Hours slashed at ‘roughest pub in Britain’
ELBOW MADNESS STATUS QUO NEW ORDER QUEEN
SINGER Guy Garvey and his four bandmates – all real ale fans – raised more than £40,000 for Oxfam with a 2013 beer, named after their fifth album Build A Rocket Boys! A year later the band was back in a brewery to whip up Charge – a golden amber pale ale named after a track. Guy called it “a craft beer with a spicy American feel “with the class of a traditional real ale.
MADNESS were enjoying a pint in North London’s Dublin Castle, where they did their first gig, when they decided to go one step beyond and make their own beer. Now the Nutty Boys, with London’s Portobello Brewery, have produced three – Gladness, a craft lager, Lovestruck, a hoppy amber ale, and a rich London porter called Night Boat. THE rock ‘n’ roll legends teamed up with Wychwood Brewery in 2014 to create Piledriver, a malty amber ale named after their fifth album, out in 1972.
Frontman and lead guitarist Francis Rossi, 69, said: “Music and beer go well together. We wanted to create something special for the fans.” A PUB branded one of the roughest in Britain by neighbours has avoided being closed – but has had its opening hours cut.
The Wilsons Arms has seen a string of violent incidents, including a customer slashing a man across the face with a knife in September. A suspect was arrested and legal action is pending.
In a mass brawl in February a man was headbutted, another had his head stamped on, and the landlady was hit with a pool cue. In another bizarre incident a 22-yearold man jealous of his 18-year-old girlfriend talking to someone else threw a brick in the air, which landed on his own head. He also tried to set himself on fire. He was arrested for breach of the peace.
This week Kirklees Council ruled the pub in Mirfield, West Yorks, which only opens on Fridays and Saturdays, should close at 2am instead of 4.30am and increase security staff to 3am.
Neighbour Mark Winfield, 46, who has slept with earplugs for ten years because of the noise and has fitted triple glazing, said: “It’s bloody awful. I would say it is the roughest pub I know.” Sally Towlend, who lives opposite the pub, said: “People used to fight but nothing like they do now. It has the worst reputation in the world.”
After the council hearing landlady Emma Buckley, 33, said: “We are open to all at the Wilsons Arms. We don’t want undesirables or troublemakers. I am going to change things. Shutting at midnight would have crippled us. I’m happy with the compromise.”
The hearing asked the police to monitor the pub for the next six months. NEW Order followed in the footsteps of fellow Manchester band Elbow by brewing their first beer, Stray Dog, in 2016.
Named after a track on their album Music Complete, featuring Iggy Pop, it is a cleantasting 4.2 per cent golden brew with hints of citrus fruit and lychee. The band collaborated with Burnley’s Moorhouse’s brewery – set up in 1865 and best known for its award-winning Pendle Witches Brew – to develop the beer. In 2015 the band marked the 40th anniversary of their hit Bohemian Rhapsody by releasing a lager in its honour. Frontman Freddie Mercury, who died aged 45 in 1991, was well known for sipping a glass while on stage. And Freddie apparently designed the Queen crest, which featured on the label, when he was a student at Ealing Art College.
From Bohemia, Czech Republic, it followed the band’s own vodka, Killer Queen, released to celebrate the 40th birthday of their song of the same name.