A slice of humble pie

It was a tradition as old as pub food but the pie and a pint has been consigned to the historical dustbin. Alastair Gilmour cries in to his beer

When the chief executive of one of the country’s most respected beer institutions talks seriously, it pays to listen.

George Philliskirk, chief executive of The Beer Academy, admits that as a student at Newcastle University, he would often call into the city’s Hotspur pub for a lunchtime pie and a bottle of Brown Ale.

But gone are the days when lunch could be taken in the form of a pie and a pint. Fatcontent health considerations, obesity fears, calorie counts and nutritional negatives have consigned the pie and pint to history’s waste disposal unit.

The wider availability of pub grub has destroyed the working-person’s (and student’s) traditional ‘quickie’ – but does greater choice necessarily mean ‘better’?

To some of us, the golden age of pub cuisine has been infected with a large outbreak of gastro-itis.

The long-closed Rose & Crown in the east end of Newcastle displayed the most inviting invitation ever scrawled on a sheet of A4. A note in the window read: ‘free pie with every pint.’ Oh joy of joys, what bliss and golden deliciousness.

However, that was nearly 25 years ago and that quarter-century has slowly choked the pie and pint – once the staple diet of students and steelworkers alike – with little prospect of regurgitation.

A single pie resting in a heated glass case on a pub counter (for how long was part of the attraction), presented on a plate and served with a well-deserved pint may have been one of life’s more simple pleasures and now it’s all but gone – .....

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By Alastair Gilmour

Section : Beer Trends

Page number : 62