13th century church.

I completely forgot this little fella lives a couple of miles away,

at Twycross Zoo.

When the lads were toddlers we dragged them all over the Midlands to see zoos, steam railways and other “attractions” so we must have been here, but clearly not the Bird In Hand, which as skilfully evaded the Beer Guide as long as I’ve been doing it.

And now it’s straight in, with CAMRA award to boot.

Take that in. Local Pub of the Year in a branch containing the NATIONAL winner in Tamworth*.

15th century thatched pub,

animals on the thatch,

opened up a bit but the timber still provides a half dozen separate drinking/dining areas with multiple fire. As I say, where’s it been hiding ?

Lovely young barperson, perhaps responsible for the nu-country soundtrack.

The beer range seemed ambitious,

as did £4.80 a pint of Pedi, but this was a rich, chewy, Pedi worth 4 of your NBSS points, and I for one don’t care whether it’s brewed in Unions or whatever as long as it tastes good.

*Perhaps you’re not allowed to win every year, I’ll leave you to explore that one.

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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.

17 thoughts on “NO MAN’S LAND”

  1. Stop being a philistine, Martin. You ought to care about how Pedigree is brewed, because the next time you go to drink a pint, it might not taste anyway near as good as the pint you have just written about. Cause and effect, and all that.

    People not caring enough, is why the world today is in such a mess!

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    1. Truth is, Paul, I’ve apparently been drinking it from the the new brewing method for while, and it’s been as good as ever, so I’m happy to accept progress and that the “productivity” we rely on to pay our pensions requires things to change from time to time. Bass hasn’t suffered from the change !

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      1. Hi Martin, two points to consider. First “apparently” you’ve been drinking Pedigree produced by the new method, but how do you actually know that.

        Second, for those of us who were around in the mid-80’s, when Bass scrapped their Burton Unions, the taste of Draught Bass certainly did change. The beer lost much of the subtle nuances that made it such a great beer, and whilst it is still a very enjoyable drink, it never really recovered its past glories.

        I don’t follow your productivity argument, especially as Carlsberg-Marstons Brewing are 60% foreign owned. Also, much of the profits that go towards paying our pensions, are syphoned of into hedge funds, and other speculative investments by those wishing to avoid paying tax.

        A different argument, but when things that work well are changed, just to save few shillings, all allegedly in the name of progress, we become poorer as individuals and as a society as a whole.

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      2. But everyone complains about those few shillings extra on the price of a pint and then complains when companies make processes more efficient to save those few shillings. Surely the same logic applies to all professional, rather than artisan, production methods ?

        I can’t be sure how the Pedi I’ve been drinking has been produced recently, though I read that Marston have been using that new method for some time.

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      3. When I was a kid in Wrexham, I drank Bass and enjoyed it. Then I went to university in Bristol and was pleased to find Bass there. Thing was it was a completely different drink. I suspect the stuff I drank in Wrexham was another beer, possibly cask Stones, rebadged.

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      4. When I was a kid (say, 19) I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between Wrexham Lager and Bass.

        The Bass I drink now, the stuff on the Wickingman list served by landlords who care about it, is generally better than the Bass I occasionally drink 25-30 years ago in places that didn’t. I don’t care if they make it in Burton, Wolves, or Japan.

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      1. Provenance does matter, as I’m sure producers of Appellation Controlee wines, champagne and Wagyu beef will tell you.

        This could run and run, and as I’m sure we’ve both got more important things to do, I shall knock this topic on the head right now. 😀

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      3. The world of food and drink production is so full of lies that it’s often impossible to tell if that supposed provenance is real or not.

        Even small producers do it. Take Franconia, for instance, pubs claiming to brew beer that haven’t for decades. Breweries that claim to brew a wheat beer alongside their core lager range.

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      7. Provenance works with food. For example, Welsh hill lamb, saltmarsh lamb and Shetland lamb all taste great but different. Terroir and all that. Don’t think it works with beer though. Obvs there are regional beer styles but I’m not sure it matters where they’re brewed.

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    1. It is okay, but that’s about all you can say for it, as it’s nothing like the Wandsworth brewed, Young’s Ordinary of old.

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