Medieval Inns/Taverns

[Netz]

I know I'm not the OP, but I'd like to see piccies if it's not too much trouble, IdiotsRUs.

[Mr Flibble]

I'm seeing my Dad today, so I'll see what we can do.

If not, maybe I can persuade the Old Man to take us for a pub lunch with camera lol

[Peter Graham]

Bere, as in Bere Regis does not refer to 'beer'. The derivation of the name is given in the village's website.

The great thing about etymology is that virtually nothing is certain. You (or they) might be right, but equally might not be. I'd plump for an old English barley derivation, but there's no sense in arguing. I could have picked one of any number of other place names to make the same point.

I always thought that in England ale was made using malt.

It is. But malt = malted barley. The barley is soaked in water so that it starts to germinate. It is then kilned, which effectively kills the barley and provides colour and taste to the finished brew. This kilning process is called "malting".

Beer was not made in England until hops were introduced in the 1540s.

Hops are a flavouring/bittering agent but also a preservative. Beer - being an alcoholic drink made from malted barley - has been drunk here since time immemorial. Hops were simply added to beer. Prior to that, they had sometimes been flavoured and bittered with other things, including heather.

The whole top-fermented and bottom-fermented thing is a bit of a red herring. Traditional British beer is all top fermented. Top fermentation produces a thick, slightly scummy brownish head on the beer which looks like a four inch layer of shaving foam. It protects the beer from airbone nasties, but makes a dreadful mess when it overflows the fermenting vessel and heads for the kitchen floor. Bottom fermenting is what happens to what we call lagers. It all comes back to the difference in terminology - "beer" in the US and elsewhere refers to something we generally call "lager". I suppose one might argue that ale is a type of beer and that beer should just refer to any drink which is based on fermented barley, but until we have an international consensus on these things, it's little more than semantics.

Massively enthewed men in the Middle Ages would have referred to the cloudy, dark stuff in their tankards as beer or ale, just as nowadays a little flowing body of water can be a stream, a brook or a beck.

Regards,

Peter

[Priene]

My great-great-something-or-other-uncle ran the Aletaster in Gateshead back in the early 1800s.

[Shakesbear]

Thank you Peter.

Priene have you visited? It looks great!

[Mr Flibble]

Okay, my Dad has no photos of inside the pub, but he did describe the layout as it used to be.

First, here is the outside (pretty much unchanged for...ohhh... a long time, except on the right a barn has been converted into a restaurant). This isn't 100% the original building, but there's been a pub here as far back as we can find - parts of this building date back to the 15th century.*

Anyway, originally it was set out as a house. You entered into a corridor. On the left was basically a flap to the 'cellar' (the lean to you can see on the side of the building). That flap was the 'bar'. On the right was the snug - the room you drank in. Flagstones all round, whitewashed walls, pew-type benches.

I can still go and take photos if you like, but the interior is rather different now (opened up with no corridor etc, and the old kitchen is now part of the bar, though still flags and whitewash). Most old pubs have had this happen so it's hard to get a picture of what they'd have been like then

*Where the name from is uncertain, though there is a theory that Arnold Bax was once on the pub cricket team. Perhaps. Or perhaps it was the name of a local, we're not sure. Previously the pub was called the Donkey. One story is that of a local character who left their donkey tethered outside the pub overnight having gotten so drunk they went home without it, when they returned to collect it, they found it frozen to death but still stood upright, so the pub got the nickname of "the Donkey Inn".

As for a coach house/inn, this one in part dates back to 1401 - though it's been added to a lot over the years. Still, you can see the arch that leads/led to the stables etc. The two windows at the front were the bars, with that same corridor down the middle. The interior has recently been totally overhauled sadly - it looks nothing like it used to

PS: This site may help? It's an awesome museum where they take old buildings down brick by brick and rebuild them there - there's some grand stuff and even a virtual tour. Also, they are extremely helpful if you want to email them!

[Netz]

Thanks, IdiotsRUs. That museum looks amazing!

[Shakesbear]

Originally Posted by Netz

Thanks, IdiotsRUs. That museum looks amazing!

It is amazing. IRU, thanks. It is a place I want to go back to.

[Netz]

Ah, you've been there? I was getting a bit confused - are all the 50 buildings on the same site or are they the ones that are dotted around the county on the map they show?

Did you see any of the demonstrations?

[Shakesbear]

Originally Posted by Netz

Ah, you've been there? I was getting a bit confused - are all the 50 buildings on the same site or are they the ones that are dotted around the county on the map they show?

Did you see any of the demonstrations?

The buildings are all on the same site - but, iirc, they are very spaced out. The mill was amazing! My sister used to get flour from there. There is a virtual tour http://www.wealddown.co.uk/Publications/Virtual-Tour which gives a really good idea of how spacious the place is. You can see the water mill on it.

The last time I went they had a sort of craft thing going on. Two things that fascinated me were the man who was making walking sticks. My family got one for me as a birthday present, it is made of apple wood and feels really lovely to hold. The other thing was the brick maker. The house I live in is over four hundred years old and I had always wanted to know why the bricks were different sizes. The brick maker was able to explain this to me. Brilliant!

[Priene]

Originally Posted by Shakesbear

Priene have you visited? It looks great!

Not yet. I only go up to Gateshead these days for funerals, and the older generation are sadly getting few in number. Discovering a pub in Gateshead that doesn't look like you'd get your throat slashed is a revelation in itself.

[Shakesbear]

I haven't heard of Throat Slasher beer! Or is it ale?

[Priene]

I could seriously get into this ale-naming game: Legbuckler, Old Monstrous, Vicar's Bladder.

[Shakesbear]

LOL! They are good.

[waylander]

Like this one http://www.ringwoodbrewery.co.uk/beers/beer.aspx?bid=3

[Shakesbear]

Or this one http://www.wychwood.co.uk/#/home//hobgoblin/home

[Mr Flibble]

Or this? http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/cripple...scrumpy/36709/

[Priene]

Maybe this?