Team
VFH visited family in northwest England over the Christmas holidays in
Nantwich, Chesire, and as promised our time there brimmed with family and
friends and featured hours of couch sitting and conversations, catching up with
the in-laws and the kids, watching a lot of “Patrick TV” (Janet’s year old
grandson) and plenty of trips to the area pubs. Before our departure for
England Janet worried it would be a boring time for me, but I could not
disagree more. Life is fleetingly short and days can be a blur and it was quite
comforting to just let the days unfold
for once. We often scurry about to get the most for our airfare, which for me
was just over $1,000, but our pace in Nantwich was just perfect. There was some
idle chatter about traveling to Chester, just to be tourists, but logistics got
in the way and that destination thankfully dissipated. No, we basically hung
around the Bereton Drive home of the in-laws, crawled our way to a number of
pubs and began Sweet ’16 drinking and dancing at the Nantwich Club. As midnight
loomed we all trundled out into the nearby square and listened to the bells of
St. Mary’s Church chime in the New Year.
SHORT
AND SWEET
I was
in England for all of 6 days, with work constraints holding me back and I did
not land until Monday. Janet was able to celebrate
Christmas and Boxing Day with her extended family in England. Boxing Day is the day after the holiday and the day servants were traditionally finally able to
celebrate the holiday with their family rather than waiting on their masters.
Often the servants were sent home with boxes, containing gifts, bonuses and
sometimes leftover foods… Now it’s really when all the after Christmas sales
kick in, and a really great excuse to get drunk.
TIED
AND FREE HOUSES
As
Boxing Day fell on a Saturday, the following Monday was the “bank holiday” and
the “official” closing of everything….except the pubs. After I had a quick nap
we embarked on our sojourn through to some of the favorites of our hosts. Janet
had already gone out on Boxing Day, but was up for the challenge. … of course.
 |
| THE TALBOT |
Our
first stop was The Talbot Bar and Grill on Beam Street under the pretense to
see a football/soccer game, but also to drink. The Talbot serves food and has
musical acts and mostly serves Marston’s
Beers.
I’m not sure if The Talbot is “tied” to Marston's beer, meaning it was a public house or “pub”
required to carry a particular brew, whether it was owned directly by the
brewery and managed or mortgaged through the brewery or just a free house. It
is too complicated for me to ponder such things for what is for me a difficult
libation to quaff.
BITTER
ABOUT BITTERS
Served
usually in 20 oz pints and weaker alcohol content and flavor than the current
U.S. rage of hoppy IPAs bitters are good, for one. But, when you’re out on a
pub crawl, especially on a long weekend holiday like this, you have to make a
show of it. Truthfully though I could never drink like our hosts no matter
what, but the filling, low alcohol bitters usually served gives me a bloated
feeling more than a buzz. So I nursed the pint given to me and happily paid the
next round.
A
DABBER’S PARADISE
Despite
all this carping on my part about the beer I thoroughly enjoy going out to the pubs in Nantwich. The
atmosphere is pleasant and the company is great and I get to experience a
Dabber’s life while out and about.
Like
the whole bit about tied and free pubs the meaning behind Dabber is equally
complicated. Suffice it to say that anyone born in Nantwich is a Dabber,
whatever the hell that means, but being a Dabber-by-proxy is fun if not
expansive.
To read
about the complicated and convoluted history of the Dabber name, here is a great little article.
If you
are interested in becoming a Dabber-by-proxy by managing a pub or mortgaging
the property with a "soft loan" from the company; many of the main breweries have
properties for your own franchise if not in Nantwich then somewhere in England.
Here are current Marston opportunities:
PROPER AND POSH
Well
the game at The Talbot was an illegal feed and was buffering too slowly so we
moved on to the recently renovated Vine on Hospital Street. It was crowded with
a whole different selection of beer. I believe it once was a “tied” house, but
is now “free”. The game was on a big screen though one had to feint and weave
to catch a glimpse. One thing I noticed about crowded rooms in England is that
the participants are very tactile, a trait somewhat unnerving at first for this “don’t-invade-my-personal-space”
New Yorker, where another person can get within an eyelash of you, as long as
they don’t touch! Colin,
our host, clapped me on the back at one point while at the Vine and said this
was a proper pub.
Later
we trundled across the River Weaver to Welsh Row and The Chesire Cat, a posh
bar, restaurant and inn. It was labeled as such by Colin. A former disco with
weaving corridors and an open outdoor garden in the middle, the Chesire Cat had
a lot of women inside. Many of the ladies were related to our hosts. Everyone
remembered me from the kids’ wedding in 2011, though I just smiled broadly with
every hello to cover up my faulty memory. The place was relatively empty of men, especially when compared to the
crowd at the Vine. It was like the “he-man women haters club” was meeting there.
 |
| THE CHESIRE CAT |
Regardless,
the “Cat” is set in a charming 17th century building featuring the
magpie design of many buildings in town.
We
drank some more beer, but I couldn’t tell what it was and at this point I was
drinking whatever they handed me.
Almost
directly across Welsh Row from the Cat is the Black Lion and yet another place
to drink. Julie’s father used to sing at the Black Lion years ago and we HAD to
go. I had to kind of get pushed in because my belly got stuck in the door jamb,
but I’m glad we stopped here. Very charming and cozy, the Black Lion is one of the
oldest pubs in Nantwich, dating from 1664 and offered Weetwood Beers which
included some ales as well as a number of “guest” beers. Deviating from the
bitters was very acceptable to me. Our little group settled in at a table near
a roaring fire and smiled contently. It was a really great stop.
 |
| BEERS AT THE BLACK LION |
MUNCHIES
Differences
in customs and cultures notwithstanding you have to eat, especially if you’ve
been drinking! I remember fondly some street side suspect hamburger kiosk in
Sarajevo while working the Olympics there. The “Big Mec” burgers were topped
with yoghurt… I think. …
The
Nantwich equivalent is Coral Reef, a takeaway fish and chips restaurant on
Pillory Street. Brightly lighted and greasy smelling and serving up the best
fish and chips and “proper” mushy peas! We’ve been there before and I was quite
happy we ended our night with a cache of grub from this place.
Now,
everything in Nantwich is kind of near everything else in Nantwich. It’s not
much more than a 10-15 minute jaunt from one end of town to the other, or if
you’re like Colin 5-10 minutes… he does walk fast. We ended the night around
the kitchen table devouring our still hot fish and chips and life just seemed
like a Dabber’s Paradise.
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