The Spirit World

Last week I told you I liked cask conditioned ales. Well, I like them so much I thought I would fly to England and visit some English pubs to try cask conditioned or real ale in its native habitat.

After landing at Heathrow I decided not to head straight for London and instead boarded a bus bound for Oxford. I got off the bus in Oxford and walked to Broad Street. I spotted a small basement pub under the famous Blackwell’s bookstore. The pub was called The White Horse and it had a plaque that read “Halls” above the entrance. I took that as a sign from the beer gods and entered. It was just after noon. I carried my bags down the creaking stairs into place that was about the size of my living room. Large exposed beams held up a wood plank ceiling. The floors were grey flagstone that were so worn that the floor sloped toward the bar.

The barmaid greeted me. “I’m hungry and thirsty,” I said. She smiled and told me to have a seat. In England you are supposed to order from the bar, but in a place so small ordering from the table is almost the same. I spotted a Deuchars IPA sign on a beer engine and told the barmaid I’d start with that. At 5.8% ABV it was probably the highest strength beer I had all week (but I needed it). The Deuchars IPA (brewed by Caledonian Brewing Company) was bitter but definitely an English-style IPA; there were no citrus fruit flavors like you would find in the West Coast-style IPAs here in the US. It was light colored and despite the strength, thirst quenching and refreshing.

By the time my fish and chips came I had just about finished the IPA and ordered a golden ale called White Horse Village Idiot (4.1% ABV) from the White Horse Brewery in Stanford in the Vale, Farindon, Oxfordshire. The Village Idiot advertised that it was brewed with all Yorkshire malt. The White Horse Brewery is supposed to have 9 beers—the Wayland Smithy is their flagship beer, but unfortunately I was unable to find any pubs actually serving the Wayland Smithy.

I’ll tell you more about The White Horse pub on Broad Street in Oxford in a future installment (I spent some time at this little pub over the week that I ended up staying in Oxford), but I did want to point out that this tiny place that would have trouble fitting more than thirty people inside comfortably had 7 beer engines. Only about 5 ever seemed to be functioning at a time, but that was because the turnover on the beers was so high that the cellarman (the ale was really kept in a cellar below the bar) was kept busy switching out the firkins.

Next time, I tell you about a special Oxford pub called the Eagle and Child (also know as the Bird and the Baby). If you are a fan of Middle Earth and/or Narnia you might be interested to know that this is the pub where JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis hoisted pints with the other Inklings.