Beer days

Suffolk

The Boss was reading our CAMRA newsletter and found a holiday cottage in the grounds of a pub with its own brewery.

The question was "Do you fancy a week in Suffolk"? She then went on to advise that the pub was holding a Dark ale festival.
Is pigs arse pork, was my response.
And so it was booked!

The one at the back

So we're just back after 7 days in the Suffolk countryside staying at the White Horse Edwardstone.
The pub is really in the sticks, in a triangle of narrow single track lanes with Lavenden to the North, Sudbury to the West and Hadleigh to the East.

Despite spending many of my formative years in Essex and touring around the country for my jobs, I have never been into Suffolk, save for a couple of trips to fish the Stour on the Essex borders around Flatford Mill, in the mid sixties.

Spruce Cottage, as can be seen from the photo above is two story, the bedroom is up a staircase at the rear of the cottage and the ground floor is the living space, a kitchen and a wet room.


All comfortable,well, apart from the first night,  the double glazed windowed cottage was let down by the entrance door that did not quite fit in the hole! The wind was blowing straight through the crack and it was pretty cold inside.
We overcame that with the electric heating tactically placed, and a blanket over the door.
The rest of the week it was very comfortable, having been warmed up after what may have been some time vacant.

There weren't 30 dark ales but there were 24 ales to taste.  I had a good attempt to try all 16 of the dark beers.
Of varying quality and flavour, my favorite being a stout from an Islington Brewery called Hammerton  Pentonville Oyster Stout at 5.3%.
I steered clear of the four  6% 's on offer!

All in all, an excellent highly recommended location for an away from it all stay.