Apologies for the late posting, we are camping in North Yorkshire and getting this together was quite difficult.
Straight back down the M1 and we get to Northamptonshire for week 28. The ‘Rose of the Shires’ is sort of East Midlands, sort of East Anglia but really neither seemingly. Surrounded by 8 other counties, the most borders of any by the looks it is an inland county quite low lying throughout. There are few signs of early occupation showing how difficult the land was to manage, the Romans did conquer the area though building Watling Street (now A5) in the process. The area became part of Anglo Saxon Mercia after the Romans then eventually overrun by the Danes. It was finally retaken by the Anglo Saxons in 942. Rockingham Castle was built for William the Conqueror and continued as a Royal Fortress through Tudor times. Mary, Queen of Scots was imprisoned at Fotheringham Castle within the county.
The county is mostly River basins flowing to The Wash with the River Nene being the most prominent. The highest point only being 225 meters in height. The largest towns are Northampton, Kettering, Corby, Wellingborough and Rushden.
On Ratebeer we have 38 Breweries with 24 of these still active and 14 closed. Only 2 of these are Client / Commissioner breweries.
The oldest brewery we have on Ratebeer for Northamptonshire is Frog Island Brewery of Northampton (Est 1994), now sadly closed. The oldest still active we have is Rockingham Ales of Blatherwycke (Est 1997).
The brewery with the longest history that I could find for Northamptonshire is Phipps NBC, Established in 1801 in Towcester by Pickering Phipps. They opened a second brewery in Northampton in 1817. Phipps grew by swallowing up other regional breweries from the late 19th century through to the late 1950’s, giving them 1131 tied houses. In 1960 they were bought themselves by Watney Mann who then dropped all the traditional draught beers and became keg only. The brewery itself was unloaded to Carlsberg Group and developed into an enormous lager factory which still dominates in Northampton. Managers from the old Pub chain attached to the brewery eventually obtained the naming rights from Scottish and Newcastle and commenced brewing under the Phipps name at Grainstore Brewery then in 2014 they opened their own brewery in Northampton and currently brew as Phipps NBC.
The Northants brewery with the largest range we have is Three Hills Brewing of Woodford (Est 2016) with 198 beers.
The Ratebeer Awards for 2020 gave us Braybrooke Beer Co. of Braybrooke (Est 2018) as best Brewery and Three Hills In Pursuit No 01 as Best Beer. No award was made for New Brewery.
The Top 10 Beers for Northamptonshire are –
- Three Hills BPAVK – Triple Chocolate
- Three Hills BPAVK – Peanut Brittle
- Three Hills BPAVK – Maple Pancake
- Three Hills BPAVK – Coconut Macaroon
- Three Hills BPAVK – Chocolate, Strawberry, Marshmallow
- Three Hills In Pursuit No 01
- Three Hills Of Juice No 08
- Three Hills Of Juice No 02
- Great Oakley Wagtail
- Great Oakley Abbey Stout
The Top Bars / Pubs for Northamptonshire are –
- Malt Shovel Tavern, Northampton – 84
- Albion Brewery Bar (Phipps), Northampton – 76
- Wig and Pen, Northampton – 73
- Alexandra Arms, Northampton – 69
- Moon on the Square (JDW), Northampton – 67
The Top 5 Raters of Northamptonshire Beers are –
Currently you will only require 22 beers from Northants to get into the Top50.
The Rater who resides in Northamptonshire with the most Ratings is -
@maeib who is still active on here. Many of us will remember Maeib from the early days of Ratebeer, we used to see him every year at Merton Beer Festival and on days out with his young family. Good to see him still active with us.