AGM at The Wheatsheaf, Shedfield, 11th December 2014

After another year of dedicated devotion to duty in 2014, the gentlemen members of the Pie Club gathered together at The Wheatsheaf Inn, Shedfield for their annual general meeting.  Our choice of venue was, of course, an acknowledgement of the very special place in our hearts occupied by the Wheatsheaf.  We will never forget that momentous pie we were served in 2012 which won the Pie of the Year Award that year. Add to that the excellent range of Flowerpots Ales available here at very low prices and we have what has become the spiritual home of the Pie Club and the gold standard against which all other pubs are measured.  Knowing that our hosts, Tim and Sally, had laid on another very special pie for us, we were eager to get the formal business of the day completed quickly so that we could get on with the much more important business of tackling another Wheatsheaf pie.

We agreed that in future our annual award for excellence would be "The Pie Club Pub of the Year" rather than "The Pie of the Year". This is a more accurate reflection of the fact that our award is based not just on the quality of the pie, but also on the overall experience of the pub visit.

We then went on to consider which pub should receive this coveted award for 2014. Here are the scores for each of the pubs that we visited this year:

1. The Black Dog, Waltham Chase (27/11/2014): 22.34
2. The Bucks Head, Meonstoke (25/09/2014): 22.32
3. The Kings Head, Hursley (29/05/2014): 21.59
4. The Brewery Bar, Botley (24/04/2014): 21.54
5. The Ship Inn, Owslebury (23/01/2014): 21.13
6. The Rising Sun, Swanmore (30/10/2014): 21.07
7. The Hampshire Bowman, Dundridge (26/06/2014): 20.70
8. The Queen Inn, Winchester (24/07/2014): 20.58
9. The Brickmakers, Swanmore (27/03/2014): 19.98
10. The Hurdles, Droxford (28/08/2014): 19.20

It was a very close contest, with the Black Dog in Waltham Chase winning by a very narrow margin. Our hearts go out to Nicki and Shaun at The Bucks Head, who must have thought that with their bold imaginative move of serving us 2 pies each they had the award in the bag, and perhaps in any other year they would have won, but they were just pipped at the post by Peter and Kathy at the Black Dog with their equally bold and innovative idea of offering us a Sausage, Bacon & Black Pudding Pie. Commiserations are due to all the other venues - there were no bad pies here, and everyone did very well.  

Congratulations to Peter and Sally at The Black Dog for a well-deserved win. We are looking forward to our next visit to The Black Dog, in March, when we will present the award.

Now on to more important matters.  While we were deliberating over our AGM, we were well assisted by the excellent range of beers which were available:

We found that these ales were a great help in our decision making. Meanwhile, Sally had prepared a special Steak & Kidney Pie for us. When it was brought out for us there was a moment of respectful silence followed by a buzz of appreciation as we saw just how good it was. 

We helped ourselves.  Made with short crust pastry, and served with perfectly cooked carrots, brocolli and new potatoes, with a jug of gravy on the side, this was as near perfect as a pie can possibly be.

The end result was inevitable - a full set of empty plates and very happy gentlemen:

To use our usual methods to evaluate this experience would be an insult to all concerned. This experience is sublime. It is beyond evaluation. Suffice to say, this pub will continue to be the spiritual home of the Pie Club, and sets the standard by which all other pubs are measured. We are looking forward to our next visit to The Wheatsheaf, which will probably be in December for our next AGM, unless we can think of some excuse for not waiting as long as that. 

The Kings Head, Hursley, 29th May 2014

This was Eric's first time to choose the venue, and he surprised us all by choosing to go to The Kings Head at Hursley, described by Google as an "Ivy-clad Georgian inn with classy bedrooms and a rustic-chic restaurant with a Modern British menu", so ... maybe not in the same league as the pubs we usually go to, and maybe a bit too classy for the likes of us. Still, "onwards and upwards" we said to each other as we waited in our customary position outside the Bishops Waltham Tandoori  for our taxi, working up a healthy appetite by breathing deeply in the curry aromas wafting from the nearby kitchen. Once again we were let down by the pre-booked taxi, but Chase Cars came to our rescue, and soon we found ourselves in the unfamiliar surroundings of Hursley, outside the Kings Head.

On our best behaviour, we ventured inside, to be met by a very welcome sight:

In no time at all we cast aside our inhibitions as we surveyed the choice of ales and settled into our first pints of Itchen Valley Belgarum 3.9%, except for Tall Paul, who, as usual, preferred Guinness.  As we enjoyed our Belgarum, we checked out the other ales that were available: Andwell's King John Ale 4.2%,
the ever-popular Bowman Ales' Wallops Wood 4.0%, Ringwood Ales Best Bitter 3.8%, and the ubiquitous Sharp's Doom Bar 4%. All in all, a fine selection of ales which some of us did our best to sample, but others were content to stay with the Belgarum for the whole session as it was such a fine ale and in very good condition.

Eric had already discussed the menu with his friend Jimmy (current owner of the Kings Head), so we knew in advance what we would be getting. Jimmy explained to us that we weren't in the pie season so he'd had to provide something special for us. No complaints there! We had a choice of Beef Bourgignon Pie or Rabbit & Prune Pie. This put us all in a bit of a pickle as we'd never had either of those pies before on any of our outings. After some discussion we realised that "Beef Bourgignon" means "Beef with Mushrooms and Red Wine", which we all agreed sounded rather good. On the other hand some of us have digestive systems which have seen better days (it happens to men as they get older) and were rather concerned about the effects that prunes might have on them*. In the end, after a lot of discussion, 2 of us decided to try the Beef Bourgignon, 4 of us decided to live dangerously and try the Rabbit & Prune, and none of us was disappointed. The pies all came with "greens and mash" - no choice - but the Beef Bougignon pies were served with plain Mash and a red wine gravy, and the Rabbit & Prune pies came with Mustard Mash and a mustard gravy. The "greens" were broccoli. 

At first glance the portions looked to us to be a bit on the small side, but in fact they were ample. The pies were individually made, with a rich shortcrust pastry that literally melted in the mouth. The pie fillings were full of tender moist meat, and just the right degree of moisture. Even the prunes tasted good. In fact rabbit & prune is a partnership made in heaven. The sauce/gravy was served separately, in a jug, just the way we like it, and complemented the pies perfectly.  The mash and greens were done very nicely.  After we had all (without exception) cleared our plates, some of us found that we still had room for a pudding. The pudding menu lacked any of what we would call the old school favourites (which gentlemen of a certain age seem to relish), but the puddings that we tried were presented very nicely and were very tasty.

This is a very clean and tidy place to eat. Dining here is a very pleasant, refined experience, quite outside what we usually experience on other outings. We ate in a separate dining room, away from the bar, and the room was less than half full, so it was quiet and we had very few distractions, although when we first sat down we found ourselves sitting directly beneath a loudspeaker from which musak (one of our pet hates) could be heard loudly enough to make it difficult for us to hear what others were saying, but when we mentioned this to a nice waitress it was turned down (not off!) straight away, so it wasn't really a problem.  The service was excellent - actually maybe a little over-attentive at times, as we were asked several times if we were ready to order our puddings. 

Our final bill for the food came to £38 each,  (The pies were £12.50 each, puddings £6.50 each, ale £3.80/pint), so it wasn't a cheap meal (compare with our previous outing, to the Brewery Bar, where the final bill was only £28 each), but the quality of the whole experience was outstanding, .

Scores for The Kings Head, Hursley (Max 5 in each category - total 25 overall)

Pastry - 4.42

Filling -  4.48

Beer   -  4.26

Ambience - 4.22

Value  - 4.23

Overall  - 21.59

These scores are in some ways quite curious as the pastry and filling were rated less good that those at the Brewery Bar, but the Beer and Ambience were scored much higher. As it is, the overall score of 21.59 is just high enough to nudge The Kings Head into first place in our rankings of pubs visited this year, ahead of the Brewery Bar by a mere 0.04 points. It just goes to show that we gentlemen appreciate a bit of class from time to time. Congratulations to Jimmy and the staff at the Kings Head, who looked after us very well, and thoroughly deserve this high score. 

* Regarding the prunes, at the time of writing, no ill-effects have been reported.