Our Beerhunter talks to the licensees of Derby’s pub of the year, two decades after they took over
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Not only are Jim Hallows and Steph Briggs celebrating the fact that their pub, the Falstaff, has been named Derby Campaign for Real Ale’s pub of the year for 2023, but next week they will be marking 20 years since they took the pub on. It is some achievement for the couple, both former nurses, who “fell into it accidentally”, as Jim put it this week.
It is also some achievement to succeed with a large wet-led pub in the heart of a city these days, let alone one tucked away as the Falstaff is, on Silverhill Road, in a maze of streets. Add in the fact that Jim only discovered the brewing equipment next door once they were in place and has, therefore, brewed his own well-regarded beer for almost all of the 20 years and you have, as he says, “a way of life rather than a job”. Their aim when they set out was to fashion a genuine community pub, and there is no doubt they have succeeded.
The story started when the pub’s owner, Adie Parkes, for whom Jim had worked a few bar shifts, decided he could not run the Falstaff any longer. Jim said: “He rang me and said ‘take the pub on or I’ll have to board it up.’ My first reaction was, yes!” Steph added: “My first reaction was not so positive. It took him two weeks to persuade me.”
But she was persuaded, obviously, and now says: “We knew it would be a big undertaking. But we wanted it to be the sort of pub we wanted to drink in – a decent community pub where everyone looks out for each other – a safe space. The community was already in here, a core of good regular customers who have stuck with us. And more good ones have come in.”
Jim said: “We don’t get passing trade, it’s a destination pub. You’ve got to want to come here. And when you do, everyone’s in the conversation. Our regular customers make sure people feel welcome.”
Staff turnover has also been relatively low: “We’ve been very lucky with staff over the years. We wouldn’t have been able to do this without them and there haven’t been many, numbers-wise,” adds Jim.
The pub, a large and imposing building, dates from 1886 and was one of the last coaching inns built in Derby.
It retains some fabulous architectural features, and Jim and Steph have refurbished and nurtured it over the years. One room is a mini-museum to the former Normanton brewery, Offiler’s, which closed in the 1960s and is the favourite part of the pub for the Mayor of Derby, Robin Wood, who lives nearby. I asked him about the Falstaff’s appeal, and he says: “I visit the Falstaff any day with a ‘Y’ in it!
“I am addicted to Fistful of Hops, brewed on the premises and sold at a reasonable price, and it’s walking distance from my home. A roaring log fire in the Offiler’s Lounge and brilliant company provide a genuine welcome. Jim and Steph do far more than run a pub, they care for the local community. I am proud to call myself a member of the Falstaff family.”
Jim and Steph do not see any of that changing. They have the Falstaff largely just as they would want it. Steph says: “We’ve never been in it to make millions. If we can put food on the table and feed the pets, we’re happy. We’d rather have a pub full of nice people than a pub full of more people, some of whom might not be so nice, even though we’d make more money.”
Jim concurs: “I don’t think we would want it to be any different. We could do with a bit more trade. But the things you have to do to get more trade don’t really suit this pub. I’m not sure we’ll be here in another 20 years – I would be 78. But if I stay fit I’ll keep going. I’m not good at sitting down. We have lounge furniture upstairs I never use.”
The brewing obviously keeps him busier than a regular licensee would be. Apart from at the Falstaff and its sister outlet, the Pothole micropub at Allestree, Jim’s beers often turn up in the free trade around Derby and in Wetherspoon’s pubs within a 30-mile radius. If you see a Falstaff beer around town, it more often than not is going to be the first one Jim brewed, Phoenix, or Smiling Assassin or the mayor’s favourite, A Fistful of Hops.
Jim credits retired master brewer Dave Corby with getting him started: "He helped me get the plant set up and taught me to brew,” he says. “I knew I’d got there when, one day, Dave said ‘Why are you still paying me to come here?’”
Lockdown was a trial, of course, but Jim says they managed to sell 25 per cent of their regular beer output through deliveries and, given that the pub didn’t need to use heat and light for a while and with furlough, they came through with the business and the staff still in place. On Saturday, April 1, they will mark the 20 years with a bit of a do at which the mayor will say a few words. And then it’s onwards.
“It seems to have gone really quickly, and yet not being at the Falstaff seems a lifetime ago,” adds Steph.
Enjoyed reading this article? You can find more of Beerhunter Colston Crawford's columns here, or take a look at a recent one below:
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