Torquay – Cider Press
I, once again, have managed to build up a huge backlog of riveting posts, what with Norwich pubs with Julian, Leeds pubs with Łukasz and Torquay pubs with Ross. My friends are very fortunate that they have me to document matters, or at least, that’s what I tell them. As a prior warning, the first few posts are with my old phone which was struggling somewhat to, well, work, but the later images this week will hopefully look better. And all this brings me to our first pub of the week, the Cider Press.
The pub opened in August 1992, created by local businessman Martin Hill and the former rugby player Alan Davies, with Tim Milnes being the first manager. The local newspaper reported that they started off selling farmhouse platters, Bakewell tarts with a dollop of clotted cream alongside drinking options such as Churchward Cider from Yalberton, Scrumpy Jack, Bodingtons Draught Bitter and a selection of real ales. They began with a plan of serving “wholesome food” and they made a decision not to sell chips. The food was lunchtimes only, as they wanted it to be a traditional pub in the evening.
A later newspaper report said that the opening times, which were before the licensing laws became rather more generous, of between 12.00 to 15.00 and 19.00 to 22.30 had led to departing tourists drinking quite quickly shall we say before they needed to depart on the Sunday afternoon. The pub doesn’t serve food now, but they do frequently have live music.
It perhaps needs just a few more TVs behind the bar….. This is the 6X from Wadworth, a malty, fruit bitter which was well kept. I’m not going to burden myself with describing Ross’s drinks as they’re all lager and all not very exciting. Obviously, I didn’t comment on that, as I don’t judge. CAMRA mentions that there is real cider sold here, but I didn’t see much choice and there’s not a great deal of evidence of them on Untappd either, although I should likely have investigated more of the bar. However, there were people watching sports standing there throughout and I didn’t want to move them.
And the inside of the pub, which was relatively quiet during our visit on a Monday night. The service was friendly, the pub was clean and for sports lovers, there was certainly enough to watch on the screens. I’m not sure how viable that dart board is there, but perhaps it’s just a bit decorative. It’s a well reviewed venue on-line and the climb to the upstairs toilets added some excitement to proceedings. It feels a little less traditional than it was perhaps designed to be when it originally opened, but it’s clearly a popular venue since its survived for over three decades. All very lovely.
