Have you been to Pint Shop lately? If not, it's well worth a visit - to have a look at their newly refurbished dining areas and to sample their new menu. It's all very impressive. As well as two new fancy private dining rooms, they've also added seven extra lines to their beer board including a constant keg of cider, and 'pimped' the garden to make the most of the autumn days.
Pint Shop is all about creating a place that embraces eating and drinking – in equal measures. A place where you feel equally at home having a few beers, a light lunch or a full-blown feast. A place where people from all walks of life rub shoulders with each other.
For owners Richard Holmes and Benny Peverelli, the inspiration for Pint Shop came from the beer houses of the 1830s. The original ‘Beer Houses’ or ‘Tom and Jerry Shops’ as they became known, are viewed by many as the birth place of today’s pub.
This was a time when beer was considered a rich man’s drink because of its high tax levels. The poor drank gin – and lots of it – mostly in illegal gin shops. Then, in 1830, in an attempt to reduce public drunkenness, improve the health of the nation and encourage free trade, The Beer Act was passed. This allowed anyone that paid a small fee to brew beer and sell it in their own homes – and so beer houses were born. It even allowed a low ABV beer called Table Beer to be brewed for children, women and servants as the tap water then was so unsafe! Thus, a new generation of beer drinkers was created.
Pint Shop takes the spirit of those original beer houses – namely craft beer, intimacy and fun – and throws in some killer food cooked on the coals, just as it was in 1830 and has it all delivered in the heart of the city by a team of amazing people.
Pint Shop
10 Peas Hill
Cambridge
CB2 3PN
01223 352293
www.pintshop.co.uk
@pintshop
Discover unique boutiques and boutique hotels mingled with communities of artists and craftspeople. Sample an award-winning restaurant or thriving little café tucked away in a back street – all easy to locate with the 200 page full-colour Independent Cambridge guide.
Handily presented with a map and an index at the beginning of each section, this book is the indispensable key to finding out what’s on offer from the independents of Cambridge. Get your copy from Waterstones, Heffers, many of the independent shops or online atwww.independent-cambridge.co.uk