Once again BadPoo has gone on the Real Ale investigation trail – much like Dustin Hoffman (short, dark hair, writing in italics, Richard) and Robert Redford (tall, ginger, Matt) in ‘All The President’s Men’ – to investigate the burning issues at the heart of the beer-quaffing community. This week’s fearless expose: what’s Lytham like for a session?

Our guide for the day’s activities would be a leaflet printed for the 2008 Lytham Beer Festival which suggests an Ale Trail round the place – intriguingly highlighting many features in the listed pubs and mostly seeming to focus on a) whether the establishments have hardwood floors and b) the prevelance of ‘raised seating areas’. Obviously, consumption at altitude and an ease of brushing is what really matters to the drinkers in this posh land between Preston and Blackpool.

The original plan was simple – get into Lytham at about 11.20 then have a bit of a wander around to get to know the place while we wait for the pubs to open. This plan was immediately spoiled/improved by the Station Tavern already being open as we step off the platform. Now, chances are you’ve porbably been to plenty of pubs that were built next to a station or, indeed, in a little part of the station but Lytham goes one better. The Station Tavern is the station. All of it. Clearly there’s no need for a ticket office and a waiting area in this town any more so they’ve replaced the lot with a spacious pub.

The Station Tavern- enough to make you want to lick Dr Beeching's face

It’s quiet when we get there and, disappointingly, the only ales on offer are Deuchars IPA and Theakstons Mild which at least represents a safe start to the day. With a couple of pints of the Scottish stuff on the go, it’s time for us to settle in with a titanic tussle on the pool table (Richard on the black) and, with this being one of those places that has a music channel on the widescreens, the first heated debate of the day unfolds as an attempt is made to categorise the music of the Black Eyed Peas (manufactured pop vs opportunistic genre chancers vs the Fugees but more Euro-dance). This proves frustratingly inconclusive but, our hearts lifted by what is a very nice opening place to drink, it’s on to the next pub.

[In an attempt at a spot of freestyle beer reportage, Richard now takes the writing reins.] Armed with nothing but an A5 pamphlet and a burning desire to quaff ale, we moved on from the Tavern to The Hastings, only a few minutes walk around the corner. This is an imposing building, looking like the backdrop for an am-dram about a Victorian murder. Large wooden benches litter the front yard until you hit the steps up into the building, which is when you realise that if a Victorian were to be murdered in here he’d have to have had a soft spot for olives and houmous. Most telling of all is the quote on their website: “Hastings restaurant in central Lytham is both inclusive and exclusive.” I think that essentially means they just want everybody’s money.

Despite the different colours, both of these beers taste of hair.

We tried a pint each of Hastings Bitter and Lancaster Blonde. The Lancaster Brewery should be noted for their superbly simplistic naming convention – blonde,black, ruby and so on. Unfortunately both beers tasted of nothing much at all. The Bitter had a hint of hair to it, while the Blonde reminded me of one of those posh bottles of water you get that taste very vaguely of some kind of generic fruit. I could have drunk four pints of this in an hour and thought it was tap water.

Fortunately, it was a glorious day in Lytham and we took full advantage by sitting outside in the blazing sun. Old dears met up for lunch, debonair elderly gentlemen strolled by with a wave and a smile, and we discussed the pro’s and con’s of the European football fixture system. Pints finished, on we moved.

The County Hotel is a bit of what we’d term a plastic pub (generic menus bellowing ’2 for £10!’ at you, numbered tables, that kind of thing) but there’s plenty of nice raised seating areas and a couple of intriguing beers available on the bar. We have a pop at the Amber from the local Lytham Brewery and the much further travelled Golden Hind from the Coastal Brewery in Cornwall. The Lytham beer is all very nice and pleasant but the Cornish tipple is the frankly extraordinary taste of insanity in a glass. Contrasting both sweet, biscuity flavours and odd, plant-based notes it’s bizarrely similar (we imagine) to eating a pudding made entirely out of leaves. Wierd.

After this there’s a brief inerlude for some fish and chips on the seafront. The food was bought from Seniors Fish Bar which is on the main high street and should really have a stamp dedicated in it’s honour. It’s that good. Even with the normal 20% taste bonus that fish and chips get from being eaten by the sea, it’s clear to see that the batter is light and crispy, the fish is moist and chunky and the chips are massive and golden. This is as close as eating battered, fried animals gets to being a spiritual experience. The first few drinks are duly soaked up and it’s on to the next pub.

A couple of clowns in the Clifton Arms, looking truly paggered.

Heading back from the sea front across the wide grassy patch between there and town, it seemed sensible to make our next port of call the Clifton Arms Hotel. There are instant images of Poirot and Miss Marple, of a bygone age when the gentry strolled along the sea front arm in arm, hotel porters were murdered in lifts and half of the population lived in grinding poverty. Simple times.

Taking a seat at the bar, staffed by a well-spoken continental barman in the true vein of Poirot, we tried a half of Titanic’s Clifton Arms and a half of Festival Amber. The brew made specially for the hotel was like a poorly administered but ultimately successful sex act. As Matt spoke those words, the well-spoken heavily-made up table of MILFs to our side gave more than one glance our way – presumably a show of interest in a four-way sex act. I found the Amber to be yet another inoffensive, bland beer – not bad in any way, shape or form, but totally unremarkable and without merit. As the beers were quaffed conversation turned back to Poirot and the QCU (Quaint Crimes Unit) was born – two elite coppers running their own department, dealing solely with quaint crimes. The victims must be poor, the villains must be dastardly, and we must be in the pub drinking real ale for 50 minutes until the answer finally dawns on us.

“Bloody hell, I tell you, it’s got me stumped this one.”
“Aye, it bloody has that. Another round?”
“Aye, why not. A pint of Directors and a pint of Did It For The Insurance please.”
*slowly turn heads to look at each other*

With the QCU born, we moved on.

Beer goggles.

Next, the Mother Lode. Actually, it’s called The Taps but dear Christ this place is heaven for the ale drinker. Fittingly, it would appear to have won more awards than Ricky Gervias did for The Office. An executive decision is called for and we decide to stay here for a couple- first round up is Thatcher’s Somerset Scrumpy and Shropshire Gold from the Salopian Brewery. The scrumps is, simply, scrumpalicious; a little bit tart, a little bit sweet, a little bit bitter and supremely refreshing. On a day as unseasonally warm as this one was, I could easily have fallen into the scrumpy trap I’ve mentioned before and sunk pint after quenching pint of this 6% stuff until my head started spinning without ever really noticing anything was up. The Shropshire Gold meanwhile, continues our disappointing run of beers that don’t really taste of much.

Moving outside into the covered L-shaped yard at the back, we tried another Salopian brew, this time Darwin’s Engine. It was treacly, like being forced to suck on a lump of the foul sugary objects pensioners survive off when their digestive systems give up the fight and anything more solid than watered-down Smash presents a challenge. There were hints of peanut brittle, again, a sweet and heavy taste. Matt tried a Funnel Blower from Box Steam brewery, which had a roasted chocolate taste like being landed on by a 14-ton Malteser.

Time for a pint on Lytham’s seafront next at the Queen’s Hotel. From our vantage point in the front beer garden we can gaze upon a heart-warmingly British scene stretched out across the town’s lovely green. Gaggles of teenagers lol about necking Magners; shirtless men play football to impress dis-interested ladies who are, curiously, all dressed in summery outfits apart from the Arctic beating warmth of Ugg boots; the guests of a wedding wander past toasting the luck that the couple have got with the weather; dogs are walked, joggers jog, the beer garden is bustling.

Richard gets stuck into some Theakston’s Black Bull which he describes as smelling like beer did before you’ve drunk beer for the first time and tasting nice and malty- good in most circumstances but like a Mardi Gras of taste compared to most of the stuff we’ve drunk today. I, meanwhile, have gone for a wheat beer- Flying Dutchman from Caledonian though, yet again, the taste is slight. At best, this is a beer that’s been breifly shown a picture of wheat and asked to describe it some weeks later.

Next stop was the Ship & Royal, a pub which in a trillion years time when an as-yet unknown species rediscovers the ashes of humanity, the Encyclopaedia Galactica will feature a photo of under the section “UK chain pubs of the early 2000s”. It’s all there: lightly varnished wood, mirrors on every wall, a carpet that clearly looked astonishing when it was first laid but has since been trampled into submission by the endless pattering of pensioners and children throwing food around. The beers were disappointing: we didn’t catch the names of the two unusual ones but noted that Directors and Bombardier were the two standards. Mine tasted like walking into a freshly-painted room: exhilerating and fresh at first, but then slightly nauseating when you breath in too deeply. Matt’s was a Hobnob in liquid form.

Our visits were too early and late in the trip for food, but maybe next time...

Finally (apart from a cheeky there’s-15-minutes-till-the-train-comes-what-should-we-do? short in the Station Tavern) there’s a return to the posh confines of The Hastings Bistro for a couple more of their Moorhouse beers- Blonde Witch and Pendle Witches Brew. The former is alluringly described by Richard as ‘like a Twix’ while the former gives me a nice hint of honey. Both of these are refreshing but weigh in at over 5% so, much like the Jaipur and Kipling from Thornbridge, these have to now be officially labelled as BadPoo Danger Beers- and heartily deserving of the award they are too.

And from there it was a few seconds walk round the corner and a minute’s wait for the train home. It had been another classic day on the sauce in the vein of the Rail Ale Trail – civilized, gentlemanly and with some beers that make your eyes bleed in anticipation. Lytham gets a solid thumbs up for a few reasons – it’s easy to get to from anywhere near Preston, in theory as far East as York and Scarborough on the transpennine line. The pubs we visited were all in a few minutes walk of each other, roughly fitting into a small circle no more than half a mile across. Add to this the Victorian-esque splendour of Lytham itself, on a sunny day, and it gets a BadPoo silver medal.

Black Bull · Caledonian · CAMRA · Clifton Arms Hotel · Coastal brewery · Deuchars · Fylde · Golden Hind · IPA · Lancaster Blonde · Lytham · Lytham brewery · Mild · Moorhouses · Quaint Crimes Unit · Queen's Hotel · Salopian brewery · Seniors Fish Bar · Ship & Royal · Shropshire Gold · Somerset Scrumpy · Station Tavern · Thatchers · The County Hotel · The Hastings · The Taps · Theakstons

We’ve decided to have a go at the second Beer Swap and have begun to pick out our four local beers. I’m hopeful at least two of the micros around here will be able to sort us out with something a bif different, but we’ll have to wait and see. Most people will have heard of Thwaites and probably Moorhouses, but East Lancashire does have a good few other little ones – just have a look at our East Lancs CAMRA page for details. In particular, we know people at Red Rose so it’d be nice to have one of theirs in – but it’s meant to be a secret, eh, so we’ll have to wait and see…

I’m quite looking forward to this one now…

Beer Swap · Beers · Moorhouses · Red Rose · Thwaites