Hands up! Who knows the definition of a tap room? Or is it just little Cretan old me who had no idea what it was until I saw it mentioned in an awards category for ‘pub, bar or taproom of the year’?
Not even Wikipedia has a definition and sends you to the ‘bar’ page where amongst the many types of bar including dive, fern, drag and tiki you find ‘brew pub’ which I suppose is the closest to what I was looking for. Breweries would often have their own on-site pub which would serve beers on tap, hence ‘tap room’.
With its ten craft beers on offer, four cask hand pulls and six keg lines, The Drovers Rest is happy to call itself a tap room and in fact it was the winner of the category in this year’s food awards, which I hosted.
I had to laugh when, on calling to book a table, Beki told me that she thought I was calling to ask for their award back. In these days of much hollow boasting and unsubstantiated pride, I find this self-deprecating attitude quite refreshing.
This down to earth, humorous, relaxed and welcoming attitude is evident when we turned up to enjoy the pub’s famous hot dogs.
Beki met her husband, chef Tom McMaster, at the Middle Ruddings, in Braithwaite, which he was running with his parents at the time.
They took over The Drovers Rest, at Monkhill, near Burgh-by-Sands, in 2020 and only managed eight weeks of trading before the second lockdown. It seems that the impact of the challenging Covid era is still felt by the couple and made their award that much more meaningful.
When you live in a county like Cumbria, it is lovely to combine food with walking and learning about places that you are not very familiar with. On this occasion, I was quite excited to see what the whole Solway area had to offer.
Sandwiched between the Dumfries and Galloway mountains and the Lakeland fells with far reaching sandy views across the water, it is easy to get to from Carlisle and the M6. The Vallum for Hadrian’s Wall runs behind the pub and the whole area is steeped in fascinating history with Edward I’s death site just up the road in Burgh-by-Sands, a village also credited with the first African settlement in Britain some 1,800 years ago.
In that sense, The Drovers Rest offers welcome respite whether you have enjoyed a stroll on the marshes or have walked all day along Hadrian’s Wall.
Seeing the people who came in and the exchanges with the serving staff it was obvious that The Drovers Rest also serves as a valuable community hub where everyone is welcomed (including the lame chicken that walked in one day and became the pub pet). The charming young waiters Thomas, George and Rachel all come from the village, fresh eggs are for sale on the bar counter from the farm across the road and there is a small menu on the table of forthcoming community events such as psychic night, quiz night and b*tch and stitch.
The pub is equally dog and human friendly with the lucky canines having their own dedicated menu.
I had difficulty in choosing what to eat with my beer but John was determined to have one of Tom’s smoked sausages, so he ordered the Classic Dog. I understand that people travel far and wide to enjoy these Cumberland sausages which, depending upon their accompaniments, carry names such as the Belly Rub or the Daschund, a nod perhaps to the German origin of the peppery sausage brought over by German miners in the 1500s.
Being a trained butcher Tom enjoys making and smoking the sausages, but he also loves baking and making his own accompaniments like the delicious ketchup.
Dishes on the menu such as the winter flatbread topped with roasted vegetables and creamy blue cheese, fish and chips, gammon steak or Drover’s burger comprising double stacked beef patties topped with sauteed mushrooms, melted cheese and crispy bacon are perfect partners to the carefully selected beers on offer.
Beki may be very chuffed with their recent food award but with over 500 beers introduced since the couple took over the pub, a very strong community spirit, pride in the provenance of ingredients and commitment to support small, artisan breweries the pair have a lot to be proud of.
droversrestinn.com
01228 576141
