Earlier this year here on this blog, I started writing about my favourite
pubs in both the UK and Ireland. This got me thinking about local pub guides because to me there just don’t seem to be any county guides that list pubs simply for been good pubs.
For me, as I guess for anyone, there has to be a number of things really special about a pub that makes me want to go there and keep returning; these include and in no particular order; the beer offering, the food, atmosphere, or “craic” in Ireland and the location etc. But a good pub means different things to different people; so why restrict a guide to one or two elements.
Sure there are pub guides available, but the CAMRA guides are for beer-lovers and The Good Pub Guide is aimed mainly at food pubs.
So where to start? Well a few weeks ago I was looking for a specific pub in Staffordshire and came across an online feature written by the BBC’s Mark Righter who asked – which really are the overall best pubs in Staffordshire? And he went on to say ‘If you want to make money and enjoy yourself at the same time, write A Guide to Staffordshire’s 100 Best Pubs, as according to my local bookshop, there simply isn’t one and they are always being asked if there is. So – if you have time, and a good stomach for ale, why not write such a guide yourself?’
I have neither but can’t resist a challenge. I live in Lancashire; so not too far away and Staffordshire is a county I know only a little, so I think it a good opportunity to explore. It is of course a critical time for pubs, as they close at a rate of knots. Indeed depending on how long this venture is going to take, by the time I complete this guide I know there may be a few that I reach too late or indeed find but they close before I get a chance to finalise the guide in whatever form it takes. I just think it a crying shame that there is no good, selective ‘best pubs’ guides, particularly as so many great pubs are closing forever and for all time.
The CAMRA Good Beer Guide (GBG) is the present best bet. It looks at the whole of the UK of course, with the 2011 edition listing over fifty pubs across Staffordshire, rating them first and foremost for their real ales, but also for their facilities and their policy on noise. So as a guide it is fine, but because it concentrates on the availability of quality real ale, I believe it ignores some of the really pleasant pubs that don’t quite meet its stringent beer standards.
Now what I mean by a best pub is a good, old-fashioned, traditional, welcoming pub. For the purposes of this guide I’ll also allow pubs with great views, or pubs that simply have that great feel-good factor that makes you want to spend a whole Sunday afternoon just lazing in them, warming a pint.
As an occasional writer, there are a good many writers I admire; sometimes I just enjoy them, other times I’m envious, but one writer I wish I could simply write like is George Orwell. He shared many of my ideas about the world in general and in particular how to write. I think Orwell said everything worth saying about the ‘best pub’ in his short essay, The Moon under Water and as a piece of writing I think it is just brilliant.
The Moon under Water by George Orwell Evening Standard, 9 February 1946
My favourite public-house, the Moon under Water, is only two minutes from a bus stop, but it is on a side-street, and drunks and rowdies never seem to find their way there, even on Saturday nights.
Its clientele, though fairly large, consists mostly of “regulars” who occupy the same chair every evening and go there for conversation as much as for the beer.
If you are asked why you favour a particular public-house, it would seem natural to put the beer first, but the thing that most appeals to me about the Moon under Water is what people call its “atmosphere.”
To begin with, its whole architecture and fittings are uncompromisingly Victorian. It has no glass-topped tables or other modern miseries, and, on the other hand, no sham roof-beams, ingle-nooks or plastic panels masquerading as oak. The grained woodwork, the ornamental mirrors behind the bar, the cast-iron fireplaces, the florid ceiling stained dark yellow by tobacco-smoke, the stuffed bull’s head over the mantelpiece —everything has the solid, comfortable ugliness of the nineteenth century.
In winter there is generally a good fire burning in at least two of the bars, and the Victorian lay-out of the place gives one plenty of elbow-room. There are a public bar, a saloon bar, a ladies’ bar, a bottle-and-jug for those who are too bashful to buy their supper beer publicly, and, upstairs, a dining-room.
Games are only played in the public, so that in the other bars you can walk about without constantly ducking to avoid flying darts.
In the Moon under Water it is always quiet enough to talk. The house possesses neither a radio nor a piano, and even on Christmas Eve and such occasions the singing that happens is of a decorous kind.
The barmaids know most of their customers by name, and take a personal interest in everyone. They are all middle-aged women —two of them have their hair dyed in quite surprising shades—and they call everyone “dear,” irrespective of age or sex. (“Dear,” not “Ducky”: pubs where the barmaid calls you “ducky” always have a disagreeable raffish atmosphere.)
Unlike most pubs, the Moon under Water sells tobacco as well as cigarettes, and it also sells aspirins and stamps, and is obliging about letting you use the telephone.
You cannot get dinner at the Moon under Water, but there is always the snack counter where you can get liver-sausage sandwiches, mussels (a speciality of the house), cheese, pickles and those large biscuits with caraway seeds in them which only seem to exist in public-houses.
Upstairs, six days a week, you can get a good, solid lunch —for example, a cut off the joint, two vegetables and boiled jam roll—for about three shillings.
The special pleasure of this lunch is that you can have draught stout with it. I doubt whether as many as 10 per cent of London pubs serve draught stout, but the Moon under Water is one of them. It is a soft, creamy sort of stout, and it goes better in a pewter pot.
They are particular about their drinking vessels at the Moon under Water, and never, for example, make the mistake of serving a pint of beer in a handle less glass. Apart from glass and pewter mugs, they have some of those pleasant strawberry-pink china ones which are now seldom seen in London. China mugs went out about 30 years ago, because most people like their drink to be transparent, but in my opinion beer tastes better out of china.
The great surprise of the Moon under Water is its garden. You go through a narrow passage leading out of the saloon, and find yourself in a fairly large garden with plane trees, under which there are little green tables with iron chairs round them. Up at one end of the garden there are swings and a chute for the children.
On summer evenings there are family parties, and you sit under the plane trees having beer or draught cider to the tune of delighted squeals from children going down the chute. The prams with the younger children are parked near the gate.
Many as are the virtues of the Moon under Water, I think that the garden is its best feature, because it allows whole families to go there instead of Mum having to stay at home and mind the baby while Dad goes out alone.
And though, strictly speaking, they are only allowed in the garden, the children tend to seep into the pub and even to fetch drinks for their parents. This, I believe, is against the law, but it is a law that deserves to be broken, for it is the puritanical nonsense of excluding children —and therefore, to some extent, women—from pubs that has turned these places into mere boozing-shops instead of the family gathering-places that they ought to be.
The Moon under Water is my ideal of what a pub should be —at any rate, in the London area. (The qualities one expects of a country pub are slightly different.)
But now is the time to reveal something which the discerning and disillusioned reader will probably have 
guessed already. There is no such place as the Moon under Water.
That is to say, there may well be a pub of that name, but I don’t know of it, nor do I know any pub with just that combination of qualities.
I know pubs where the beer is good but you can’t get meals, others where you can get meals but which are noisy and crowded, and others which are quiet but where the beer is generally sour. As for gardens, offhand I can only think of three London pubs that possess them.
But, to be fair, I do know of a few pubs that almost come up to the Moon under Water. I have mentioned above ten qualities that the perfect pub should have and I know one pub that has eight of them. Even there, however, there is no draught stout and no china mugs.
And if anyone knows of a pub that has draught stout, open fires, cheap meals, a garden, motherly barmaids and no radio, I should be glad to hear of it, even though its name were something as prosaic as the Red Lion or the Railway Arms.
So this guide is my attempt to find George Orwell’s pub ideal in Staffordshire and even before I start to write I have already decided not to limit the number to Mark Righter’s suggested figure of 100, so if 120 pubs meet the requirements then fine; but if it is only 70 then so be it.
I guess it could easily take two years to complete but that matters not, it will simply take as long as it takes. I already know a handful of pubs in the county and for sure some would be included in any ‘best pub’ guide of the county.
When on good form and I caveat this, how could anyone not have the extraordinary, Yew Tree Inn at Cauldon Low on their list of favourites, or for that matter the remote Black Lion at Consall or The Anchor at High Offley, the latter, a Victorian gem that has changed little since the days of commercial waterways; hard to reach by road and run by the same family since 1870.
Like many best pubs they are far from smart but they are packed with interest; in the case of the Black Lion you also have to find it first; but they are utterly genuine and run by devoted landlords.
So all the entries in my proposed guide will not appeal to all, but I would hope there will be something there for everyone; pubs where children are openly welcomed, dogs also; real ale pubs, good food pubs; pubs in wonderful locations, some with waterside settings, some with beer gardens and others which I will simply include for their atmosphere or timelessness and which should merit a visit purely on those grounds alone. But all I hope will have one thing in common, they should all make you, a stranger feel welcome and at home there.
As I discover and visit Staffordshire pubs I will write about all of them; good or bad, here on my blog, but will leave the reader to ponder which will make the guide; in whatever form that takes. Even the good pubs I will not cover fully so that hopefully when complete all will all go out and buy the guide.
Now doesn’t that sound like a good idea for a guide and if anyone has any favourite pubs in Staffordshire they think are worth a visit then please let me know and I will include them on my ‘to visit’ list.
