Reviews

East Anglian Young Members take a tour of pubs in Ely

Written by Tom Blakemore

Saturday 18th March 2017

For the second occasion this year the members of the East Anglian Young Members group met for a good old knees up, a good chat and a productive meeting.

Ely is a place that I’m very fond of as it’s very nearby to where I grew up. The last time I went to the pubs in Ely though the experience was very different – less focus on real ale, for sure. Nowadays it couldn’t be a more different story.

We started our day in the Cutter Inn just on the river side. Not how I remember it – looks like it’s had a really nice face-lift whilst keeping some of the original and interesting features, such as the boat hull bar. A choice of four real ales on offer including some from nearby Woodfordes brewery.

Second stop was the Royal Standard in the centre of town, which was the main meeting point. A standard Greene King affair but had interesting guest beers to keep us occupied. You’d definitely call it a large food-oriented pub, but given that we were arriving just before lunch it wasn’t overcrowded with diners.

After the Royal Standard we wandered past the hugely impressive Ely Cathedral on the way to the Prince Albert. Another Greene King pub but far more oriented towards beer drinking. An impressive selection of three regular and five guest real ales were available on cask, including the very hard to find Greene King XX Mild, which was in top form. We used this pub to have our informal annual meeting where we discussed what we’ve all been up to at a branch level and future social dates.

Our final stop for the day was the Drayman’s Son, a micropub in the centre of town very near to where we started (see picture). A lovely little setup and plenty of real ale, cider and perry on offer, all poured from the cask. I tried their own bitter, which although it wasn’t as refined as some more mainstream bitters it definitely had potential.

A great day as always – thanks to Dan for sorting and to everyone that came!

Our next social is to the East Anglian Beer & Cider Festival in Bury St Edmunds on Saturday 22nd April 2017. For full details visit the event page.

Tom Blakemore
South Herts Young Members Officer
tom@hertsale.org.uk

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