The Star Beer Festival

The Star Inn, Wenhaston is holding a bank holiday beer festival. The date is Saturday 29th, Sunday 30th& Monday 31st from noon – 11pm

Included over the course of the weekend there will be a Barbecue from 12pm - 8pm with live music and tasting notes on the below beers ...

Everards Tiger 4.2%
Everards Sunchaser 4%
Fullers London Pride 4.1%
Meantime London Pale Ale 4.3%
Nethergate Umbel Magna 5%
Nethergate Three PoINT NINE 3.9%
Nethergate OlD GROWLER 5%
Nethergate Suffolk County4%
PURity UBU 4.5%
Purity PURE GOLD 3.8%
ADNAMS BITTER 3.7%
REGATTA 4.3%

For more information on these beers please see here.

The Music

Saturday 29th

7pm - The Low house blues band

Sunday 30th 

3pm -Bridget & Friends – Folk session

6pm - Mark Anthony

Monday 31st  

3pm - The Night Rollers



The Food

A Barbeque is on offer at only £6

Choose from Organic Red Poll Beef burgers, organic lamb
burgers, clarkes butchery sausages, mushrooms filled with
goats cheese. 

In a Stradbroke bakery Bun

Then help yourself to salads.


Pop along and see us - for more information call us on 01502 478240.

How to... taste beer

Professional beer tasting might be the best job in the world, but it’s also one of your most important responsibilities, there are some pieces of advice that need a lot of hammering home to persuade people that a little chore is worth doing. Then there are some that probably don’t.

The advice that you should taste your beer every morning before opening undoubtedly falls into the second camp.

You should taste your beer before opening to ensure it is up to scratch. This quality control check will avoid people being put off by a dodgy pint and make it more likely that they will come back to your pub. It is especially important with cask beer – as a live product, it continues to evolve and change in nature in its container.

“They need to be, because quality control is so important.”

Next, you should swirl the beer in the glass, and then take a good sniff to check the aroma. The gap left in the glass allows the aromas of the beer to circulate, something that is a big determining factor in taste.

Finally comes the drinking. Take a sip of the beer at first, and then take a bigger slurp over the entire tongue to really assess the taste. Make yourself aware of which parts of the tongue receive different elements of flavour by checking the diagram (right). For most beers, the really important part is found at the back of the tongue, where the bitterness receptors are.

This does not necessarily mean you have to swallow the beer. Even once it reaches this point of the mouth, you can train yourself to spit it out as you would wine in a wine tasting.

If your beer tastes sour or vinegary, this means it is almost certainly off, something that is generally caused by the beer having been on too long.
If your tasting detects either of these problems (and it is much better that you do so, rather than having your customers do it for you!), stop selling it immediately, then determine the cause of the issue.

“It is important to me to taste a sample of the beers every morning, as imperfect taste is the least obvious at the point of dispense and we pride ourselves on delivering the perfect pint every time.”

Election 2010: The Publican's guide to the political parties' pub policy

On Thursday 6th May, millions will vote in one of the most anticipated and hyped general elections of our time.

But, as a publican, which way will you vote? If you’re still undecided, or want to check the main parties’ policies towards pubs, read on…

Alcohol duty

Labour’s regime on alcohol duty has been a massive issue for the trade. In the past two years beer duty alone has been hiked by a whopping 26 per cent. In the last Budget, Alistair Darling announced he would be extending the alcohol duty escalator until 2015. He also slapped a 10 per cent above-inflation rise on cider duty. However this will expire in June and have to go through Parliament again. Labour is planning to change the definition of cider so that higher-strength versions are taxed more.

The Tories have committed to raising taxes on “drinks related to anti-social behaviour”, such as super-strength lagers, ciders and “alcopops”. However shadow home secretary Chris Grayling has said “local traditional products” will not be affected. Labour’s recent 10 per cent cider duty increase would be scrapped.

The Lib Dems promise to review the system around alcohol tax to ensure it tackles “binge-drinking”, without “unfairly penalising responsible drinkers, pubs and important local industries”. They also vow to review the beer duty escalator and “explore the possibility” of a preferential rate of duty for draught beer.

Who wins you decide!

Some History...

The Star Inn is was built in 1839 and has traded continuously since 1841.

It still retains the warm welcome that should be a part of any pub visit, this welcome extends to dogs, children and muddy boots, hence its popularity with walkers, who are keen to enjoy the views from the five heaths of Wenhaston.

What makes our public house so accessable is that The Star is situated on the bus route that connects Southwold, Halesworth and Lowestoft, so it’s possible to take a tour of the countryside and coast, enjoy an interlude at The Star and not have to worry about driving.

You can explore some of the local history in the area, and even take a trip to some local surroundings including the Nursery situated just down the road.

We hope we will continue to make yet more history!

Drinking and driving

We like our visitors to be safe when they leave The Star at Wenhaston, so for your benefit we thought it would be a good idea to post some information about drink driving.

What is the drink driving limit?

In the UK the drink driving limit is:

• 35 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath; or
• 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood; or
• 107 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of urine.

How many units can I drink before driving?

The legal drink drive limit cannot be safely converted into a certain number of units, as it depends on a number of factors to include gender, body mass and how quickly your body absorbs alcohol into the blood stream.

Can drinking coffee or having a cold shower help to sober me up?

No, drinking coffee or having a cold shower will not sober you up as this does not remove alcohol from your blood stream.
How long do the effects of alcohol take to wear off?

On average it takes one hour for a healthy liver to process one unit of alcohol. However, it does depend on your body mass, gender and how much food you have consumed. Even if you feel fine after drinking heavily in the evening there is still a high possibility that you will be above the legal limit should you drive the following morning.
What constitutes a unit of alcohol?

One unit of alcohol is 10ml (1cl) by volume or 8g by weight, of pure alcohol.

For more information see our recommended drink driving site.

We like to work with local companies...

At The Wenhaston Star we liked to be associated with local companies. One of those companies is Adnams. Running an Adnams pub is a terrific challenge, but equally a wonderfully satisfying opportunity.

We act as partners in our business and believe we are committed to the quality and character of the Adnams brand, serving customers with care and enthusiasm.

Beer has been brewed in Southwold for 600 years.

Adnams say "We’d love to be here for 600 more. To make this happen, every aspect of our company needs to be sustainable: the way we do business; how we work with our communities and our impact on the environment."

It is nice to be associated with a company with this ethos. We also have a list of our own ethics at The Wenhaston Star.

April events at The Star Inn Wenhaston...

At The Star Inn at Wenhaston, we like to hold regular events so always check in to see what we have coming up on our events page.

Coming up within the next week we have:
Thursday 1st April
April Fools Party Night – Live Music from 8pm
until 11.30 – The Night Rollers – Homemade Curries

£5.99.

Saturday 3rd April
Live Music - The Smoking Aces - from 8pm until 11.30.

Easter Sunday
Open from Noon until 11pm

Roast Lamb £7.95 served 12.30 – 3pm.
 
Stay tuned for further events at The Star Inn.