Brewtiful Winchester Pt. I

The King Alfred

For a dreary limestone grey Monday morning about to let loose a rain shower, I could have been stuck in a worse situation than waiting outside the King Alfred pub in the Hyde neighborhood of Winchester. I was caught in that no man’s land of time when it is too early to check in to your Airbnb and too early for the pubs. But it was almost noon as I huddled under my umbrella. An unprepared family of four scrambled to find shelter as the previously harmless drizzle intensified into a steady rain. At a few minutes past twelve, the fashionably late hostess opened the door, and by then a handful of others had arrived for their Monday lunch dates.

It was difficult for me to read the mood of the hostess as I informed her that I did not have a reservation. She exuded the same sort of reluctant politeness that I felt the previous day at The Bridge Inn in Upper Woodford. In defense of my growing bout of insecurity, I would make a point to study her as she greeted other arrivals. I could have easily expected her to dump me off at some unscenic table by a bathroom door, but instead she ushered me directly to the coziest table in the entire restaurant, where I sat with my back against a wall of law books and my front facing the view of the bar. Meanwhile, new patrons arrived. The jackets shrouding their heads indicated that the rain had turned vicious. The facial expression of the hostess did not betray any biases in favor of them, so I came to the conclusion I was imagining the whole thing. As more and more rain-soaked guests arrived, I had a surging feeling of warmth and good fortune. I grabbed my book, ordered a beer, and leaned back in the comfortable chair preparing to kill the next couple of hours.

The King Alfred had several beers on tap which were new to me, including their own house bitter. Calculating the time it takes to sip three different pints, I had well enough beer to keep my attention on Thomas Becket’s exile and fateful return to England in the book I was reading.

Whereby I explain why I came to Winchester

Winchester is a city that I assume most of us think we have heard of but probably know little about. There is one reason and one reason only that I found myself sitting in that comfy chair having the merriest of lunches, and it wasn’t that I had always dreamed to visit it. It was, in fact, The Last Kingdom and The Vikings. Any fan of these series will recall that Winchester played a key setting in them. And in both series, at the heart of this setting is the person who came to define the era of conflict between the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons, King Alfred the Great, who ruled the territory of Wessex during the latter part of the 9th century.

“Alfred the Great belongs in a peculiar sense to Winchester; here he was proclaimed king; here he lived, and ruled, and made his laws; here he gathered round him that assemblage of divines and learned men with whose co-operation he gave the first great impetus to a national literature; here he commenced the English Chronicle… here he died and was buried, leaving behind him the savour of a life strenuous, blameless, and devoted, having shown his world that the fullest development of manly vigour was compatible both with the saintliness of the devotee and the culture of the book-lover and the student.”

Winchester by Telford Varley (1910)

It was very befitting then that I was surrounded by books of law, the more modern vestiges of the spirit of King Alfred the Great. Looking around the room soaking up the atmosphere, I was pretty sure King Alfred would have approved of his namesake pub.

Hyde Abbey

Just around the corner from the pub is the location of Hyde Abbey. When King Alfred died in 899 (or 901 depending on the source), he was buried in the abbey which stood where the cathedral stands today. However, after the Norman invasion when William the Conqueror would destroy many abbeys and replace them with Norman buildings, monks moved his body to nearby Hyde Abbey. There it rested in peace until 1538 when King Henry VIII took out his own fury on all the abbeys in England leaving Hyde Abbey in ruins and King Alfred’s body lost to history.

Whereby I check out more pubs in Winchester

After finally checking in to my Airbnb, it was time to get oriented with the city. Today would be a meandering stroll to build up the anticipation for tomorrow’s grand tour and a chance to start crossing some pubs off my extensive list. At the top of that list was an aptly named brewery.

Alfred’s Brewery

A bit disappointed to find out it is a call-in-advance kind of place and not really an open shop. Nevertheless, there it is, and fortunately it wouldn’t be too long until I was drinking the real thing.

The Eclipse Inn

The Eclipse Inn is the half-timber gem of the main center. It was a bit unfortunate that on a bleak Monday afternoon, the atmosphere did not do this quaint pub justice. The mood was solemn inside, even scaring off a quartet of Spaniards who were certainly looking for a place with a bit more life. In parallel with the gloom was the fact that the pub was already tapped out on all their ales except Doom Bar, not a particularly unique ale. One throwaway beer is acceptable. Just bad timing.

The Old Vine

The Old Vine has a nice selection on tap including the Alfred’s Saxon Bronze. The interior reminds me of a cross between a British pub and a faux vintage cafe in any small Massachusetts town.

The Royal Oak

Claiming to be the oldest pub in England (dating from around 1400), this is hands down the pub that you must visit in Winchester. They have an extensive set of unique ales on tap and a lot of cozy nooks and crannies to sit and discuss Anglo-Saxon history. My biggest regret of my visit was not making it back a second time to sample more of their wares. In the meantime, I tasted two of their Royal Oak house ales.

Final Words

My abbreviated walking tour through the city of Winchester and a handful of its classic pubs only served to enhance my sense of anticipation to wake up tomorrow and thrust off the veil I had put over the city and truly immerse myself into it. It is a city that I would come to find out has so many layers of history and is surrounded by natural beauty which at that moment was only a two-dimensional space of green on my hiking app. It is a city which also offers so many wonderful pub experiences that what I had experienced up til now in Maidstone and Salisbury were only a warm-up by comparison.

“And to lovers of Winchester… to enjoy one by one those attractive features which endear it still to us… To clamber up the breezy heights which gird it round, for the sake of the ‘aier’— that air which, as the poet Keats himself remarked, is alone worth “Sixpence a pint”; to trace the windings of the ‘riverès renning all aboute’—both within its confines and beyond; to linger in its streets and catch the echoes of its wonderful past”

Winchester by Telford Varley (1910)

The next day would include a walk called The Keats Way, and while the pints are no long sixpence (lucky to be even six quid), it would turn into one of my favorite self-guided city tours and pub crawls in recent memory. I like to call it the Uhtred of Bebbanburg Way.