Welcome

Tuesday 11th May 2010

CAMRA’s North Bedfordshire Pub of the year 2010 is the Wellington Arms in Wellington Street, Bedford. Better known to regulars as the “Wellie”, the pub was North Beds’ first Pub of the Year in 2001 and continued to win the annual award for the following four years, with a sixth branch title in 2008. It went on to win the Bedfordshire county title in 2001 and 2008, and the East Anglia title in 2001, but has never made it to the final shortlist for CAMRA’s national Pub of the Year award.

Once a rather run-down street-corner pub, the Wellie was sold by Charles Wells in the early 1990s to regional pub company Burlison Inn, which has leased it to brewers B&T of Shefford since 1998. Although strictly tied to B&T, the pub operates more like a free house with 14 handpumps offering guests real ales from regional and micro-breweries throughout the country, as well as regular beers from B&T and two brands of real cider or perry. In the 12 years since its re-launch, it has become the destination of real ale pub for local CAMRA members and visitors to the town, and a regular entry in CAMRA’s annual Good Beer Guide.

Managers Royston Beer and Lesley Griffin have worked hard to earn the Wellington Arms its seventh Pub of the Year award. The pub is open daily from 12 noon to 11pm (10.30pm on Sunday) and can be busy with real ale lovers, especially on Friday and Saturday, so don’t expect a banquet other than in the wide range of often rare beers in the row of handpumps that fill the bar. A range of speciality draught and bottled beers from Belgium, Germany, the Czech Republic and other countries is also available.

The pub runs its own beer festival twice a year, usually in the spring and autumn, at which there even more real ales are on offer. However, with the range of beers available every week you could be forgiven for thinking that there is a permanent festival on!

The branch will present a framed certificate to Royston and Lesley in a few weeks’ time.

Taken from ‘The Firkin’ CAMRA Newsletter, Spring 2010.

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