January 2025. Cambridge.
Leaving the Castle Inn the only polite thing to do is the 7.2 seconds of exertion it takes to climb the actual castle hill and admire Cambridge from its highest point.
Or not.
Across the road, you’ve got an almost hill leading to St Peter,
and the form over substance of Kettles Yard’s modern art, the best view coming from the staircase.
Hey ! I’m suddenly a tourist in my home town,
and what do tourists do ?
They head for the Eagle, where DNA was invented in 1953 to coincide with the discovery of Everest by our new Queen.
The front room, all reservations on Christmas Eve, is packed with Italians drinking Guinness.
I’m tempted to move on somewhere more Proper Pub, like the BrewDog, but decide I need to see if tourist turnover can score a decent Abbot.
It can, and better than that, I find the RAF room with its marvellously graffitied ceiling almost empty.
Suddenly, the Eagle makes sense. A courting couple, some French lads, an American lady who’s distraught to find she can’t order fish and chips.
Yes ! The first week of January sees a kitchen refurb (“that’s why we’re so quiet”), and absence of cabbage smells, but a cool, chewy NBSS 3.5 Abbot that would warrant GBG entry if this wasn’t normally such a grim tourist pub.
I’m joking of course, even a grim tourist pub with good beer deserves recognition (see also : Old Trip to Jerusalem).
Chances of the Eagle ditching pub lunches and focusing on good beer : Zero.
retiredmartin 
Are weasels welcome, or is that Hoxton?
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That really is a pretty pub. You may not have had great beer in town, but the pubs have been really interesting to see and read about.
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You’d have loved the Abbot here, and the back room. Paul M would have had 2 pints of the Abbot Reserve.
I think the Cambridge pubs have become a little less characterful over the years but it’s still a great pub town.
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The Abbot was drinking without reservation when I had three pints of Abbot Reserve by 1pm in Tim’s Stone venue – probably his best – the year before last.
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Looks like a lovely pub. I understand what you mean about tourists, I live in York, but sometimes without the tourists we wouldn’t have some of the great pubs we have here.
Stu.
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Are you differentiating between tourists and beer tourists ?
We’re ALL beer tourists on here !
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I love seeing tourists in pubs. Some of them (Italians in Canterbury last year) go for the pub and beer. It’s the dominance of food and food smells and table reservations that’s a bit off-putting in the Eagle, and the absence of those that made it great. But you’re right, a lot wouldn’t survive without tourist trade.
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