....it's starting to get interesting

Well there is beer in the fermenters, OK not quite beer yet as the little yeast cells need to get to work...

(sssshhhh - don't tell every body but we found some Willamette hops - yup, we did a Woolpacker!!)

....but somebody rumoured there's a bank holiday coming. Better prep up some food then.

..but talking about food, we found an excellent web site yesterday all about Cumbrian Food - it tends to focus only on the big names over Ambleside and Windermere way, but it's nice to see somebody pulling together a generic Cumbrian quality food web site.
Take a look - - http://www.artisan-food.com/

Baa sign


Last year we painted a sign to go over the bar door. During the winter it went missing - somebody must have liked it.


Anyway, we've got a new one made - the wonders on modern computers eh - one day it was a JPEG, the next it was like you see!!

QVI VVLT PLACERE CVNCTIS NEMINI PLACET

It's starting to get to the time when we think about our beer festival. Only 7 weeks or so to go. As the price of everything is going up we have to think about the price of the ales. Well we could go for all cheap if we wanted. But of course the more something costs, generally the better quality. So, hopefully we'll have a range of ale, with a range of quality and a range of price. You can make your own mind up whether you think the quality matches the price.
We will of course stick with our Cumbrian Ale only policy. With the ever increasing worry over transporting food and drink over great distances, beer miles are very important.
Of course Cumbrian Ales can be more expensive, but in most cases we will fervently defend the fact that Cumbrian Ales are the best :-)
The Latin quote in the title of this blog (which is now displayed above the fizzy stuff on the bar), was created by Dr. Neil Hopkinson of Trinity College, Cambridge. He and his students stayed here for a week of concentrated study and tuition as well as daily wanders, good food, wine and beer. Whilst they were here we finally found that Dave's favorite saying of "If you try to please everyone, then you will please no one" actually comes from the Aesop's fable of The Man, The Boy and The Donkey. Apparently there does not seem to be a Latin Translation of this Greek Fable or it's moral. So, even when it comes to classics we can be the first!!
A more accurate translation may be "If you don't like it then please go away". Although Alan's (the barman) translation would use more basic Anglo Saxon of course...

.....satisfied customers...... some that are famous

Well as this season progresses we feel more confident that the way we do things is working. It's true we do get a few miffed people who come in and ask "....'you doin' food mate?", "Yes, but we're fully booked until 7:45" we reply, "Food's off guys!!" ...did we say that? No, just trying to politely point out that we take care over our food and as a result we take bookings.

But for the discerning, who are looking for an experience to enjoy, it's worth it.

Below is reproduced verbatim - a customer review written by a nice Farmer from Cambridge.

"Having left the lunacy of the motorway and fought your way along roads that get smaller and found yourself wondering whether it’s you or the rest of the world or both that is going mad there are a number of things you can do.
One of the best things you could do would be to turn off the A595 and onto the single track road up Eskdale until you reach The Woolpack Inn at Boot and enter a world where you are warmly welcomed, presented with a wonderful range of local and home made beers and then offered a menu with so many locally sourced ingredients that you’ll wonder how much goodness can be packed into so small a valley.
Your host will greet you at the bar adjacent to the brewery where he will tell you with engaging enthusiasm that most of the ales available have been brewed by him and they are the best real ales in Cumbria (probably) and would you please not call them bitters."
(Although some are bitters, some are light ales or stouts or pale ales or possibly mild - Ed)
Your hostess will then with equal enthusiasm and a trifle more modesty than your host, wave a menu at you which will have a menu sourced as locally as possible right down to the selection of cheeses, jams and marmalades all made or grown in the area. Local home grown bananas are being considered (possibly)
In conclusion you can sigh and wish your local MP took half as much care and thought into making your stay so enjoyable then the world would be a better place. Don’t write to your MP go to The Woolpack Inn instead, much more enjoyable."

Thank you to Mr S for his marvellous insight into staying at The Woolpack Inn.

Last Saturday we welcomed a famous actor for lunch. We hope he and his family enjoyed the peace and quiet. Apparently he has been coming here for years. But I'm not going to tell you who he is. You can always ask us when you come for lunch.

The price and availability of hops are causing difficulties. We are probably going to have to stop making Woolpacker for now due to the lack of Willamette hops. But reduce the hopping rate, add some ginger instead to make Wooly Fussion - casking tomorrow.....oh and we've got a brand new one - probably called Light Packer or maybe Traveling Light, either way it will be light, relatively mildly hopped and quaffable - sub 4% ABV.

The "Real Thing"

Easter has been and gone.. an early Easter is an interesting one. What will the weather be like? will it be busy with customers and we won't be able to cope? Or will it be too quiet for the number of staff and the preparations we've done? And just how many customers will ask "You got any Lager mate?" or "Just a bitter shandy, please" or "What bitters do you have??"

Now there is the adage that states "The customer is always right", well maybe, but how do you explain to a customer that the quality imported Pilsner is not a standard "Lager" or that we don't have the normal chemical lemonade to put in a standard bitter to make a "bitter shandy" and nor do the cask conditioned ales that we dispense deserve the generic term of bitter?

The one thing that bank holidays do is bring out an extraordinary number of people who seem to think that all pubs should do the same thing......

.....and we don't.

We had a very nice band play on Easter Saturday. Well to call them a band is perhaps a little grand. I always think a band consists of at least 3 people. But, if you consider that a band could also be classed as a group of musicians producing a full musical sound then they definitely qualify.

After setting up and sound checking the lack of background music was commented on by the duo. "We only do things that are real here, real ale, real food and definitely only real music.." That got some agreement..

They are called Blackheart and are really good. See for yourself, Hopefully we'll get them back soon....sorry about the overall quality of the recording, but then we don't have the same equipment as the BBC..

Just exceptional views

We had three nice gentlemen stay at the weekend. They took some exceptional pictures of upper Eskdale. They very kindly let us have copies so we show a few here.

Credits withheld so as not to embarrass photographers - however guys, mail us if you want your names in lights.

No jam tommorrow

We have, for the last year, been serving jams and marmalade made by a nice couple from St Bees. Skip and Jonni have been making conserves for around 14 years. We had met them several times at shows and liked what they did but never actually bought much. They then stayed with us for over a week last year.

We were so impressed with them and their attitude that we felt we had to buy their jams and marmalade. Jonni's ginger marmalade is especially good and has been very popular with residents. It has been nice to have their products on our breakfast table and always a joy to visit their little house in St Bees to empty their shelves of goodies.

It is with great sadness we must mark the passing of Skip after a very long and interesting life. But it is such a great joy to have known such an interesting person and to know that he lived his life to the full.

As Kipling, I believe wrote:

"If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!"

This means we will have to find a preserve maker who makes jams and marmalade to the high degree of authenticity as Jonni and Skip. The quality is probably hard to match at the price they achieved from a very modest kitchen and they definitely and defiantly helped us in our quest to avoid all those big brand products.

Spring is on the way - the Daffodils (more poetry?) and Crocuses are coming out. But it's still putting down snow on the tops sometimes (see pic above). But no, the main road out of here is almost never impassable due to snow. In fact it's harder to get up and down the valley during August....

More big brand kicking

The last post was about kicking out big brand lager. In the last 2 weeks we've also had fun with a major big brand cola manufacturer. We have a fridge belonging to them. We used to have a soda gun (post mix) machine but they refused to service it due to us being on fell water. The acid in the peat rots the machine, apparently. Anyway, the sales rep came and said if we don't have 80% their products in their fridge they would take the fridge away. We said if they took the fridge away we'd stock none of their products.

So, we now stock none of their products and bought a new fridge.....and the peat helps make great ale.

We have now decided to stock Fentimans soft drinks. This does make it interesting for those who require shandy, but as we don't approve of putting lemonade in good beer we are not going to loose any sleep over that. Fentimans lemonade is good traditional cloudy stuff, actually tasting of lemons. But it also makes the shandy cloudy. Interesting... better to have the lemonade to quench ones thirst and then enjoy one half of a quality beer afterwards.

A local paper featured us this week, commenting on our determination not to stock big brand products. Check out http://www.nwemail.co.uk/unknown/viewarticle.aspx?id=800821

Finally, thanks to the anonymous comment - Dave is delighted to be called nuts - but then we all knew he was anyway. To understand that you'll just have to check the previous post.