Becky Newman tells how a love of real ale and strict standards helped the Bricklayer's Arms in Putney win awards after a two-year closure
How I got here
I trained as an actress in my late teens and worked in the theatre business for 15 years. I coupled this with small-scale property developing in Islington. I'd turn around about three or four houses a year and this supplemented low
theatre wages.
The Bricklayer's Arms is the oldest pub in Putney. Built in 1826 it was made into an ale house after the Duke of Wellington's Beer Act in 1833. It didn't get its spirits licence until the 1970s. Originally, it was called the Waterman's Arms because it was a favourite haunt of the Thames Freemen and Watermen.
At the turn of the last century, there was a huge amount of development in Putney. The builders and bricklayers would come to the pub to find work and be paid, hence the change of name.
I re-opened the Bricklayer's Arms in 2005. I had never worked behind a bar before and the pub had been run into the ground.
How I turned the pub around
Previously the pub had a poor reputation. On top of this it had been closed completely for more than two years. All the old customers were long gone, so I was really starting from scratch.
I was very clear with the rules - no drugs, no fighting and no underage drinkers. One by one, the troublemakers broke the rules and barred themselves. Eventually, anybody looking for trouble stayed away.
It took time, a year actually, but now I have a pub full of lovely people who aren't afraid to come in any more.
As the licensee, you have to really stand your ground. I think that if a pub has trouble, it means that somewhere there's a bad apple.
I know a few pubs that are run by managers on a wage and the owners aren't around. If the manager has, say, a cocaine habit and is having lock-ins every night with the local dealer and users, then that will permeate into every aspect of the pub. It happens a lot.
My drinks
Mine is the only freehouse in the country to offer the full range of Timothy Taylor beers - Landlord, Golden Best, Best, Dark Mild and Ram Tam. I also have four guest pumps. I like to focus on a particular brewery each week so, for instance, this week I have the full range from Hampshire Brewery on the guest pumps. We are surrounded by pubs owned by Young's and Fuller's, so we're the only pub in the area to do anything like this. I have seven good quality wines; three red, three white and a rosé.
My beer festivals
I've had two so far, a Yorkshire festival and a Lancashire festival, running over three days from Friday to Sunday.
I've been very fortunate in that I've had a lot of things going for me. First was my relationship with the Timothy Taylor brewery. My cousin works there so I was able to call on their considerable support.
First they supplied cooling equipment free of charge, then head brewer Peter Eels agreed to be my guest speaker at the Yorkshire fest-
ival. He was great, a real highlight of the evening. At the Lancashire festival, the speaker was Roger Protz. And, as luck would have it, a few of my customers turned out to be members of the Hammersmith Morris Men so they came and danced for us all weekend and some other customers were in a brass band so they played for us as well. It was all very eccentric, but wonderful.
I am also very lucky to have a beer garden. This meant I could put up a marquee, which housed most of the guest ales and, as they were outside, I didn't have to chill them. As for the beers I think you just have to strike a balance and provide a little bit of everything. I was advised very strongly when I was planning the list not to get too many strong beers as they wouldn't sell.
However, I went ahead and ordered three: Black Mass, Last Rites and Absolution.
They went down a storm! I ordered 35 firkins of beer in total and was terrified that nobody would come.
My advertising budget was practically nothing, so I just took out one full-page in The London Drinker magazine. However, the south-west London branch of the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) was fabulous in helping me with publicity by putting details on its diary website.
I did what must have been a very amateur press release, but both the Evening Standard and Metro newspapers picked it up, which boosted numbers enormously. The pub was packed. We opened at midday on the Friday and by last orders on Saturday we had sold out of everything.
My boat race
The pub is 200 yards from the Thames and Putney Bridge so I also have a mini beer
festival for Boat Race Day. We set it up in the garden and have 10 beers from Oxfordshire versus 10 beers from Cambridgeshire. The race is on for the customers to drink one or the other team dry first. I think Oxfordshire won last time.
My food
We do a fabulous Sunday roast. Customers get a piping hot plate, laden with freshly-prepared, home-cooked food. We also have the bacon-butty cart for Fulham football club matchdays and our beer festivals. We are about to extend the menu to other days and will be keeping to the idea of traditional pub grub - there won't be an olive-oil drizzled, sun-dried tomato in sight, I promise.
My staff
There are four full time and three part-time staff. I only employ staff who I know already and who are fans of real ale. It's very important that the staff can talk about the real ales on offer to the customers when they walk in through the door. It's also important that they are friendly to our core customer base of locals.
My locals
The Bricklayer's Arms is very much a locals' local. Tucked away at the top of a cul-de-sac there is very little passing trade. People know about it through word of mouth. We get Camra groups arriving on pilgrimage too and that's like having a plague of locusts arrive. They generally stay until they've drunk us dry.
My plans for the future
I would like to improve the size of my cellar. It's absolutely tiny for what we do and it would be good to have a storage room down there too. I also plan to extend the food range. As far as drinks go, I would like to investigate the idea of cask lagers and a more interesting range of bottled ales.
My pub
Tenure: Freehold
Average cost of meal: £7.95
Number of ales on offer: nine
Cost of a pint: between £2.80 and £3.40
Wet:dry split: 90:10
Barrels per week: on average, 30, nine-gallon firkins
My awards:
Best pub/cafe/restaurant, Wandsworth Business Awards 2006;
SW London Pub of the Year 2007, Camra;
Greater London Regional Pub of the Year 2007, Camra