August 2025. Norwich.
Outside of festivals, August gigs in cities are a bit of a rarity due to the lack of students, though the Americana folk I bore you with tend to mix up the festivals with the odd gig in small venues.
Norwich Arts Centre’s converted church isn’t that small,
but the intimacy and sound quality suits Alan Sparhawk (ex-Low), touring again after the sad death from cancer of wife Mimi.
I didn’t clock it till he said, but his bassist is his son Cyrus, which makes some of these songs about grief even more painfully beautiful.
Low are one of my favourite bands, 30 years of challenging but compelling slowcore, best experienced live.
The crowd is the now familiar mix of youngsters seeing Indie legends, blokes my age wondering what he’ll sound like, and middle-aged women in floral dresses who hate this sort of music but who hate letting their husbands go out on their own even more.
Between acts I ignored the queue at the bar for Adnams keg and looked on the CAMRA site for pubs near me.
Despite the ludicrous “Love the indies, boo the nationals” stance of some commentators on Discourse (see : Bass and Boddingtons debate) I reckon CAMRA remains essential, if only for the GBG, beer scoring and the directory of pubs.
But perhaps the comprehensive of the listings (including arts centres, hotel bars and Brew Dogs) can show up the fact that cask doesn’t dominate, even in the self proclaimed City of Beer.
A good start across the road at the Plough,
but as I wrote on Discourse, to some disbelief, more keg than cask within a 5 minute radius.
Norwich is a wondrous city to walk between acts,
and in recent years I’ve upped my rating for the beer quality in the GBG entries, which shows how fair-minded I am.
And, to be honest, you really don’t need cask in the Arts Centre.
Just open ears and mind.
retiredmartin 
I grew up in Salford and had family in Norwich. I never found the beer very impressive there, after travelling all that way via Worksop (who would call a town that) and Newark and Kings Lynn.
I also thought this was meant to be a beer blog 😊
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s definitely NOT a beer blog !
It’s a retirement diary in which pubs play a (too large) part !
Norwich is interesting, isn’t it ? There must have been a time when it went from Watney keg to the free houses around the walls that define it now.
My dislike of Norwich is entirely irrational i.e. the self-determination of its City of Beer status based on having lots of hand pumps and the lack of social mix in many of its pubs.
LikeLike
I remember a lads holiday on the Broads and Norwich c. 1977. We clutched the local CAMRA guide in our sweaty mitts in order to avoid Watneys. Our excitement of finding Greene King pubs seems a bit strange now.
LikeLiked by 3 people
My first pints of real ale were Greene King IPA at the Free Press in Cambridge in ’87 and were gorgeous.
LikeLike
Re: meant to be a beer blog?
Have you not read the subtitle (above):
“On permanent exploration of places, pubs, people and new music.”
We’re lucky that Martin mentions beer at all, I reckon.
LikeLiked by 1 person
As a student at Salford uni, I once hitch-hiked to Norwich, from the Greater Manchester conurbation. My journey took up much of the day, and from (fading) memory involved six or seven different “lifts”. Strangely enough, my route took me through Worksop, and I too thought it a strange name for a town.
The best, and longest lift, was a ride in a sports car, from the Sleaford bypass, right into Norwich, and UEA, where my friend, plus host for the weekend, was studying. Happy days, but I splashed out on a train ticket, for the return journey back to Salford. (Not a beer-blog comment, btw.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
That journey from the Sleaford bypass past Kings Lynn and Dereham has been a bit of a slog for me annually over the years !
LikeLike
my dislike of Norwich is entirely rational…oh wait we’re talking about the city itself arent we not the Carrow road lot 😉
their self styled city of beer thing has always felt a reach imo,when York & Sheffield both outclass them for beer quality & volume of pubs/handpumps. and Ive frequently complained Norwich’s GBG listings are far too numerous and dont actually promote a good standard overall. Even if there are great standout pubs, theyre numbered in single digits, not the frequently it seems 30+ they claim to have
but the area around the arts centre does have a high turnover of beer venues, the Plough is probably the longest standing and its only 15 years old, and Im not even sure if cask is still their biggest seller.
places like the Ten Bells seem to change everytime I visit, it was once a GK bar, then a GK craft bar, and now its not sure if its a trendy craft bar, a burger bar, a place that sells a cask ale or more than one. I mean its popular dont get me wrong, I struggled to find a seat at 3pm on a Saturday in the middle of June, but everyone was drinking whatever the lager du jour was.
so of course other venues in that area are going to do what gives them the turnover and hopefully profits, to attract those punters.
I noticed on their City of Ale trail a number of the cask centric pubs that often were on the trails were missing,and I didnt have chance to check if they were still there and just not taking part or what had happened to them.
certainly I was hitting far more keg orientated places than Id expected.
but it feels similar to my local, an absolute GBG cask stalwart, but on a busy Friday/Saturday more than half of the people there are drinking fizz, not cask.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good analysis.
Norwich itself gets more than 30 Beer Guide entries, which seems a lot compared to Manchester or Sheffield, but there’s slim pickings in the rest of Norfolk, despite the holiday crowds.
As I’ve had to admit recently, I can’t think of many pubs where I’ve had less than good beer.
LikeLike
Quote – “There must have been a time when it went from Watney keg to the free houses around the walls that define it now”.
Started in the mid 70s. I went there as a stoodent* in 1974 and there were just 3 or 4 places with cask (I think the difference related to the Hotel Norwich on the Ring road). I remember the others included the Maid’s Head and the Wild Man but forget the fourth. The numbers began to go up from about 1975. The Ten Bells was one of these and had various Midlands beers which the owner spent a day collecting himself in his van in the days before distributors woke up to that part of the market. I moved to Leeds in 1979 (for week) and there must have been more than 30 cask outlets by then.
[IPW]
* Norfolk locals phrase – “Are yer stoodent? Are yer hooman” Best tried in a Norfolk accent.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Wild Man, a Tolly Cobbold pub, and one of the few pubs in Norwich selling cask, back in ’74, when I hitched-hiked down to the city – see above.
Any old hands out there, remembering Tolly and their rather lacklustre beers?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I can remember my job taking me to Ipswich and going to a Tolly pub which was selling Adnams beers because Tolly were on strike. While I was there the landlord announced bad news. The Tolly strike had ended and it was the last of the Adnams.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Is it possible that Adnams had landlords who cared about beer and for Tolly publicans the cask was just an irritant ?
I can barely recall a pint of Tolly, except in their own brewery pub by the marina.
LikeLike
The only pint that I can remember would be circa 1971 at the Newbourne Fox near Woodbridge, Paul.
Being about seventeen it seemed quite exotic.
The pub was a plough hand’s local back then…
LikeLike
‘Week’ should read ‘Work’.
[IPW]
LikeLike
I think your comment, “Despite their ludicrous “Love the indies, boo the nationals” stance (see : Bass and Boddingtons debate) I reckon CAMRA remains essential”, needs a footnote to the effect that this is not actually CAMRA policy, it’s just an attitude that comes to the fore from time to time on CAMRA’s Discourse forum.
Perhaps I should also make it clear that my reluctance to visit a pub serving Bass, but featuring a psychotic dog, in Atherstone the other week was because of the presence of the latter rather than the former.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good point. I’ve amended that comment.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, dog psychiatrist now, Will ? He/she was looking forward to seeing you.
LikeLiked by 1 person