Ay up me Dutch!
The fascinating story of the ‘twinning’ between one of Nottingham’s most famous boozers and a wonderful real ale pub in Amsterdam. I wrote it up for Nottingham cultural magazine Left Lion. leftlion.co.uk The Lincolnshire Poacher’s Brother From Another words: Benedict Cooper “Oh! You’re from Nottingham!” the smiling, bearded barman bellowed as he loomed over my table, the tang of some powerful herb tingling my nostrils. “I went to the Poacher last year!” Sitting in an alley on the edge of Amsterdam’s red-light district talking about the Lincolnshire Poacher has a surreal kick to it, especially when you’re getting passively stoned. We all know it’s one of Nottingham’s magic little corners: the huts, the cubby hole, the regulars, the irregulars, the live music tinkling around the yard when the door’s left open on a warm summer night. But these are our dusty little secrets, aren’t they? How does some Viking-esque beer-pourer in Holland know and love the Poacher? For that, he has to thank a towering Dutchman called Henk Eggens. Striding up Mansfield Road in the summer of 1989, on a short trip to Nottingham, Henk found himself at the door of a newly christened Lincolnshire Poacher. Henk knows a thing or two about pubs; he has his own little ale joint, In De Wildeman, in a seventeenth-century gin distillery in the centre of Amsterdam, founded on his own staunch principles of real ale, good service and a friendly, neighbourly, music-free atmosphere. Something about the Poacher and its founding landlord Neil […]
In pictures: Hoxton Street
Fifty metres back from the trendified beardified playgrounds of Hoxton and Shoreditch lies a funny little place that hipsterdom has mercifully forgotten. A market stall here, a little cafe there, some nice pubs, a couple of convenience stores, a funeral parlour and a few splashes of more unusual colour, Hoxton Street is somehow utterly down to earth but unselfconsciously vital. It’s a unique bubble; it feels like a normal place where normal people live and work. In a city of self-conscious style and early adoption, it’s a cheery trip down normality lane.
