Just a touch to the west of Haverhill there is a village called Steeple Bumpstead – a village that lives up to the sort of images I imagine that name conjures – little old cottages with chaotic colourful gardens, twisting back streets, etc etc.  It’s the sort of village that proves that the real Essex is as far from XR3i’s & Platinum Blondes as you could ever get.  For those who find such things interesting, although the village is in Essex, it has a Suffolk postal address, and a Cambridgeshire postcode...  And of course it has pubs – two of them, conveniently close together, so that villagers can change allegiance as the fancy (or beer/football/etc) takes them.

We have had for a few months now the privilege of supplying one of these pubs, the Fox and Hounds.  The pubs landlady, Jackie, has stamped her mark on the pub since taking it over a little while back, and it is a thriving example of how successful and popular a village pub can be without having to chase 47 Michelin Stars (although it does still deserve receiving them).  It’s the sort of pub you enter as a stranger, and leave determined to speak asap to the local estate agents (ideally one open at 1130 at night, because you don’t want to waste time).  In fact it’s the sort of pub that makes me, as a brewer, dead chuffed to be able supply beer to. 

So far, I’ve only been in once, so you can see what a mark it has made on me – I’d even have done the Estate Agent bit, but we’d have to stop brewing 18 hours a day, 9 days a week, and get a proper job that actually earns us an income to spend on a house (it’s very tempting…).  Anyway, the reason for the visit was simple – not only was I the only one of the three of us to have never been there, the regulars at the pub were having a vote on which beer was to be their new house beer..  Two beers were put up for the vote, and whilst it would have been nice to say one of them was ours, it is so much better to say that in fact both the beers were ours – Highwayman & Plover.  Free food was laid on (and what food!), and a lot of people came and went through the evening, the majority it seems having already decided their favourite over the past few weeks.  All we had to do was drink, answer questions, and listen, fascinated, by the tales of the pub ghosts.  Ghosts who one way and another started to annoy the aforementioned Jackie (quite unpleasantly it seems), and got themselves shouted at – a shouting at that is apparently keeping them reasonably well behaved.  “I don’t mind them being here – they are part of the pub, but it’s my time in charge now, and they can damn well get used to it”  said Jackie.  And it seems they have. 

So what beer won?  Well, you’ll just have to get down to Steeple Bumpstead and find out, won’t you.  You won’t regret it, and you can mull your house move over a pint of Chapel Street (the name chosen by popular vote) in the Fox & Hounds.  And definitely try the food.

The Fox & Hounds
3 Chapel Street
Steeple Bumpstead
Haverhill
CB9 7DQ