Jamaican, Thai And A Trip

Well that was a fantastic weekend. On Saturday we were packed out for the wonderful Thai Kitchen from opening to closing and enjoyed some of Amporn's delicious Thai street food while we worked. Of course several casks of tasty beer were consumed with the food. Amporn and Eric will be back with us on Saturday June 9th.

Yesterday a coachload of us went on our first Snug outing of the year and what a great time we had. Our first stop was Hawkshead Brewery where our friends kindly laid on a brewery tour and there was the usual delicious ale and food.

Our next stop was Cartmel where we spent several happy hours enjoying the spring sunshine with copious amounts of cheese, wine and port at Unsworth's Yard, not to mention some lovely beers from Peter's Unsworth's Yard brewery.

Our final visit was to our friends at Fell and the Factory Tap at Kendal. As well as some lovely beers we enjoyed the usual warm hospitality with Ronnie and Les laying on a lovely barbecue for our hungry travellers at the Factory Tap.

All in all it was a quality trip and we would both like to thank all who joined our booze cruise and a special thank you to all the places we visited for their warm welcome and hospitality.

On Saturday June 2nd we will be welcoming Yardies Jamaican Street Food to The Snug. As many of you know we are very fond of our Caribbean food, offering jerk chicken whenever we can for our Jacob's Joins, so we are really excited about Yardies. I've dropped a huge hint for them to do ackee and saltfish, one of my favourites, but let's see what delicacies they offer us on the day. We will be receiving a menu nearer the time and will keep you updated.

That's all for now folks, take care and hope to see you soon.

All Systems Go

We've had a great few weeks since reopening and we are so pleased with how things are going.  Thank you to everybody.

We are now playing catch up with some beers we were hoping to put on before we closed finally making an appearance. I met the lads from Farmyard Ales in Cockerham around August last year but didn't get their beers on before we closed, that will be changing soon. Likewise we will soon be welcoming Pomona Island beers, brewed in the shadow of Old Trafford football ground and Media City. We are also adding some lovely beers from Runaway Brewery in Manchester to our bottle selection.

Our friends Amporn and Eric have had two really busy Saturdays providing delicious, freshly cooked Thai street food. Thai Kitchen will be back a little later in May than usual, due to prior commitments, so we're afraid you'll have to wait to enjoy their cooking until Saturday May 19th when they will be with us from 12 00 until around 7 00pm.

The following day, Sunday May 20th, we have our first Snug outing since reopening when we will visit Staveley (Hawkshead Brewery and Eagle and Child), Cartmel (Unsworth's Yard and numerous pubs) and Kendal to visit the Factory Tap and Fell Bar. Due to demand we have had to increase the size of the coach so we still have a few places left. We will be leaving The Snug at 11 00am and are due back around 8 00pm, the cost is £16pp but please get in touch asap as there are very few remaining places.

We were really pleased with our first ever brew, Snug Nouveau, a rich dark 6% stout and we especially thank Steve at Beer Nouveau for his patience, advice and good humour during the 8 hours we were there brewing on his 9 gallon kit. We especially welcomed the positive feedback from so many people.

This weekend sees the final taking place for the Snug Fantasy Football League Cup. Competing to become our inaugural winners will be Martyn Smith and Steve Foster. Good luck chaps.

That's all for now but please remember, we put regular updates, especially about our cask beers, on our Facebook and Twitter feeds.

Fantasy League Cup and Thai Street Food

The draw for the second round of the cup took place last night and was drawn again by Councillor Roly Parker. Ties will take place over game week 32. The deadline for changes is March 31 at 11 30am. The ties are as follows:

Tom Jobling v Kev Williams
Joe Jobling v Mike Pickering
Ben Ray v Julia Beaman
Mike Rowbottom v Marc Prill
S Foster v Glenn Haggart
Christine Fell v Steve Tobin
Don Penfold v Mark Holmes
Martyn Smith v John Fell

Then the following weekend sees the return of Amporn and Eric and their wonderful Thai street food. They will be with us on Saturday 7th April from 12 00pm until about 7 00pm.

We're Back

At last.

It's hard to believe now that we were closed for nearly five months. Where did the time go?

We've now been back just over a week and the last few weeks have been so busy I've only just found time to do this blog update, which I've been meaning to do for the last few weeks

We have added some fresh, new prints to the redecorated walls,  new lights over the bar and lamps on the window ledges. We now have a fresh new ceiling so we haven't replaced the drapes that masked the old, damp and leak stained ceiling so the place now feels roomier and airier, but we've kept the heart of The Snug intact.

We got the keys back on February 14th with a provisional date for reopening of 23rd February. The idea was to spend the 15th and 16th getting everything back in and ready then have the weekend end and few days to Friday 23rd making the most of our last few days off. How naïve. We worked every day, all day until 23 February finally putting the finishing touches to things at 3 30pm on the day we reopened at 5 00pm. We're really pleased with our new look and appreciate the kind comments so many people have made since we reopened.

Preparing casks for reopening

We finally pitched up at 4 40pm on the 23rd to reopen at 5 00pm and were amazed to find a crowd already outside waiting to join us. After a few months of wondering what would happen when we reopened it was a tremendous feeling to see so many old friends and new faces excitedly waiting to welcome us and The Snug back.

We opened the doors at 4 45pm and immediately the place was absolutely rammed and remained so until we called last orders. We even had messages of support from people who literally couldn't physically get in on that first night. It was truly a night to remember and we would like to thank everybody for making it so special. We finally finished cleaning and restocking at midnight, got home and hit the sack at 12 15 and went out like a pair of lights until after 8 30am on the Saturday morning.

Despite freezing weather and ferocious winds we welcomed Thai Kitchen back to Carnforth on our second Saturday and plenty of delicious Thai food and top quality beer was consumed, a wonderful day was had by all. Thai Kitchen are back with us on Aril 7th from 12 00pm until around 7 00pm.

Since we opened our doors on August 1st 2012 we are proud to have raised around £5,000 for various good causes. This Thursday we have our first charity fundraiser starting at 7 00pm. In conjunction with Pub Aid we will be holding a quiz night in aid of Prostate Cancer UK . I do hope you can join us and help raise a good amount for a very worthwhile cause.

From Friday our collecting tin for the Greyhound Trust will be back on the bar. A couple of friends and regulars have recently adopted retired greyhounds and we thought it would be good to raise some money to help this very worthwhile charity.

Well it's been hard work these last few weeks but we're glad to be back.

When's our next holiday Jules?

The Snug Life Story-Part 2

After opening on August 1st 2012 we soon developed a great group of regulars made up of locals and tourists be they weekenders or holidaymakers here for a week or two. We then got to thinking about extra little things we could do and I always remembered local pubs in East Manchester running trips out for regulars a few times a year. It was something that seemed to die out apart from exceptional places where there would still be a trip to Blackpool or a race meeting, so that's what we decided to do.

Our first trip was in December 2012 to the Marble Arch pub in Manchester including a brewery tour. The picture left is the December 2013 trip when we took advantage of the hold of the coach to also return empty casks which the regulars kindly took down the hill to the brewery for us. Until this year the Manchester trip became our regular Christmas trip.

Other trips have included Liverpool, the wonderful Hawkshead Brewery and Unsworth's Yard in Cartmel. We have also visited Chester, Skipton and Settle, Ulverston Brewery and the Prince of Wales at Foxfield.

In Cartmel we always seem to get good weather and enjoy sitting in Unsworth's Yard drinking beer from Peter Unsworth's brewery, wine from Davd Unsworth's fantastic wine and spoirit shop and cheese from the Cartmel Cheese Shop. Happy days indeed

David Unsworth has also helped us raise money for Help for Heroes by generously hosting a gin tasting evening in The Snug where we sampled a huge range of gins from all over the world while David gave us a very interesting and humorous history of gin. When we re-open in February we hope that David will be returning to broaden our horizons with some more tasting evenings.

We have also had a wine tasting evening with the Lancashire Wine School which everybody enjoyed and found highly informative and which again raised funds for Help for Heroes. We have also held various quiz nights and cheese and port evenings to raise funds.

In November 2013 we held our first beer festival which we touched on briefly in our last post. Since then we have had three more festivals with over 35 real ales and ciders last year. The festival has been held in The Snug and the Midland and Furness Hall in the Heritage Centre The £2 admission fee goes to the Station Heritage Trust, and we have averaged a donation of around £1000 each year.

This year we had our inaugural gin festival to celebrate World Gin Day on June 10th. Jules had the unenviable task of sourcing the 25 gins which involved a great deal of sampling which the poor woman found extremely arduous as you'll appreciate. But source them she did and there were some wonderful gins, many of which we now stock on a permanent basis. We knew gin was popular but nothing prepared the three of us on the bar that day for quite how busy we would be. Marc was superb, as ever, and Vicky worked really hard in the kitchen keeping on top of washing glasses. True team work that day.

Again we are reviewing arrangements for future festivals while we are 'resting' so watch this space.

For a couple of years we also had The Snug Ukulele Group which entertained at a couple of beer festivals and met monthly when we were closed on Mondays. Again this idea is something we are looking at and several ideas have been thrown in the melting pot for next year. Yet again, watch this space.

The first Saturdays of most months at The Snug are now synonymous with Thai Street Food. Even last weekend we had an enquiry from somebody wanting to know if there would be Thai food available on Saturday.

Of course when we re-open Amporn and Eric will be back bringing their wonderful Thai food for people to enjoy. In the meantime you can find out where they are cooking next by visiting their website: Thai Kitchen In Lakeland.

Finally we have The Snug Fantasy Premier League which is now in its fourth season. This season we have 29 teams contesting and we are introducing our own league cup in the New Year which will be fought for on a knock out basis. Good luck to all involved and, if you missed out this season, watch out for details of how to enter over the summer for the start of the 2018/19 season.

On the prospect of the next football season being 2018/19 I will leave you with a question: Where does the time go?

Thai Street Food

On the first Saturday of each month, starting in March, we will be hosting Thai Kitchen In Lakeland.

From 5 00pm they will be cooking delicious, authentic Thai street food for your delectation.

Let's hope we have a glorious spring and summer to help us enjoy our Thai street food and other treats we are planning for the year.

Outing and Thai Street Food

This Sunday we have our annual outing to the East Lancs Railway where we will visit the Trackside Beer and Cider Festival and the World Black Pudding Throwing Championships at Ramsbottom. Cost is £12pp and there are still a few places left if you would like to join us.

As we will be away on Sunday The Snug will be closed this Sunday only.

Sunday 18 September we will be back open as usual from 12 30 until 4 30 with Thai Street Food available thanks to Thai Kitchen Cumbria. Delicious Thai curries, noodles and satay will be available from their mobile kitchen from opening time onwards.