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Pub Guide

Queens Head - Needingworth

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Issue 142 Spring 2010

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CHEQUERS ALE FROM BRAMPTON WOOD

One of the more unusual plant species found in Brampton Wood is the Wild Service Tree (Sorbus Torminalis). There are three introduced specimens close to a barn near the Major Oaks that stand at the entrance to the main ride.

In the past, Wild Service Tree berries were regularly used to flavour ale and used on their own to produce an alcoholic beverage called chequers, which was used to treat colic and dysentery. Quite what it tasted like, no-one really knows. When well ripe the berries are sweet tasting, but tend to be somewhat gritty.

Wild Service Tree is an unusual name for a tree and a plausible explanation is that the word ‘service’ derives from the Latin word cervisia, meaning beer and the Spanish for beer is cervesa. Sorbus torminalis can be translated as ‘tree good for colic’.

Many people know these trees as chequers trees. Some say that the bark tends to peel off in rectangular strips to give a chequered effect, but this is not readily evident. Another possible explanation is that the chequer board was an emblem for a drinking house that originated in ancient Egypt, which could explain why many pubs in Britain are called the Chequers.

Wild Service Tree wood is very hard and was used in the Middle Ages to make crossbow stocks, whilst in the 19th century the wood was used to make gun stocks. However the majority of the trees were used to make charcoal.

It is now generally considered to be an ancient woodland indicator species, especially in oak and ash woodland, but the three in Brampton Wood were introduced along with the nearby wild cherry trees.

So why, ‘Beer from Brampton Wood’?

Some time ago, I advised Bob Mitchell, the landlord of the Chequers pub in Little Gransden, that he should have a Wild Service Tree on his pub sign. He now has a micro-brewery at the back of the pub, called ‘Son of Sid’. Bob’s father. Sid, ran the pub for 42 years. Bob decided that he wanted to re-create an old fashioned ‘Chequers Ale’ and asked me to source Wild Service Tree berries. Although Bob’s pub is midway between two wonderful Wildlife Trust woodland reserves in Hayley and Waresley and Gransden Woods, checks with the reserve wardens revealed that they had no Wild Service Trees. Gamlingay Wood has a few, but it was easier to collect the berries from the three in Brampton Wood. They are near the entrance and are not fully grown, so the fruit was easier to pick. At the beginning of December 2009 we upset the local chaffinches and collected the fruit in brewer’s buckets. (We did leave a lot for the birds).

Bob has now sourced some spelt (an old fashioned wheat variety often used in ale production) and some autumn honey and with this, together with the Wild Service Tree fruit has brewed the first ‘Chequers Ale’ in this country for probably two hundred years. It will need a couple of months fermentation and conditioning but the Chequers pub is hoping to have Chequers Ale available in bottles in the spring.

Bob has also bought several Wild Service Trees from the Huntingdonshire District Council nursery at Godmanchester to plant in the pub’s garden, so that his grandchildren will be able to repeat the exercise with their own ‘chequers’.

George Cottam