Real ale returns to Camra's local
The Rats Castle: it's not the most enticing name for a pub. I have a morbid fear of rats and I have always entered the pub nervously in case I saw a long grey tail disappearing under a table.
But I returned to the Rats with pleasure last week. It used to be my local when I lived in the Fleetville area of St Albans. It also became the closest pub to the head office of the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra).
For obvious reasons, there aren't many pubs in Britain with the word "rat" in their namesRoger Protz, beer writer
Irritatingly, for both Camra and myself, the Rats long ago stopped serving cask beer. But now its owners have walked the bibulous road to Damascus and restored handpumps to the bar.
The timing was exquisite, coinciding with the report last week that cask beer is enjoying a welcome revival of fortune.
Now the good folk who work at Camra Towers can take visitors on the two-minute walk to the nearest pub instead of muttering in embarrassment that their local is a keg-only disaster area.
For obvious reasons, there aren't many pubs in Britain with the word "rat" in their names. The Dictionary of Pub Names suggests two reasons: "ratted" is one of the many terms used to describe the state of drunkenness, while demolished pubs can be overrun by rodents.
Whatever the origins of the name of the St Albans Rats, the pub has had a chequered history. When I first used it, it was owned by Allied Breweries and the two cask beers on offer were Benskins Bitter and Ind Coope Burton Ale.
Two Allied breweries - Benskins in Watford and Ind Coope in Romford - had been axed. Ind Coope in Burton was to follow and drinking beer in the Rats was akin to supping in a cemetery.
When Benskins was transferred to Burton,
it became a clone ale. Allied brewed a 3.7% abv liquid and then added different hops to create the likes of ABC, Benskins and Friary Meux bitters. The Benskins version had all
the charm of cold Horlicks. The problem was that the alternative, Burton Ale, was close to 5% abv. It was a luscious beer, but it was certainly not a lunchtime pint.
Allied solved the dilemma by turning the Rats into a Mr Q's pool pub. The handpumps and beer engines were loaded onto a skip and keg reigned supreme.
But the changes at the Rats had failed to register with the top brass at Allied. When one of them came to a meeting at the Camra offices, he suggested taking lunch at "my pub next door". We gulped, but were too polite
to suggest an alternative, so off to the Rats we went.
The Allied man strode in and called for "four pints of your finest cask beer". "D'what?" the puzzled bar person asked. "Four pint of real ale," the Allied man persisted, not noticing the absence of truncheons on the bar.
"Don't do it," the young woman intoned. We settled for Guinness.
"And could I have your lunch menu?" the Allied man demanded. He was clearly unaware of the old saying that when you're in a hole it is advisable to stop digging.
"Don't do food," came the inevitable reply.
I attempted to save the day by pointing out that Guinness is a meal in itself. But the man from Allied had clearly enjoyed better days.
When Allied Breweries ceased to exist, the Rats Castle was passed from pub company to pub company. It got dowdier by the day and the beer choice remained dire. The patronising assumption was that, as Fleetville is in downtown St Albans, its customers had no interest in cask beer.
But now it's owned by Scottish & Newcastle (S&N) and the Rats has been given the charm offensive of bright paint and comfortable seating. S&N phoned Camra head office to ask what beers the inmates might like to see on the bar. There's even a food menu.
And when I dropped in for a pint of Deuchars IPA, the pump clip had been turned round as the cask had been drunk dry. So I had a delicious pint of a Marston's seasonal ale and ordered a cheese sandwich.
What else could you possibly eat in the Rats Castle?
