Ahhh Norfolk. My neighbours. I need to join in this week having failed to find the time since Wiltshire. So, to those North-folk from us South-folk, we salute you, give us six!
It really is a delightful county to visit. And Norwich is a lovely city. Proud host to a football club rich in cup tradition having won the League (Milk) Cup not once but twice, and one which holds the honour of being the most relegated premier league side in history (but hey, I know, you have to reach it to be relegated from it!).
I worked in Norwich centre (Tombstone area) for a year around 2014/15 before I was rating any significant volume of beers on here. The place I worked had a big drinking culture, so most nights after work (and many lunch times!) involved trips to one or more pub and there were lots to visit. Most very good. I reckon Iād be top Norfolk rater if I ārememberedā all those different beers from back then. As it is, Iām pleased to have got to third, and canāt say Iām not targetting first in 2021 
Norfolk is possibly the only county where my top beer isnāt just a beer. St.Andrewās The Rook (an excellent Barley Wine I got to try on my last (hopefully not last ever) trip to Norwich in October) shares top spot with Croneās Old Norfolk Rum Cask Organic Cider. The aforementioned drinking culture of 14/15 also involved lots of rum, so this may have played a partā¦
Iāve rated 28 Norfolk places. Plasterers, Fat Cat, Murderers and Kings Head in Norwich all feature strongly. In the rest of the county, the White Horse (Neatishead) scores highest.
My top Norfolk brewery appears to be Aleyard at 3.57, which sadly closed due to the passing of the brewer, who brewed some very good beers. After that itās Duration at 3.5, though my favourites are MrWinters and Grain. The latter have a pub in Ipswich called the Spread Eagle, which used to be one of my go to pubs for lunch/after work when I worked in that part of Ipswich. Hmmm, there seems to be a theme developing.
Iāve rated 52 Norfolk breweries, one short of @imdownthepub and whilst there are 3 still listed as open Iām not sure they are. So unless there is a flurry of new breweries I guess Iām staying second on that list for good. Unless @SHIG I āfind some notesā from 2014/15 and can pick off some long since defunct breweriesā¦ oh dang here they areā¦ Front Street, Oakwood, Wissey Valley, Norwich Bearā¦best finish this now and get rating!!
72 Norfolk beers in total. My 12th highest total for English Counties. 18 Breweries:-
Wolf - 16
Tippleās and Woodfordes - 12each
Humpty Dumpty - 7
City of Cambridge - 4
Uncle Stuarts - 3
Grain, Redwell, Spectrum, Wagtail, Why Not and Wissey Valley - 2 each
Beeston, Blackfriars, Elmtree, Fat Cat, Front Street and Lacons - 1 each
6 of these breweries are now out of production - Blackfriars, City of Cambridge, Front Street, Spectrum, Uncle Stuarts, Wissey Valley.
My highest rate was Tippleās Jackās Revenge. Only 6 are in the RB top thirty for Norfolk.
Not being a stat person (until this addictive thread), I am surprised to discover that I am in the top 50 raters for Norfolk (currently at 42). However, I expect to drop out of the top 50 because my last 2 Norfolk rates were in 2018 and they were cask beers in a Spoons in London.
Although I never lived or worked in Norfolk or nearby, never stayed overnight in Norfolk, never even went into a pub in the County, I was once an occasional day visitor to Norwich (UAE again). Many of my Norfolk rates were bottles bought on my Norwich visits or gifted to me.
I really like Norfolk despite the fact that much of the county is as flat as a pancake, it still has huge swathes of really beautiful countryside. I particularly like the north norfolk coastline and places like Blakeney, Cley (with its marshes), Wells, Brancaster, Cromer, are really great for bracing walks, wildlife, the RSPB reserve at Cley I think is great, saw Bearded Tits, Marsha Harriers just lovely. Also some of that northern stretch is particularly good for dark skies and outside of completely wild places like Exmoor, Northumberland, Snowdonia and other places in Scotland, the Dark Skies project rates parts of north norfolk very highly, something that I can completely agree with when walking home from the pub in Cley with good friends we really couldnāt see where we were walking it was truly pitch black. Weāve stayed in the camper on numerous occasions and walked and driven to many of the smaller breweries, that north norfolk coast is fabulous. Btw I am not suggesting the rest of the county is without its charms, as others have said Norwich is a great city and for the size punches above its weight with a great selection of pubs. Ok onto the stats.
109 beers puts me in 26th place in Norfolk.
Top five beers
Woodfordes Norfolk Nip (Oak Barrel) 4.1
Poppyland Ten Thousand Geese 4.1
Front Street Binham Cheer 4.0
Front Street Unity Strong 3.9
Wagtail Blackshuck 3.9
There are a whole host of others in the chasing pack including Wolf, Beeston, City of Cambridge.
I have rated beers from 30 different breweries, 21 currently still producing and 9 closed. Wagtail with 13 rates and Woodfordes with 12 lead the way. I remember a time when I really actively went looking for Wagtail as I was impressed with their output.
15 place ratings puts Norfolk equal 14th in my county list with Kent
My top places are predominantly from Norwich and are (see below) however I am sure that I visited many a wonderful rural pub up and down the county but have likely forgot to rate most of them.
Plasterās Arms - Norwich - 92pts
Fat Cat Brewery Tap - Norwich - 90pts
Fat Cat Brewery - Norwich - 90pts
Duke of Wellington - Norwich - 82pts
Beers of Europe - Setchey - 80pts
Kings Head - Norwich - 80pts
This has been a great feature Glen, I am really enjoying it, so great to read the views of others.
Iām so pleased that people are opening up about their own experiences in each of the counties, it adds so much depth to the stats. Iām really glad that Jeremy got it all going early on and I look forward every week to reading the different accounts. There has been a couple of times Iāve thought that nothing much will come out for a county, but how wrong I was, they have all been great so far.
My Norfolk joke:
āI took my wife on a holiday visiting loads of remote country pubs in Norfolkā
āShe thought it was going to be a holiday on the Norfolk Broadsā
āBut it was a holiday on the Norfolk B roadsā
<*))))))><
I mentioned a holiday I actually did have on the Norfolk Broads in my original post, that was back in 1974. Five lads, all RAF Aircraft Technicians. The speed limit was 5 knots (or 5 mph) and the engine had a restrictor fitted to prevent going any faster. Two of the lads were engine techs; 10 minutes after leaving our berth we had the fastest boat on the Broads.
We had a great map, that showed every pub as a āPint Potā, so we just sailed from āPint Potā to āPint Potā. We also discovered that pubs on one side of the River Wensum had different hours to those on the other bank, bloody licencing laws back then were crazy. We just planned our stops more carefully, often by a bridge with āPint Potsā on either side, so we could maximise our drinking times!
<*))))))><
Unfortunately Iām not actually based in Norflok any more but central/Eastern Europe just havent updated my location. But I have to say that Norwich had the best beer culture of anywhere I have lived. For traditional British styles I really believe the east coast (East Anglia, Kent, and Yorkshire) are the best. Something about the hard water maybe!
Top Beers:
Lacons Falcon Ale 3.7
Yetmanās Red 3.6
Panther Red Panther 3.6
Lacons Steam Lager 3.5
Lacons Encore 3.4 (drawing with 8 others)
Very Lacons heavy. Mostly traditional styles. Not sure why bitters get such poor ratings on here. Mixture of being unfashionable and often being poorly conditioned I guess.
Top Places:
Kings Head
Plasterers Arms
Fat Cat
Fat Cat Brewery Tap
Murderers
Norwich is spoilt for pubs. Miss lock ins at the Kingās Head. I always feel that Kings Head (traditional and belgium beers) and Plasterers (modern craft beer) were a perfect combo. Right next to each other to boot!
Murderers is just the best sports bar for beer drinkers I have ever been to. Do not have to sacrifice quality and choice of beer to watch a game in Norwich.
Great to hear from you @martpez good to see your views as a sometime resident of Norfolk. Looks like Norfolk is coming out really well on this weeks Stat Attack. I have noted how well the Plasterers Arms is doing in these write ups and yet cannot seem to overtake the Fat Cat in the overall marks, I certainly prefer it, just, over its more famous rival. I haver really taken to the Murderers, we go in there every visit but for us it doesnāt really have the character of the others.
Hope you are doing well in you new life in Europe and also hoping you will join in with some of the other counties we are visiting.
It is quite noticeable that throughout Norfolk there are many redundant maltings that have been converted to other uses, domestic dwellings, tourist cottages and such like. With the rich, alluvial soils in the county it has always been a favoured for the growing of barley. Virtually every town and many of the villages in the county had their own floor maltings for the processing of the barley grain to useable malt ready for roasting. The old method, that had been used for centuries, was to use a loft like building with a large floor area. The pre dried then steeped grain, where the grain is soaked in vats of water to induce germination, is spread quite thinly across a solid floor. The temperature in the room was controlled to allow all the grain to germinate at the same time with āturnersā manually turning the grain over to give an even supply of heat to all the malt and keep it loose. The skill was to stop germination at the precise time that the starch has broken down into sugars. The grain was then kilned to over 80C to stop any further germination by curing.
The energy required to create useable malt for brewing was extremely high, probably the equivalent of producing the same amount in weight of steel, it was these costs and manual effort that brought in more mechanised methods of malting barley in vastly larger scales of production, but basically sticking to the same processes. This lead to the abandonment of most of the old style maltings and their conversion to other uses.
A great example of one of the larger malting lofts can still be visited as it is in community hands in Wells next the Sea on the north Norfolk coast. It has been converted into an arts, cinema, theatre centre but also retained the old character of the malting process. Well worth a visit when holidaying in the area.
Looks like I will be putting in an order with Beers of Europe at some point in order to tick off Val-Dieu and Liege.
Beers of Europe online order is solid, itās when you visit in person and the 4G is zero reception that it is overwhelming. Huge warehouse with great organization for countries, but horrible for UK counties.
Been meaning to mention, Poppyland are still going strong with a new owner / brewer and are currently doing mail order beer. Spend 25 quid and get free shipping too. Get boosting those Norfolk ticks!
Yeah ā¦ Poppyland always did relatively interesting farmhouse type stuff.
How does the new brewer compare?
Same standards as before?
Dunno. Had some delivered but havenāt had any yet. They are in a similar vein though. Saisons with foraged ingredients. Barley Wines. Strong Ales, and the like.
The gluten free series of beers hasnāt been continued unfortunately, just a one off since I think, so I havenāt gotten any more from them
I enjoyed the couple I had and put them on the list for future purchases. But am I being blind, no webshop and no mention of mailorder on their website. Just a ācontact usā. Will do at some point but it always seems bizarre now some breweries seem to have very little interest in promoting their own beers.
The previous guy just seemed to enjoy brewing the beer and wasnāt too interested in promoting or distributing his beers. I met him just the once when I poked my head into his brewery in Cromer. I think the local farm shop did most of his distribution. I once saw the Poppyland Beers available at Beers of Europe.
These do local deliveries, I just wonder if they do further afield. Looks like the people that moved from Reading.
https://www.ratebeer.com/p/giddy-goat-sheringham/82956/
I messaged him via Instagram and ordered using their beers available list on the website, paying with Izettle. It was pretty easy overall. Only downside is that he used Hermes 
and half the order hasnāt got here yetā¦
