McMULLEN’S IN ROYSTON

January 2025. Royston.

Is this the year of McMullens ? A new GBG entrant in Sevenoaks, lauded by Kentish Paul, if not BRAPA, and some very decent cask in un-pubby surroundings on Stafford Paul’s visit to Cambridge.

It’s almost like cask breathers have been forgiven.

I took Mrs RM for lunch in Royston. The Manor House, home to the infamous “Spoons Riots” of 2017, was my target, but we got no further than the Old Postie.

Quite what had put me off this place before is hard to say; from the outside it just looked naff.

But Mrs RM was right to drag me in,

this joins St Neots in my Top 10 Post Office-to-Pub-Conversions.

And there’s your (unexpected) proof that McMullens still values cask.

AK beer of the year ? Who voted for that ? Paul Mudge, I suspect.

Mrs RM resisted the overblown dining room (packed with mums and schoolchildren), and asked to sit in the bar area. Attagirl !

“You’ll need to go to the bar to order though !” warned the lovely young staff. Mrs RM is a big girl, she can manage that. Even if, as some of you noted, she can’t put her coat on the right way out.

This was the Bootwarmer winter beer, a chewy 3+;

in truth the AK was a little less convincing, more the 2.5+ you’d expect. Good value chicken platter,

and some deep cut Madonna from 1985 that I hadn’t heard in 40 years. Still remember that whistle though.

In truth, Royston has never left 1985, or 1585 in the case of Upper King Street.

This little row of timber and pargetting, just behind the main pedestrianised street is barely noticeable to the casual visitor.

Which is why you read this blog.

And no, I’ve no idea how folk got in that front door two feet above ground level. Perhaps they all walked around on stilts to avoid the sewage deposited into the street in Georgian times. Yes, that’ll be it.

Unknown's avatar

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.

14 thoughts on “McMULLEN’S IN ROYSTON”

  2. Back from the Balkans to point out that there are some very good McMullens back street boozers in Enfield and their Spice of Life at Cambridge Circus must be the only place in the West End where you can get a pint of Mild.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      1. The Jolly Butchers is very good and along with the Wonder and the Orange tree form the Enfield Trad trio where a Rip Van Winkle who fell sleep in 1985 would not notice anything amiss until he went outside

        Like

    2. Thanks Alan.
      McMullen houses might be about the only eleven places in London where you can get a pint of Mild. Oh no, there’s also Miles’s Royal Oak in Tabard Street.
      I’ve had a lovely pint of the new Davenports Mild this afternoon in the ex-Tim’s Butlers Bell and it was equally good at the end of last year.
      But maybe something’s wrong as I don’t seem to have had a bad pint in any of my nine pubs so far this year.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. Will seems to be finding good quality cask in Edinburgh at the moment, too, so perhaps all is not as lost as is reported on moaners corner on Discourse.

        I didn’t get any cask Davenports when you kindly showed us round north Stafford last year , Paul, so pleased it’s on and good.

        Like

      2. Yes, it was me.
        It’ll be the Autovacs that’s doing it for Will in Edinburgh.
        For fifty years I’ve been told Mild’s finished, yet a year ago Banks’s Mild went on in the Princess Royal and sold very well until the pub shut, and in July I found very good Banks’s Mild in two Keswick pubs.

        Liked by 2 people

    1. Stu,
      I remember McMullen’s having two cask beers fifty years ago, ‘Country Bitter’ and ‘AK Mild’ which was a light mild.
      ‘X’, probably dark, must have been before my time.
      “AK” is explained in detail on the McMullen’s website.
      Other brewers have done an AK and I remember the 1979 Allied-Bass-Courage pub swaps bringing Holes AK, sold as ‘Courage AK’, to the West Midlands until that Newark brewery closed four years later. We referred to it as ‘All Keg’ and I didn’t drink it. After a while Courage Directors was available and I started using pubs such as the Bird in Hand again. Then Courage Best Bitter was also supplied.

      Like

      Reply

      1. AK was one of the first beers I remember in pubs in the mid 90s (I was a late starter), particularly in pubs like the Maidens Head in Whitwell near our Hitchin home. Always described as “mild” by CAMRA back then.

        Like

Leave a comment