January 2025. Eddington. Cambridge.
25 years ago ALL the pubs in Cambridge had real ale, 100%. I still have the book (thanks, Paul AInsworth) to prove it. It wasn’t always good (looking at you, Pemberton Arms), but that’s not the point, is it ?
This century has seen marginal cask outlets in the Cambridge suburbs close (Cherry Hinton, Arbury), and (non-budget) hotels finally reach the city, complete with crafty keg from Harston.
Leaving Mum with carers for a couple of hours, we explored Eddington.
Eddington is proof Cambridge can build houses when it wants to and it’s not more profitable to landbank; 1,800 houses for University staff and postgrads in a sustainable development between the M11 and A14. You’ve driven past and it and gone “Ugh, what’s THAT ?“. The official photo of typical residents tells you more than a thousand words of mine.
Actually it’s not that bad, just a bit worthy, particularly the arts centre.
“Perhaps the forthcoming hotel will serve Bass and Plum Porter” I wrote, in 2020. Wrong as usual.
What Pub reckons there’s no cask pubs, the Hyatt has already dumped it (probably wise). Untappd reckons there’s five places to check-in. A bar called Dutch, a bar called Douche,
a Hyatt hotel, the Astronomer and the Sainsbury’s.
On that basis, Untappd reckon there’s 200,000 pubs in the UK, as most of those are one and the same.
The Astronomer is your target, approached through a sea of foliage.
You’ll know how much I love an upmarket hotel bar with exposed ductwork and folk blocking the entrance who haven’t read Mrs RM’s “One Small Bag” (AKA around the world with one pair of knickers and a corkscrew).
The outer reaches of Cambridge are pretty much “Adnamsland”. You might struggle to find Southwold Bitter these days but their keg is everywhere.
A sign says “Wait Here”. We tell a lady ferrying burgers about we’re only here for beer; she directs us to the bar, where a young man directs us to sit down.
He’s either cleaning the lines or connecting him, and cuts his finger spectacularly. I blame the low alcohol tap.
In due course, the sort of delay that gets folk irate in Wetherspoons, we get Ghost Ship and Well’s Foghorn (“a nice crisp one for you” says our injured hero).
Branded glasses, cool and (indeed) crisp, Mrs RM’s Adnams the winner, though in truth it was the lovely young bar staff who were the stars.
And how often have I said that.
retiredmartin 
Not a lot of we tourists around you on this ramble?
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Eddington is a university financed housing development, a mile west of the colleges, so nothing for tourists bar the Hyatt and students of modern housing design.
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When this bar first opened they had a couple of Milton Brewery casks perched on the counter behind the bar. A couple of weeks after opening I managed a visit and they were still on the first cask with the second still untapped waiting it’s turn. Needless to say it was vinegar.
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The bar is run by CambsCuisine, which runs a number of upmarket dining pubs including that Chop House opposite Kings which had Milton from the barrel. Good on them for trying it and ditching it in Eddington, nothing worse than undrunk cask !
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You wonder why they bothered cutting the door sign in two.
All those brains and no-one thought to move it to one side.
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