County Stat Attack Week 46 - Rutland

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That’s it, the last county in our tour of England has been reached and it is the smallest of the historic counties in England, approx. 18 miles x 17 miles at its greatest extent, it also has the smallest population. The only modern counties smaller in area are Isle of Wight and Greater London. The only towns in Rutland are Oakham and Uppingham. The county is based on the lands owned by the Duke of Rutland, the Manners family. In 1972 Rutland was absorbed into Leicestershire, but this was reversed in 1994.

Rutland is dominated by an artificial lake in Rutland water which at one point was the largest man made lake in Europe. Filling the lake took 4 years to achieve. Most of the rest of the county is given to agriculture.

On Ratebeer we have a total of 5 Breweries, 3 currently operating and 2 closed, non of which are Client / Commissioner Breweries. The Brewery with the largest range is Baker’s Dozen Brewing Co with 57 beers.

The oldest Brewery we have is Grainstore Brewery (Rutland Brewing Co.) of Oakham (Est 1995). There was a much older Brewery in Rutland that closed pre Ratebeer. Ruddles Brewery was established in 1858 in the village of Langham taking on the name of George Ruddle who bought the brewery in 1912. Ruddles was a stalwart of Real Ales during the dark years of the 70’s with Ruddles Bitter and County being very popular. The company lost its independence in 1986 when bought out by, ironically, Watneys passing on to Grolsch in 1992, both of which managed to kill off the brand which was then sold to Morland of Abingdon. When Greene King Bought Morland’s they closed both breweries, thus losing the protected Geographical status of Rutland Bitter.

The 2020 Beer Awards the Best Brewer award went to Baker’s Dozen Brewing Co. No Award was made for Best Beer or New Brewer.

The Top 10 Beers of Rutland are –

  1. Grainstore Rutland Beast
  2. Grainstore Nip (Winter Nip)
  3. Baker’s Dozen Electric Lady
  4. Grainstore Rutland Panther
  5. Barrowden Own Gear R
  6. Baker’s Dozen Straight Outta Ketton
  7. Grainstore Three Kings
  8. Grainstore Tupping Ale
  9. Grainstore Ten Fifty
  10. Grainstore Calcutta

The Top Bars / Pubs of Rutland are –

  1. Grainstore Brewery, Oakham – 79
  2. Exeter Arms, Barrowden – 73
  3. Lord Nelson, Oakham – 72
  4. Captain Noel Newton (JDW), Oakham – 69

The Top 5 Raters of Rutland Beers are –

  1. @Mr_Pink_152
  2. @jjsint
  3. @Grumbo
  4. @imdownthepub
  5. @fonefan

You will require just 6 beers to enter the top 50 for Rutland.

The Top Rater who resides in Rutland is –
@Gentle_Ben who unfortunately appears to have left us in 2018.

There are no current raters in the county.

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Thanks to @imdownthepub for this journey around the country over the past year.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it when I’ve had the chance to chime in.

Rutland … my lowest rated county but I managed to hit double figure rates at the GBBF’s last outing in 2019!

Rutland is one of of the 3 English counties I’ve not rated a place in … although I have been in a pub there a few times as a kid with a coke. Used to be a semi regular pub lunch with the family in the mid 80’s when we lived in the south of Leicestershire … some boozer over Ketton way IIRC but pre drinking days.

I have had a thought of doing the Peterborough BF some time with a quick day trip to Rutland to get a place rate and more Rutland rates.

May follow up on that in '22!

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RIP @Gentle_Ben

You will be missed.

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Rutland is my only county where I haven’t hit double digit ratings - I currently sit on nine.

I haven’t managed a Rutland scoop since GBBF 2017.

All of my Rutland ratings are for beers from Grainstore.

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The last one and what an odd one to finish on, I suspect many of us will struggle with tiny Rutland. I have visited however, way back in 2012, staying in Greetham and visiting Oakham, which seemed a pleasant enough town. I think I did the Rutland Water circuit, not much else registers unfortunately.

No sport or no long distance walks, apparently there is a 65 mile Rutland Round, not sure that’s going to pull me back. So straight to the beers.

I have had 42 beers from Rutland, my 2nd worst county but well above the Isle of Wight, averaging a meagre 3.02 unfortunately, thought it might be better than that as I’m always pleased to find one. My beers have been across all 5 of the registered Breweries, looks like 4 of us have done that.

The Breweries I have had the most beers from are –

  1. Baker’s Dozen Brewing Co. – 17
  2. Grainstore Brewery – 16
  3. Stoney Ford (Rutland Brewing Co.) – 4
  4. Uppingham Brewhouse – 3
  5. Barrowden Brewing Co. – 2

My Top Beers from the county are –

  1. Grainstore Three Kings – 3.9
  2. Grainstore Nip (Winter Nip) – 3.6
  3. Baker’s Dozen Half Dozen IPA – 3.6
  4. Baker’s Dozen Undertow – 3.6

No Brewery averages above 3.3 sadly so little to be gained by listing Best Breweries.

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As of 5 minutes ago* my 12th rating puts me in 19th spot.

The usual GBBF ticks. Craft Beer Co Covent Garden had a 5 or 6 Baker’s Dozen beers on one day but I decided to move onto better beers after 3 of them. Grainstore’s mailorder was useful for my last 6 ticks.

My top rated beer is Grainstore Rutland Beast at 3.8

There are 7 counties I’ve had less ticks from.

*Typed about 3 hours ago.

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Only 8 Rutland rates for me, my lowest county. The highest rating at 3.4 is Grainstore Hornet.

There are no active cideries in Rutland, unfortunately the Rutland Cider Company has its address in Leicester and so doesn’t count. This makes it the only English county I’ve not rated a cidery in.

With there being no cideries there are no stats for top 5 raters for Rutland ciders and cideries, so will leave you with the stat that I’ve managed to rate 3 Rutland ciders (from the brewery Grainstore) making me the only person with a cider rated in every English county!

Cheers go to @imdownthepub for the County Stat Attack series!!

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The only English county I have yet to drink or rate a beer from.

Many thanks to @imdownthepub for posting these county threads it has been much appreciated. They were entertaining and I will find them a great resource of information for several years ahead I think, assuming the site lasts that long!

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Yes. Cheers @imdownthepub.

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0 :man_shrugging:t2:

Cheers Glen for the work you put in with the thread.

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I like Oakham as a town and Rutland Water is very peaceful, visited both on a few occasions, this has helped my beer ratings for the county to grow over the years.

22 Beers sampled @ 3.16, nothing over 3.8 though.

TOP BEERS

Grainstore Ten Fifty 3.8 3.15 4/26/2012
Grainstore Daniel Lambert 3.6 3.22 3/15/2016
Grainstore Red Kite 3.6 3.01 3/17/2016
Grainstore Tupping Ale 3.6 3.15 11/9/2018
Baker’s Dozen Stamford Pale 3.5 3.07 8/29/2016

22 Beers gets you to 9th on the RateBeer Leader Board, it’s my lowest county bar the Isle of Wight total wise.

4 of the 5 breweries found and drank, Uppington Brewhouse being the missing one.

5 places reviewed, one now closed and one a Spoon’s!

The Grainstore Brewery is well worth going to; lovely food and always a selection of their beers on hand-pull. They also stock their bottle range, but all of them sometimes.

<*))))))><

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Cheers Glen (@imdownthepub) for all the time and effort you’ve put into this weekly thread. Much appreciated, there’s been some interesting ‘stuff and stats’ within the replies over the last 46 weeks.

For those interested I am taking over and will try and cover the other Nations in the British Isles before venturing into the wider world on a weekly basis; Tuesday’s seem like a good day, so please look in and see what the ‘new look’ Stat Attack threads have for you.

<*))))))><

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First up, a huge thank you to Glen for kicking off these interesting threads and for all your work over the last 46 weeks. And also thank you to @BlackHaddock for taking over going forward, I’ll look forward to the new fishy format!

So… Rutland… it has my 2nd lowest number of rates with 8 (one more than IoW). However it’s got my highest average score at 3.48.

Grainstore & Baker’s Dozen (the only breweries I’ve had from the county) are in a battle for top brewer of the county. They’re tied on 4 rates each, but Baker’s Dozen edge it on average score with 3.58 to Grainstore’s 3.38. My top Rutland Beers are shared equally between them though:

Baker’s Dozen Thickfreakness 4
Grainstore Rutland Panther 3.7
Baker’s Dozen Electric Landlady 3.7
Grainstore Ten Fifty 3.7

I’ve not rated any places in the county yet.

I’ve visited the county twice that I remember. The first was a stop on the shores of Rutland Water when we were passing through on our way to Peterborough. It was absolutely heaving & really noisy - we didn’t enjoy it very much if I’m honest.

The other visit was, as usual, to visit the high point at Cold Overton Park, to the west of Oakham, at 197m. I can’t remember it, but according to my log on the hillbagging website it was “uninspiring”.

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Despite its proximity, which was once even greater when I lived in east Leicestershire, I am one of the fringe top 50 at just 9 ratings. Grainstore seems to be my sole supplier with its Rutland Beast named after a locally seen panther is my top rate. Oakham is a pleasant place in which to pause, although the Castle is less castellated than some. Like Uppingham, it is rather dominated by the public school. Rutland Water is a popular easy cycling haunt.
Many thanks for the thread, which has proved a welcome distraction in a very odd time; it’s made me look forward to future visits and that has to be good thing. Thank you!

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Another single GBBF county tick for me :slight_smile: Grainstore Rutland Panther

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Cheers @imdownthepub for a cracking 46 weeks, I tapped in mid way through the series but have used a few of the early ones for research, such interesting info.

I look forward to @BlackHaddock taking on the rest of the British Isles!

I’ve visited Rutland twice, both to Oakham. The most recently was a few weeks ago, a flying visit to the Grainstone brewery to pick up a half dozen of there bottles to finally achieve that last county tick.

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Thanks again @imdownthepub for a some great stats and stories. Got us through the second and third lockdowns and then some.

My Rutland county ticks are pretty good actually, at 48 rates it’s 26th out of 46 counties for me, and in second place it’s one of my better leaderboard positions. This is due to the fact that I have reasonably meaty rates for two Rutland breweries: Grainstore (22, where I’m top rater, yay I guess) and Bakers Dozen (19). I’ve also rated 4 from Stoney Ford and 3 from Uppingham but I didn’t get to try Barrowden when they were around.

Strangely I’ve not had as much luck as you’d think picking up Rutland rates since moving to Leicester, although there will always be 2 or 3 to pick up every Leicester beer festival (my last Rutland rates were February 2020 at the last Leicester festival).

I got a fair bit of Grainstore while living in Bedford, as the (then) two Wetherspoons in town used to carry their beers frequently. When I moved to Cambridgeshire, there were a few pubs in Cambridge (and a couple in Ely) that would carry Bakers Dozen frequently so I slowly built up my numbers, not on purpose at first but now I search them out.

Nothing 4 or above but still some decent rates in there:

Baker’s Dozen Superunknown 3.8
Grainstore Nip (Winter Nip) 3.7
Baker’s Dozen System Of A Brown 3.7
Baker’s Dozen Stormtrooper Rugby 3.7
Baker’s Dozen Harvester of Simcoe 3.7
Baker’s Dozen Top Table 3.7

I have popped my head into Rutland a few times and managed 9 place rates, which I think is hitting the maximum without just rating any and every pub (and to be honest I rated a couple of shockers). I keep hoping for a new micro pub in Oakham or Uppingham but no, nothing. Rutland makes the Isle of Wight look like Shoreditch. The top places are:

Grainstore Brewery (Oakham) 76
Fox (North Luffenham) 70
Wheatsheaf (Oakham) 70

Highlights: the Grainstore Tap is a great place to get Grainstore beers and ciders you’ve not had (although it holds few rates for me now), and the Rutland Beer Festival (if it gets going again) is a cracker.

Lowlights: Uppingham seems to be devoid of good pubs, and the Exeter Arms in Barrowden is now not a beer pub at all.

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The County Stat Attack has been lovely reading for almost a year now, and the thread is very useful for those of us who like travelling to England and visit different beer places. Many thanks to @imdownthepub, and all others who have contributed to this excellent threat. I have read all of it!

During the last 15 years, many of you have kindly taken us around to beer destinations and on exciting pub-crawls in England. Among others, I especially like to mention @harrisoni (a couple of meet-ups in London), @Fin (Derby and London), chriso and Boudicca (meet-up in London and at quite a few beer festivals), @DJMonarch (at beer festivals in London, Manchester and Birmingham), downender who showed us a few beer places in Bristol, @Scopey when he lived in Croydon, @minutemat at the lovely little Chez Sophie in Shrewsbury, the friendly guy @BeerViking who Finn and I met at the Winter Beer Festival in Birmingham in February 2020, and @jjsint who guided us to the best pubs in Leicester. Unfortunately, the meet-up with imdownthepub in Oxford in October 2019 was very short. I really hope we will meet again sometime.

I also like to mention the kindness of @Grumbo who took Cunningham, three Danes (Saxo, Camons, Rasmus40), and me on a crawl in Norwich. Attending the International Medieval Festival in Leeds each year between 2010 and 2019, I have always reserved one day of pub-crawl each year. On these trips, @manvsbeer has taken me on a travel to the best pubs in Halifax, Bradford, Hebden Bridge, Wakefield, and on a few round trips in Leeds.

Finn and I really hope to meet some of you on our next trip to England, hopefully in mid-November. Our first priority will be Bedford, and some of the counties in East Anglia. It would have been great to meet jjsint again for a crawl in Bedford.

By the way, Finn and I went to Rutland in February 2019, had breakfast at Captain Noel Newton (JDW), and then we enjoyed a long drinking session at Grainstore Brewery & Tap. All my 13 ratings are from Grainstore, and I’m no. 18 on the list.

Again, many thanks to Glen making this the most exciting thread on RateBeer.

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Finn at Grainstore

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All good things come to a conclusion, and this County Crawl has been great fun to watch and take part in, great job @imdownthepub

As for Rutland, just the 3 rates for me, and all from Grainstore - thanks to @Grumbo for pointing me in that direction last year when I was scratching around for missing counties. Don’t think I’ve ever been to the place, not 100% certain where it is if I’m being honest - if the A1 goes through it then I’ve ‘been’ there, otherwise, no chance! Maybe a trip to see the big lake is in order one day (and tick off a couple more beers, and maybe even rate a place - that would be a novelty for me)

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Just want to thank you all for this weekly thread. Very fun to read and useful for a future beer hunting trip through England.

Cheers and, again, thank you for keep this forums alive.

Alex.

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