Abingdon may get its very own micro brewery soon. Since the Morland brewery was bought by Greene King in 1999 and subsequently closed down and converted into flats, Abingdon has been without a commercial brewery.
Loose Cannon Brewery have applied for planning permission on the Ashville Trading Estate 6 Suffolk Way, Abingdon, OX14 5JX for Change of Use from B1/B8 to Class B2 for use as a micro brewery.
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Going one step further to encourage real ale drinkers to the pub, the Stocks Bar at the Crown and Thistle Hotel on Bridge Street in Abingdon [map], is now offering a discount of 20p per pint of real ale and a 25% discount on bar food to anyone showing their Camra card when ordering.
More information can be found on the back page of this month’s Oxford Drinker, which can be found in most good pubs covered by the Oxford Camra branch. The current edition also includes the first part of the Abingdon pub survey and a report of the Stocks winter beer festival.
It is one of the first two pubs in the Oxford area to be awarded Camra LocAle status, which is awarded to pubs that regularly serve good quality beer brewed within a 25 mile radius. The Stocks achieves this by having beer from the White Horse Brewery, and from Wychwood/Brakspears.
The King’s Head and Bell on East Saint Helen’s Street in Abingdon has been closed since Autumn 2007.  It is a historical coaching inn in one of the oldest streets in Abingdon. I believe the reason for its closure was structural damage making it too dangerous to continue using.
Last year it was purchased by Foundation Inns, who applied for planning permission to renovate it. The plans can be seen by visiting the Vale of White Horse District Council’s Planning permission web site and entering reference number as 08/00939/FUL
Work has been proceeding over the last few months, including demolition company, electricians and plasterers, and skip loads of junk were appearing outside. A week or so ago, work stopped.
Following various rumours going around town ranging from ‘its going to be demolished’ to ‘its turning into a wine bar’ and speculation of it getting mixed up with the Old Gaol development, none of which matched up with what Foundation Inns is all about, or what the planning permission application stated.  So I wrote an email to the directors of Foundation Inns to try to get more information.
I received two replies, one from Gavin Drew the Commercial & Finance Director, and another from Ian Grundy the managing director.  These replies say that work is now complete on making the building structurally safe, but due to the current market situation the plans need to be scaled down a bit, so requires re-applying for planning permission. It should open this summer or autumn and will be a traditional pub with real ales and reasonably priced food.  The full replies are at the end of this article.
As mentioned in the previous post, the Stocks bar in Abingdon has seen a huge improvement to its beer range and cellar quality over the last year to become one of the best real ale pubs in the Oxford area.
It is holding its 3rd beer festival this weekend (Friday 3rd April – Monday 6th April). Previous beer festivals have been very good with an excellent range of beers, mostly locally sourced.
I haven’t made many blog entries recently, but now the summer is on its way, it is time to be more active.
Pubs in Abingdon have seen some major improvements over the last year. After the take over and closure of the Morlands Brewery and Morrels Brewery by Greene King around the end of millenium, we ended up with something of a beer wilderness in Abingdon where almost every pub was run by Greene King and all served the same small selection of beers (Greene King IPA, Morland Original and maybe one guest… but all the pubs seem to choose the same guest each month). Not that there is anything wrong with Greene King beers, but I like to have a choice.