Guide Dogs And Spitfires....

A brand new area for me as we headed way down south and visited Southampton and Eastleigh where we came across some excellent beers and pubs in and amongst taking in some rather uninspiring football....

Last weekend I went what was probably the greatest distance I'd ever undertaken to watch FC Halifax Town, although it wasn't the longest journey in terms of time, that being an FA Cup tie many years ago at Ipswich where we had to endure an interminable return journey after a 3-1 defeat through the vast expanses of rural East Anglia where the train never climbed above the pace of an asthmatic snail attempting to climb the Matterhorn. For this trip, we'd left Halifax at 10.40, arrived in London just before 2, and then caught a train from Waterloo to Southampton Airport Parkway, from where we got a taxi to the Travelodge in Eastleigh, ironically right opposite the railway station, our home for the next 18 hours or so. It had just gone 4.30, and with FC Halifax Town's  televised match against National League rivals Eastleigh kicking off at the later time of 5.30, with bags dropped off, we headed out quickly to the nearest Good Beer Guide pub, which in previous years would have been the Wagon Works, the local Wetherspoons, which was literally next door to the Travelodge.

This time though it was the Steam Town Brew Co (opening image) that had made the cut and fortunately it was only situated about 5 minutes walk away on Bishopstoke Road across the other side of a bridge over the railway. Traditionally, Eastleigh has always been a railway town and the view from the bridge provides the opportunity to appreciate the scale of the area where the works were sited, with plenty of lines and resting carriages suggesting the town still benefits from the contribution the industry makes to the local economy. 

Meanwhile, as the name of the pub suggests it is home to a microbrewery which sells its beer at the pub and at other outlets in and around the Southampton area. Situated on a corner, plenty of people were taking advantage of the warm sunshine and enjoying an alfresco drink. We walked in, the pub was not as busy as outside, but the staff were busy, a couple of guys were serving drinks behind the bar whilst a girl kept passing by carrying plates of food to hungry diners outside. There were several hand pumps on the bar serving beers from the in-house brewery whose name references Eastleigh's railway heritage. I ordered a pint of the 3.8% Stoke, which was a very refreshing pale ale which just hit the spot on this warm afternoon (NBSS 3.5). I liked the pub, which opened in its current guise in 2017, it is nicely done out and features exposed brick walls and something of an industrial look, with friendly staff keeping everything ticking over.

Steam Town Brew Co

With time moving on we got an Uber to Eastleigh's tidy modern stadium, located in a semi-rural area close to Southampton Airport, which provides a link to Eastleigh's relatively recently-adopted nickname, the Spitfires. The Spitfire aeroplane was built in Southampton and first flown from Eastleigh Aerodrome, which is now Southampton Airport, with the club's first mascot being Sammy the Spitfire, who was a dog. Incidentally, I have always fancied flying down here to watch FC Halifax Town play just for the novelty of it. Maybe one day. Our taxi dropped us off in the car park and as usual, the away end entrance was round the far side of the ground. We grabbed some food, me dining on an expensive but edible Cornish pasty, and we then took our seats in the away end behind the goal. What followed was probably the worst game I have seen this season, with both teams at fault, neither showing any creativity, with possession frequently being lost. Eastleigh were awarded a dubious penalty, which Town's stand-in goalkeeper saved, parried out, with an Eastleigh forward then hoofing the ball over the bar. But in due course, during the second half, the referee awarded Eastleigh another penalty and this time they scored. 1-0 Eastleigh, and we couldn't really complain as Town had been woeful. They began to press forward more, and with the game in the latter stages, they were awarded a corner from which full back Ryan Galvin, who'd been having a stinker, scored a fantastic header which propelled him into the Non-League Paper's team of the week. 1-1, and that's how it stayed. It had been a poor game, we didn't really deserve the draw, but that said, we weren't complaining!

Action from Eastleigh v FC Halifax Town

After the game we ordered an Uber to take us into Southampton. With none of us experts on the area we plumped for a street with two Good Beer Guide-listed pubs only yards apart. Gholam drove and dropped us off at Bedford Place, where our first stop was at Beards & Boards, a micropub which has a skateboard theme to it which, as someone who has never set foot on a skateboard, had a great friendly vibe to it. There was a record player spinning some great 80's music and a friendly team behind the bar, with equally friendly customers, some of whom had spilled outside into what was an incredibly balmy evening for early April. I went for a pint of British IPA from Bowmans, a well-established Hampshire brewery who are based in the village of Droxford The beer was enjoyable, a single hop 4.5% IPA with apricot and citrus flavours, made with Old English Ernest hops (NBSS 3). It made for a solid start to the evening. The bar is based in a former butchers which has also been a post office, and prior to becoming a bar it was a charity shop.

Beards, Boards, and Beer!

Beards & Boards is at 33 Bedford Place, whilst a few doors away at number 45 is another micropub called Bottle & Stoat, which was an off-licence and tasting room before converting to a fully-fledged bar. Here the vibe was much more chilled with a slightly older crowd than down the road. There was also more of a lounge look and feel to the place with a Chesterfield sofa and armchairs amongst the furnishings, and a soundtrack that was quieter and more chilled out than at number 33. Moving to the bar there were 6 hand pumps with a further 12 keg lines at the back, with many of the beers from the local area and slightly further afield, such as Vibrant Forest and Triple fff. From the hand pumps I ordered a pint of Square Logic, a 4.2% pale ale from Eightarch Brewing who are based in Wimborne in Dorset. This featured fruity hop flavours on a base of pale Vienna malt with added oats for a soft mouthfeel resulting in a well-balanced, easy-drinking and most enjoyable beer (NBSS 3.5). Another good bar that is well worth calling in, though I couldn't find out the origin of the unusual name.

Bottle & Stoat

There was another Beer Guide-listed pub nearby, Belgium and Blues, but not much else close after that, but around three quarters of a mile away according to the CAMRA app was another, with a further entry fairly close by, so we opted to go for those two. Whilst Southampton has 17 pubs listed in the Good Beer Guide, they are fairly spread out it seems, so to visit 4 of them on an evening where time was limited due to the late time the football finished would be quite a respectable haul. We set off walking, but following Google maps as we walked through a pleasant Georgian terrace, leafy suburban streets, and beside a busy dual carriageway it soon became apparent that the distance would probably be double what the app had claimed. We turned off a main road and walked down a gently-sloping residential street where we came to our third pub of the evening, a white-walled pub situated on a corner in the Bevois Valley.

We had arrived at the unusually-named Guide Dog which, by way of a contrast to the places we had been to earlier, was very much a suburban local. There was an air of calm relaxation and the steady murmur of conversation as we walked into what is a small pub with the bar situated in a compact lounge. There was an impressive 10 hand pumps on the bar, with a mix of national and local breweries including Dark Star, Thornbridge, and Steam Town from up the road in Eastleigh. I went for another new beer from another new brewery to me, ordering a pint of Goodens Gold from Flower Pots Brewery, who are based in the Hampshire village of Cheriton. This was a 4.8% classic golden ale featuring locally-malted barley and North American hops which had notes of grassy pine and citrus with a lingering aftertaste and a good level of bitterness and flavour to balance the gravity, served in excellent condition (NBSS 4). All the tables were taken in the main room, so we repaired to a smaller room at the back which apparently is called the Dog House, where we found an empty table in a corner to enjoy our beers and relax after a longer than expected walk here. The Guide Dog is an excellent pub and well worth seeking out.

The Guide Dog

It was then a walk back up the hill which I suppose it was in local terms but to those of us used the Pennines, it was merely a gentle slope. We turned right at the top and then left at the lights, as we'd been advised by one of the customers in the Guide Dog. There we came to our final stop for the evening, another micropub called Bookshop Alehouse. As the name suggests this is a former bookshop which became a bar in 2016. And with its listed frontage and shelves of books along one of the walls, it still retains much of the look of its former existence. We walked into a room with a few wooden tables and chairs, a couple of which were occupied by customers engaged in quiet conversation giving the place something of the feel of a library but with beer. The bar was situated up a couple of steps where there were a few stools and a table offering additional seating, whilst there were 4 beers on hand pump including two from Eightarch, along with 4 beers on keg. I ordered another pint of Square Logic which I'd enjoyed earlier in the evening, and once again it was in excellent condition (NBSS 3.5). Even better though was the final pint of the evening, another one from Eightarch called Corbel. This is the brewery's award-winning signature 5.5% West Coast IPA which the brewery's website describes as "clean, crisp and filled to the brim with ripe stone fruit aromas all ending with a solid bitterness making it super drinkable." And that very much summed it up, definitely worth a rating of 4. It was an excellent conclusion to what had been a very good day with some superb beer all round. 

Bookshop Alehouse; another great bar

We'd passed a kebab house on our way to the Bookshop, so we re-traced our steps and called in the Best Kebab House where we all ordered a chicken kebab to eat in to soak up the beer.  Food finished, I ordered an Uber which eventually arrived as we waited outside the by now closed kebab house, and to the sounds of pumping music, Vladimir drove us along the dark quiet roads back to the hotel.

The following morning, with sleep intermittently interrupted by some heavy-duty industrial-strength snoring, we were up and checked out of the hotel by 9, heading into the Spoons next door to order some breakfast before catching the train. The pub was quite busy, and regular Spoons problems soon manifested themselves: not enough staff on, food arriving at different times and some of it not warm enough, etc. It was handy for the train though; a minute after leaving Spoons we were on the platform waiting for the train to take us back to Waterloo. The train was quite busy but not uncomfortably so, when you consider it had 10 carriages. Some of the passengers were Southampton FC supporters who were going to see their team play against Spurs in a game that would confirm their relegation back to the Championship. We meanwhile went for a couple of pints once we got back into London before catching our train back up north after what had been a great weekend in the south....

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