Peace at last at the Dove

This is the story of a pub in Ipswich that was written off as unviable by a major pub company but is now a roaring success under independent ownership.

The Dove Street Inn dates from the 18th century. It has wood beams, bare boards and an impressive inglenook in the small back bar. A conservatory has been added and a marquee is latched on when the pub stages beer festivals.

I dropped in on the Saturday of the spring bank holiday and found a slightly bleary owner Adrian — Ady — Smith. "We had a fantastic night last night," he said. It looked set to be a good Saturday as well, as drinkers started to fill up the bars and the marquee. Already some of the casks bore stickers saying SOLD OUT.

A beer festival was in full flow. There will be two more, in August and late November. Smith and his partner, Karen Beaumont, who was busy cooking nourishing pub grub, have 12 years' experience of running festivals, which they combine with enthusiasm to breathe life back into the Dove.

In the 1990s the pub was branded as a specialist Tap & Spile cask beer house. It was sold to Enterprise, which restored its name, but then declared it to be unviable in 2003. Smith and Beaumont snapped it up and have turned it into a thriving business.

Wet sales now account for 84% of the Dove's trade. Cask ales are keenly priced, at an average of £2.80 a pint. Regulars can join a loyalty scheme that gives them discounts at the bar.

"There's a Wetherspoon's nearby — it makes you price-aware," Smith admits. "We're getting a lot of young people drinking real ale and 40% of those real- ale drinkers are women." The Dove's evident success destroys the myth that young people and women won't touch cask with the proverbial barge pole.

The Dove is a small pub but Smith and Beaumont pack in as many as 66 ales during a festival — some on handpump, the rest served by gravity. They have 80 suppliers, many of them small brewers keen to get their beers on the bar.

More ales come from such leading distributors as Flying Firkin, Small Beer and WaverleyTBS. Smith also works closely with Siba, the Society of Independent Brewers, which runs a direct delivery scheme.

"Our website is constantly updated to show the beers available and how much beer is left," Smith says. "Tickers can tell if they can get here before their favourite beer runs out." A special computer programme monitors the progress of each cask, enabling Smith and his bar managers to see when any beer is getting close to selling out.

As well as ales from small craft breweries throughout Britain, the Dove has regulars beers. Crouch Vale Brewers Gold is the biggest seller, followed by Hop Back Summer Lightning and Fuller's London Pride. Such East Anglian favourites as Adnams Broadside, Mauldon's Black Adder and Woodforde's Wherry are also usually on tap.

Real ale offer​

Smith is keen to develop beer from the wood so that drinkers can see how real ale varies when served from wooden and metal containers. Black Adder was served from the wood at the last festival.

Smith sends wooden pins and firkins to selected brewers and Theakston's Old Peculier will be the next beer to get the wood treatment.

"Lots of other landlords phone me to see how we do it here," Smith says. With cask beer accounting for 84% of trade, it's not surprising that tenants and managers are keen to follow the Dove's example.

The pub draws beer lovers from near and far. In the main bar I chatted to drinkers who had come from Kent and Gloucestershire to enjoy its vast array of ales. They are daunting journeys at a weekend when lovable National Rail decides to replace the

Liverpool Street to Ipswich service with buses.

Two things amaze me about Enterprise Inns' role in this affair. The pubco decided the Dove was unviable and decided to close it. If Smith and Beaumont can make it a stunning success, how come all the marketing geniuses at Enterprise couldn't do the same?

And now — guess what? — Enterprise wants to buy it back.

"No chance!" Smith laughs. Over the bank holiday weekend, he sold 7,500 pints of beer and he's not turning his back on that.

Far from it — he plans to expand. He knows a growing number of beer lovers want to drink local beers and he and Beaumont will help fund a new micro-brewery on the waterfront.

"Ipswich is a desert for choice," he says. "We want to improve that by supplying locally-brewed ales."

The Dove is the sign of peace and Smith isn't looking for a fight. But Enterprise can definitely put its cheque book away.