The Butt & Oyster

Re: Just in case anyone has forgotten what a good pub is like:

I'm planning to be there on Friday night, and then take part in the Nancy Blackett fitting out party on the Saturday. Crystal will most likely be in the Tidemill marina for the weekend, if I don't hang her up on the cill - it's looking a bit neapy, and equinoxy...

Cracking pint, and lovely staff. What's yours, Andrew?

/<
 
Re: Just in case anyone has forgotten what a good pub is like:

I thought I'd just add my two (new) pence worth as I live not far from the Butt and often walk there in the summer.

I wonder if poor Krystal just feels the subject for anyone who fancies putting the boot in. As has been mentioned, but as a reminder to anyone who hasn't actually visited the place, the smoke roon is just that a separate room beyond a corridor and without a bar. Whilst I do not like smoking, am well aware of the negatives, in my umble opinion it is not rocket science to expect to breath in smoke if you choose to sit in THE SMOKE ROOM!

Pertaining to the atmosphere and the food I've found that over the years it has moved from being and olde woldy pub that does pub meals, full of bargemen and sea shanties (am I romantic?) towards that of 'gastro pub'. This is less aimed at people following 'traditional' ways but the well heelled that drive out to quaint villages for dinner. This has gone hand in hand with the 'tidying' up of the foreshore... don't get me started (taxpayers cash...).

Unfortunately the old days have gone and pubs are far more business minded rather that community centres. In regard to the food, sometimes I feel it is excellent whilst othertimes it is disappointing, there seems no rhyme nor reason.

PS Don't the current owners also own The Maybush at Waldringfield? It has gone a similar way.
 
Re: Just in case anyone has forgotten what a good pub is like:

Thank you, Kristal. Unlike many people, I prefer Ordinary to Broadside, but Regatta and Explorer are worth a try...

As Uncle Bertie observes, whilst I mourn the passing of the real waterside pub, we are now in the era of the gastropub, like the Ship at Levington, where I hosted an excellent business lunch today. Sadly, the Butt and the Maybush (and the Wilford Bridge, which they also own) don't get near the Ship in the kitchen department.

This matters less to me as I only enter the Wilford Bridge and the Maybush on alternate Wednesday evenings in summer, due to the Deben Rowing Club geriatrics' coxed four heading either up river or down according to tide, and we are not going ashore to eat... /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif
 
Re: Just in case anyone has forgotten what a good pub is like:

Yes - they own the Maybush, and the Wilford Bridge at Melton.

The Maybush was spoilt many years ago. The Butt is going through the same process. Much of the profit comes from food, and logically is maximised in destination pub such as the Butt by charging as much as possible for food bought as cheaply as possible - clever that, I'm a bean counter. I've pretty well given up eating at the Butt

I think Jamie Oliver should be let loose on the British pub. Very rarely do I feel I've had decent value from a pub meal, let alone a good meal, in a pub. The Ramsholt Arms is another which promises much and usually disappoints. The Victoria at Felixstowe Ferry can be quite good though.

Our favourite eating place on the Orwell (Stour to be accurate) is the Bistro downstairs in the Pier Hotel, Harwich. It's a bit dearer than a pub, so we can't go more than once or twice a season, but we've enjoyed every meal we've had there. For value, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm a big fan of Ivan's cooking at the Woolverstone Marina Schooner.

I've had very good food in a couple of Yacht Clubs - Walton & Frinton and West Mersea.

Best of all is food cooked aboard of course - Mirelle does wonderful Sausages, Spuds and cabbage (perfect on a November evening), and I then repay his culinary effort by rowing him ashore to a pub for a pint and (Brake Bros.) pudding.
 
Re: Just in case anyone has forgotten what a good pub is like:

But as Kristal pointed out on page 1, the smoke roon(sic) to which you refer is not the only place in which you are allowed to assault fellow humans - you can do this in the bar area too. My point is, that all pubs should have rooms in which drug addicts can be indulged in smoking a variety of plant derivatives, while non-offensive activities (such as injecting opiates) should be allowed anywhere. Then I wouldn't have to wash my clothes after a night out.
As far as your comments on "olde worlde" pubs; give us a break! The Butt has been trendy with the middle classes since the publication of "We didn't mean to go to Sea". If it ever was old world, surely that old world meant sailors risking their lives for next to no pay, at the word of a shipowner who would sack a man for joining a union or having the temerity to expect a decent life. I would rather have any number of gastropubs , than the sort of picturesque poverty that certain little englanders get a hard-on over. Of course pubs are businesses, when have they ever been otherwise? We live in a capitalist society, and have been doing so for at least 150 years in case you hadn't noticed. If you want real change start questioning that! ps, if you are a weekend sailor you probably haven't been there mid week, especially in winter - see my comments on page 1 of this discussion.
 
You will find that one round the corner

You want a pub where you will find the bar propped up by "sailors risking their lives for next to no pay, at the word of a shipowner who would sack a man for joining a union or having the temerity to expect a decent life"?

You need not go far from the Butt and Oyster; try the Felixstowe Seafarers' Centre.

Most popular feature; the telephone, and the store where they sell international phone cards.

The Missions to Seamen gets a fraction of what the RNLI gets and does a great deal of good with what it does get.
 
Re: Just in case anyone has forgotten what a good pub is like:

I fear you may have missed the gist of my comments;

1. I believe I was stating the way this pub has changed in recent years not a grandiose statement about capitalism in the last 150.

2. I did not say I was a weekend sailor, I said I lived within walking distance of it, therefore I have been going there (I would not say as a regular) for years and at anytime of the year, midweek, winter whenever.

3. I used the term 'unfortunately' because there did use to be the feel of a 'local' about it hence my comments about pubs as community centres.

This pub is just one example of many that because they are in a 'nice' location are brought by entrepreneurs, turned into 'gastropubs' (although I wish there was a better word) and thus invariable are filled by punters who have driven/sailed in from afar and do not know each other. Which may be fine for many people but it is undeniable that the atmosphere of the pub (which I described as olde woldy alluding to the community type spirit of the past, I hope your comments re sailors risking their lifes was a joke) has changed. That it was 'trendy with the middle classes' before being turned into a gastropub does not justify the change, I'd argue that it became trendy because it was one of the few places left that was quaint, a bit untidy and had a customer base of 'real' people (local bargemen and fishermen) and it is exactly this that has been lost.

I do not smoke but I can't be bothered to join with you in the further persecution of anyone who does (tongue in cheek or otherwise), their taxes may one day pay for my pension (in hope).
 
Another suggestion

Try the pub in Chelmondiston at the top of the lane which leads to Pin Mill. Ten minutes uphill walk from the Butt, and you will be well rewarded with an astonishing menu, very well cooked.

I, for one, feel sorry for daveyjones having to "wash his clothes after a night out" because of smokers like me. I have to do this too, and oddly enough have done since I left home, as my mother tells me people start to keep their distance from you if you don't... /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

...although the point about "We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea" might well be a valid one.

I have often joked about leaving my vocation in the media to run a pub, painfully aware that I would be bankrupt within a year and dead within two. Now that smoking legislation is coming in, and that so far, it seems to hinge upon the preparation and service of food, it might be the time to actually seriously consider it. As has been stated above, it's rare to get a really cracking meal in a pub (The Cherry Tree of Mirelle's locality is an exception, definitely, in view of price and quality) and usually they are throwing out poor quality, boil-in-the-bag meals at a huge mark-up.

I think that if pubs choose food over smoking, I have a market ready and waiting for smokers who appreciate really good, well-kept and reasonably priced beer and are willing to go somewhere else to eat.

I'd invite you all, but non-smoking will be strictly forbidden...

/<
---
Farewell, happy fields,
where Joy forever dwells.
Hail, horrors, hail...
 
Re: Just in case anyone has forgotten what a good pub is like:

Apart from my remark about weekend sailors, I didn't misread your comments, I merely sought to place them in a wider context. If you want pubs to be community centres, some other means of paying for them must be found, as they are subject to the same economic imperatives as any other business; that is, it is not sufficient merely to make a profit - that profit must be continually increased and maximised. If that wasn't the case, then Tesco would be happy with 1 billion profit instead of going for 2 billion.
Despite my cynical nature, I hope I would never be guilty of making a joke about seamen risking their lives! I was pointing out that the sort of merry england fantasy that a lot of visitors to the Butt (and elsewhere) indulge in , ignores the reality of the world they imagine they are celebrating. As for my persecution of smokers, I would refer you to my earlier remark (on this thread) about the need for proper smoke rooms to keep everybody happy.
 
Re: Another suggestion

One point that hasn't been mentioned in this long and interesting discussion, is the risk to bar staff who have to passively smoke for their entire shift. There is now clear proof of the damage this causes, and this fact will give added impetus for a ban on smoking. This is part of a general emphasis on health and safety in the culture at large, and before I hear the expression "nanny state" let me say that in my own work as an electrician, I often work on building sites which are now civilised places to be, not the filthy death traps my father had to work in. I am therefore in favour of such controls. Bring back the smoke room, it's simple!
 
The Smoke Room and The Aromatic Shag

Hmmm, I've edited this post as I realised I said something unfair.

Amusingly, my work bar is banning smoking "because of the risk to staff", all of whom, bar none, are heavy smokers. In my pub, which I am tempted to christen "The Aromatic Shag" to signal it's full-smoking status, we won't employ any staff who don't smoke, and any students desperate for a bar job will have to prove they can roll up a good thick Cutters Choice with one hand, whilst pouring a perfect Guiness with the other.
 
Re: Well said, Davey Jones

Krystal,
I have really enjoyed your balanced arguments on this thread - sorry if that sounds patronising - not meant to !

However

"pub trade as a future vocation"

Is an unrealistic ideal.
It would be a possibility if you have a private income, but you will find that the margins on beer do not allow for the expenses in running the Pub.
You need income - and that can only come from food.

But - why not come down to the West Country, where we do both - well !!!
Ken
 
Other decent pubs

I must say first that I do like the way Kristal turns a sentence. Always a good read.

Smoking. Hmm. Not quite born again, me; more like still in the womb and enjoying osmosing fresh smoke, even though I've managed five years of abstinance. I associate the smell of smoke as the aroma of easy social relaxation, and when I do realise I'm in a managed smoke-free environment, I feel there is something missing. Irish pubs, or perhaps that should be pubs in Ireland are truly weird places, these days.

However, there's the morning after the night before, and I didn't enjoy the stale reminder on my clothes when I smoked and after. Also, a slightly outfield observation. I play a lot of Irish sessions, and the smog in most of the northern boozers is beyond intense, and the lungs on my squeezebox really stink for weeks after. I'm just glad I don't breathe that much.

Pubs. Is the Sorrel Horse at Shottisham still going? I poled up there with a barge cargo of ILEA kids in '77 and have always meant to return. The Blue Boar still keeps a reasonable pint, and successive landlords have dared not mess with the sanctum of the tap room in the Queen's in D'Arcy. I hung around the B&O a bit in the 70s, but the 'simply wonderful' brigade were already there, and I never really fell for the place. I once went in misguided curiousity to Jack Rolfe's beloved boozer in Bursledon, and it had exactly the same quintessential charm of the Stock Exchange listed pub chain as the Butt exudes nowadays. Perhaps Charles Frere bought it?
 
Re: Other decent pubs

For heavens sake please don't give /<rystal compliments - every time you do so I will have to insult him again publicly on this forum to stop him getting smug/big headed. I'm seeing him this weekend (Saturday evening for supper at the Cherry Tree, Woodbridge, if any other forumites are about), so perhaps I'll tell the one about the nude photographs again there.

The Jolly Sailor, Bursledon - indeed its also gone the way of most good waterside pubs.

It wasn't always so. It was my local when at Sot'on University. We had regular lock-ins, with 4am as the record. Stan (ex Sot'on footy left back) was the manager - we always bought him a drink with each round, and he always stood us a round when it was his turn. A really great guy.

One hot day Stan and the owner Lincoln were building or mending a wall outside when they saw us arriving for a lunchtime pint and game of darts - they immediately downed tools, got the dart board and a hammer and nail, and fixed it to a tree for us.

I married shortly after leaving the area, and they sent a telegram:

"Today's the day,
tonight's the night,
we've killed the stork,
So it's alright"

I also went there recently, and the little back bar where the darts board and fire had been was knocked through. I still have great memories though. On that last visit we caused a bit of a stir when a life jacket self inflated under one of our chairs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top