Well hello, fancy finding you here! You’re just in time to read this ‘ere e-mail, and see some pictures of our luvverly grub...
We got off to a cracking start to the season with some fabulous weather which brought you all out to see the changes we made for this year. This helped for the best start to a season so far, so thanks to everyone who came out to say hello, many of you saying that you’d been looking forward to the re-opening all the way through the winter. A balloon even dropped by for a look! Not only that, we managed to shift more than 1250 pints of Ashton Press cider over the four day Easter weekend, as well as several casks of real ale from Bath Ales, the Butcombe Brewery, Yeovil Ales and the Bristol Beer Factory.
We’re now doing menu specials on every weekend: since we opened we’ve had the Geezer Salad (poached duck egg, black pudding, organic Old Spot sausage and bacon) and a May Salad (which took advantage of in-season English asparagus, parma ham and eggs), and by the time you read this you’ll be too late to sample the poussin with cous cous or grilled fresh mackerel marinated in honey and mustard that we had this weekend. We’ve also added several regular menu items, of which the ham, free-range eggs and sautéd new potatoes, All Day Breakfast Burger (fried egg, bacon and Portobello mushroom) and Mexican Burger (spicy salsa and home-made guacamole) are very popular, so much so that avacados for the latter are about as expensive as Tamiflu capsules round these parts...
Anyway, we’ve got lots coming up over the next few weeks, so on to the news:
Ma Beese’s Fish Supper Gourmet Night
If you’ve had a lamb steak, or one of our rather excellent burgers in any of its wonderful guises (the mighty Pa Burger, or the new ones already mentioned), you’ll know how good the quality of Taste’s meat is. The gourmands among you probably know that Taste have an equally good reputation for their fish, so we’ve decided to make better use of that this year by having a special menu on the first Wednesday of every month. Ma has instructed Matt to come up with a special menu for each night, the only conditions being that it must be fish, fish and fish.
The first of these is on Wednesday 3 June at 7:30 p.m., when we’ll be serving:
Squid and chorizo salad
Barbecued lobster with chilli and wild garlic linguine
Tarte au citron with summer berry compote
OK, so there’s no fish in the dessert! But reservations are essential – at £22.95 a head you can’t just roll up for this one.
Speak to the bar staff to reserve your place with a £10.00 deposit, or give us a ring to do the credit card boogie over the phone.
Or send us a cheque made payable to ‘Beeses’ at this address.
Easy, innit?
And that’s just the start of a very busy June for us; we’ve got all this too (all the dates are below, but bookmark our calendar so you can look this stuff up in jiffy):
BBC Radio Bristol in “come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough” shockPa Beese was pottering about the place recently polishing the ducks when he was paid a visit by BBC Bristol’s Nancy Jackson, who was researching a series of broadcasts they’ll be doing next month along the Avon between Bradford on Avon and Bristol.
Starting in Bradford on Monday, Nancy will be following a narrowboat’s progress on its journey to Bristol, and on Thursday 11 June they reach Beeses. As luck would have it, Professor Beese will be hosting his quiz that very evening, and the Beeb will be sending a team of its crack presenters (I said CRACK!) along to take on the Beeses massive. So if you want to pit your wits not only against Professor Beese’s carefully selected interrogatory inquisition, but Bristol’s media intellectual giants, then come on down and grab a table early. You might even get your face on the radio!
Rather alarmingly, Nancy is described as “BBC Radio Bristol’s ‘daily disaster zone’, our very own Calamity Jane”. Beeses does a rather nice sideline in minor catastrophes of its own, thank you very much (see sinking boats, blocked toilets, with much more to come, probably) so don’t be surprised to see Pa physically restraining Nancy lest she attempt to cause further damage to the place...
Butcombe Day (slight return)
We’ll have barely recovered from kicking the BBC’s collective arsenal of experts when the very next evening things get even more lively. Last year’s Butcombe Day was so popular that we’ve decided to do it all over again this year on Friday 12 June. Why mess with a winning formula? Cheap Butcombe Bitter: check. Gert delicious Butcombe sausage hot dogs (made with yer actual Butcombe Bitter): check. Classic rock and a lorra lorra fun with Straight Shooter: check. ‘Nuff said.
Comedy at Beeses
The following week, we’ve got the first of our comedy nights. Captain Barnacle’s Adult Pirate Cabaret is a pirate party with cabaret entertainment from Captain Barnacle and his crew, featuring pirate music from the Surfin’ Turnips. Dress code: pirate or wench.
Despite the rather dodgy title, Ma Beese won’t put up with any Jim Davidson-type antics!
Tickets are £5.00 and things kick off at 7:00 p.m.
And although this is mainly June news, here’s a quick plug for our second comedy night. On Thursday 30 July, we’ll be hosting Instant Wit, a quick-fire comedy improvisation show packed full of sketches, gags, songs, surreal situations, flying packets of ‘Instant Whip’ and prizes! The show is completely improvised and shaped around audience suggestions. Tickets are £10.00 for this one, ‘cos they’re gert funny.
As before, come and see us/ring us/write to us for tickets for both of these.
So that is what’s happening in (mostly) June. We kick things off in July with another Gourmet Night on the 1st, and we’ll try and write before then to let you know what the menu will be, but what with Pa Beese likely to be recovering from giving his views to BBC Radio Bristol on the state of the economy, the likelihood of AC/DC touring again, and whether it’s really acceptable for a blues band to play two shuffles in a row, he might not have time to write to the likes of you. So give us a ring or drop us a line and we’ll tell you what’s occurring.
And finally...
Looking ahead to Beerfest09, we’ve already sorted out a cracking music programme, and we’re putting the list of ales and ciders together. But we’ve also had some great news that the Bristol Ferry Boat Company are putting on two trips on the Saturday and Sunday. Contact them by e-mail or on 0117 927 3416 for ticket info.
Or you can show up under your own steam (geddit?).
(A propos of the fact I wanted to use that phrase, you might be interested to know that Gwatkin's Yarlington Mill cider, which we featured at last year’s BeerFest08, scooped a gold medal at the National Cider and Perry Championships last month. Ahead of the pack again...).