First beer to be brewed in Thame for over a century

A Thame Brewery will makes is debut this weekend, serving the first beer to be brewed in the town for more than than a century. The new micro-brewery?s real ale will be unveiled at the Cross Keys pub at lunchtime on Saturday, November 14, when Thame’s MP, John Howell will serve the first pint to BBC Radio 2 personality and local resident, Ken Bruce. The Mayor of Thame, Jeannette Matelot Green, a regular at The Cross Keys, will also be there to sample the new brew.

The launch brew is a medium-strength bitter called Mrs Tipple?s Ghost, named after a former
landlady who ran the pub in the 1950s and whose picture still hangs by the bar. The beer is
aptly named as current landlords, Peter and Trudi Lambert, have restored the pub to the levels
of popularity that Daisy Tipple herself would have been proud of.

A year ago, the Cross Keys had been closed and was facing an uncertain future. Then Thame-based
Oak Taverns considered buying the pub and asked Peter and Trudi to spend a month assessing its potential. Having previously made their mark by reviving an Oak Taverns pub in West London, the couple arrived in Thame in February 2009, trebled the Cross Keys? turn-over within a month and, having trebled it again, decided to stay.

Peter explained the formula that has enabled the Cross Keys to thrive at a time when 50 pubs
per week are closing around the country.

“There were two real ales here when we arrived, along with a well-known keg beer,” he said.
“The first thing I did was disconnect the keg and remove the pool table, and within a couple
of months we had installed five real ale pumps. Then we added a sixth pump for our house ale, the best bitter from Vale Brewery in Brill.

“During the nine months since we have been here, we have gone through 350 different guest ales, all of them from micro-breweries. I have never sold so much mild in my life, and we are also regularly offering porter and stout on draught.

“Word has been going around the town and the community has become involved ? it is a place where women also feel comfortable, where there is no background music and no fruit machines, and the only sound you hear is the sound of conversation.”

Peter says the launch of Thame Brewery is a logical development of the pub business, making good use of a barn at the side of the main building where he hosted Thame Round Table?s charity beer festival last July.

Since then, he has installed a range of redundant brewery equipment from another Oak Taverns pub in Dorset.

“Having never brewed beer before, I have been learning fast,” Peter reflected. “Installing the
equipment was a serious challenge, and I have never done so much plumbing in my life.

“At some stage in the past, all the pubs in Thame would have brewed their own beer. But it has been well over 100 years, and possibly 200 years, since any beer has been brewed commercially in the town.

“As a result, there has been an enormous interest in the new venture and I have conducted numerous tours of the new brewery. The opening with Ken Bruce and John Howell will be a real community event, and it will also launch our Christmas raffle in aid of Ken?s charity, with a polypin of our new beer among the prizes.”

10/11/09