Pub Watch: The Fat Cat (Norwich, Norfolk)

A couple of weekends back it was Bank Holiday Monday over here and Anna and I decided to get a hire car and drive up to Norfolk for the weekend. First stop was Norwich, where surprise surprise, I had heard there were a number of very fine pubs. After we arrived late Saturday afternoon, we set off in search of a few of these pubs that sat out in the suburbs. Little did I know the great pub I was to come across - maybe the most impressive I have ever been to.

Of course, I had done some research and I did know The Fat Cat was going to be a good one. The CAMRA Good Beer Guide had said "a treasure trove of a pub and a real ale drinker's paradise". It has also twice won the CAMRA National Pub of the Year (1998 & 2004), so its credentials were there. After already having a couple of pints at our first pub (The Alexandra Tavern) it was only a gentle walk a couple of blocks to The Fat Cat.
From the outside it doesn't look anything too special, a standard red brick building (of which there were plenty in Norwich) with a few tables outside. But is was inside that the fun began....

Walking into the pub it was clear they weren't kidding when they said a real ale drinker's paradise. At the bar, there looked to be about 15 handpumps with many beers I hadn't seen before. And then I noticed that there was another room behind the bar where there were a number of casks lined up serving gravity fed ale (where the ale is served straight from a tap in the cask). It was then that I noticed the blackboard listing all the ales available and fell into a mix of astonishment and euphoria.
You can count them - no less than 27 real ales listed, and in fact there was another four on a specials board, so it was really 31. Add to that the keg beers they had on draught (which ranged from the usual Guinness and Stella Artois to Belgium beers like Liefmans and Leffe), and there was over 40 different beers to choose from. I didn't even bother looking at the bottled beers, but I am sure they would have had a fair range there too.

So without further adieu, I got cracking to sampling some new ales, including some from the their own Fat Cat stables. In all, four new ales tasted by myself, the best being the Fat Cat Pussy Galore, a cask pilsener - which is unusual - with a light citrus hop aroma and good peach and citrus flavours. Anna had a couple of half pints of the Fat Cat Meow Mild (after being recently converted to the joy of Mild Ales) - which had a strong chocolate flavour with a little cherry fruit and a tangy mouthfeel l that belied its 3.8%.

Apart from having an incredible selection of beer, the Fat Cat was also simply a great pub, with lots of rooms and nooks and crannies, and a good atmosphere inside. It was also very popular and locals obviously make the effort to go out to this beauty. And why not, I doubt there is a better pub for many a mile, if at all. It was difficult to pull myself away with so many beers not sampled, but the rest of Norwich (including a superb dinner) beckoned....

"A fine city" and Norfolk

As you drive into Norwich, the city slogan tells you that it is "a fine city". And a fine city it certainly is. After visiting some of the establishments the night before and having one of my best meals in recent memory - Anna and I woke up the next morning keen (well, admittedly there were a few cobwebs from the night before) to check out what else the "fine city" had on offer.

Using the trusty visitor guides picked up at the Information Centre the evening before, and fuelled with the obligatory B&B Full English Breakfast, we set off for a leisurely morning stroll around the city. First stop was the Riverside Walk around the outskirts of the central city. And very pleasant it was indeed - you could have just about forget you were in the city. A few canal boats and remnants of times past made the walk a perfect distraction from the small hangover I had somehow acquired. Norwich is certainly an attractive city, belying its population of nearly 400k, with plenty of little medieval streets and pedestrian streets. It has the standard castle and Cathedral - though even these are better than most - the former being a practical blueprint for Norman castles, and the grounds of the main Cathedral (Norwich actually has 2) are certainly worth the look.










After one last quick pint at a pub recommended to me by a work colleague (well, it would have been rude not to) - Anna and I left the fine city behind us and headed north into Norfolk. With plans to meet up with a couple of ramblers (aka Brad & Sharon) later that afternoon on the northern Norfolk Coast, I did what I do best and picked a rambling course of our own through various little country roads and lanes. After a stop for lunch - at a pub of course (I have become an appreciator of the Ploughman's Lunch, which was basically a block of cheese the size of your head, some pieces of bread, various pickles and salad) - we made it up to Wells where we had planned to meet up with the ramblers.

Having read that Wells-next-the-Sea was a delightful seaside town, we were looking forward to the visit - but we forgot about the English definition of "a delightful seaside town" = over-crowded, garish shops, amusement arcades, large caravan parks, etc. Prompting a quick getaway, we quickly put out the Code Red to Brad & Sharon for a change of plan and instead met them at another town a couple miles down the road - happily devoid of all the English "delights". After getting a low down on all their rambling tales of the last couple of days - comprising accounts of this leg is sore, my hip aches here, etc - we chased some deer around a nearby Manor's grounds and then headed off to find the campsite that Brad & Sharon were staying at.

Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately) finding that the campsite (more accurately just a paddock on some guy's farm) had room for Anna and I as well, we quickly set up the tents before heading out for the evening - and yes, before you hurt yourself with all that chortling, Anna and I have been known to camp it out from time to time. Anyway, enough of that! Managed to visit another couple of CAMRA Good Beer Guide entries out in the countryside (inclding this traditional flint-built gem - The Three Horseshoes) for dinner and a few pints, before heading back to our camp site and walking back into Wells - which we found to actually have some charm in its back streets away from the beach - for one last drink before heading back to our luxury accommodation.

Walking up a sunny day (well, it was more like 5-bloody-am with the days lengthening out here) and a horse that sounded like it had a severe gastro-intestinally problem, we scrubbed ourselves up into some kind of order and headed off in search of a decent breakfast (Brad & Sharon enthusiastic to skip their breakfast the earlier day of leftover citrus zest couscous). Back into Wells - which was now growing on us, minus the hoards - we found a nice hotel on the side of the village green and found that they could fit us in for breakfast. Finding that for £10-a-head we could order anything we wanted off the breakfast menu as many times as we wanted, we settled in to fill up the tanks. A bowl of fruit salad for all was followed by coffee, croissants and pain-au-chocolat, followed by Full English breakfasts and grilled banana and bacon on brioche. It was while we were waiting to be able to fit through the doors again that we saw some very favourable reviews the hotel had received, and especially its NZ chef (the grilled bacon and banana made sense now).

Eventually we left Wells behind us, but picked up some extra load for our little Vauxhall - after much deliberation and prodding of sore body parts, Brad & Sharon finally made the decision that coming back home with us in the car was much more appealing than trekking the rest of the Norfolk Coastal Path and getting the train back to London. Of course, this meant they were now part of Sam's Tours, involving much research of the CAMRA Good Beer Guide and getting lost down various country lanes. We had already decided that we would head south by going through the Norfolk Broads, which is the vast flat wetlands area east of Norwich, spider-webbed with waterways and canals. So we had a pleasant drive back down through Norfolk, stopping at a couple of pubs in the Broads, complete with (busy) moorings for canal boats and even used a car ferry that travelled a whopping 10 metres. The picture is of Locks Inn, an old 17th centruy smugglers haunt that is the most remote pub in Norfolk.

All in all, a good long weekend spent discovery another area of English countryside - which never fails to please.

For some more pics, click here.