A new breed of pub!

I spent a day in Newark recently, a small town north east of Nottingham, which has a history steeped in the traditional malting business. I had heard of a new venture where a small beer-only pub had been set up purely to serve good quality real ale from microbreweries to it's clientele. The bar environment was basic (no carpets and just a small electric heater), but served every purpose I needed it to. There was plenty of seating, it was warm and the atmosphere was a friendly one. The walls were adorned with breweriana and gave the place a rustic feel. Traditional bar games were available to play, but I wasn't there to chance my arm at a game of Jenga! The bar had a healthy selection of beers ready to go, all with pump clips, tasting notes and a small clear jar showing a small sample of the beer for reference (colour and clarity). The bar area was fantastically clean and dry with no "sticky" bits. Service was exceptional, quick and personal. After seeing the jar of pickled eggs on the bar, I wished I hadn't been so quick to order the huge cooked breakfast from elsewhere earlier :-) A large blackboard stated how many unique beers had been sold, along with the number of casks sold. The current numbers at the time of my visit were 335 unique and 375 casks sold. Impressive considering they have only been open approximately 4 months. The beers I tried in my 3 hour visit were as follows: Ay Up - Dancing Duck Brewery Trenchfoot - Mr. Grundys Heads Up - Vale of Glamorgan Dreadnought - Nottingham Brewery Shire Wood Porter - Milestone Co. All beers were in great condition, bright and if applicable, plenty of aroma. It was a pleasure for me to be able to go into a bar and try 5 different beers, only having tried one of them before (Dreadnought - scrummy!). This idea for a pub encompasses an interesting new approach. Keep the building small and the bar area as open as possible, to keep trouble from developing in hidey-holes and corners. Serve only real ale to keep out the lager louts and hooligans getting trounced on cheap alco-pops. This leaves space for a true community to develop. A community held together by good friends and good beer, something I am less able to find as times move on. I can highly recommend a visit if you care about beer and the environment it's served in. Newark holds a surprising history in brewing and was a great day out.

N.B Images taken from Justbeers public website.