09 Dec 19

Hot-pot and Pint Night

Monday’s are tough enough to deal with as it is without having to think of something to cook in the evening as well. You’ve got another week of drudgery and work ahead of you and the last thing you need is to worry about is whether you’ve got enough gone-off mushrooms to scrape together another bl**dy Jamie Oliver pasta bake. Let’s face it, with this level of depression and gloom you’re definitely going to need some kind of beer-based anaesthesia to get you through and a deathly dull bottle of Doom Bar from the Co-Op just isn’t going to cut it. What you need is the Sally to take all this pain away from you. What you need is a steaming hot bowl of a delicious, comforting stew all made with quality, local ingredients. What you need is a fresh, foaming pint of perfectly conditioned ale to sup your troubles away. What you need is the cheery company of others who can understand and alleviate your Monday blues. What you need is the gentle crackle of a log fire to warm and soothe your soul. What you need is the Sally Hot-Pot and Pint Night. Yep that’s right, every Monday night the Sally Hot-Pot and Pint Night will bring you a different hotpot, stew, casserole or chilli plus a pint for just £8 with food served between 5pm and 8pm. This weeks dish is curried chickpea and tomato hot pot, served with crusty bread and butter. That’s Monday sorted, just got to get through Tuesdays now….!!

09 Dec 19

The Monday Night Sew and Sews

UK consumers spent approximately £3.5bn on clothing last Christmas with an estimated 8m of those garments to be thrown away after just one use. The trend for cheap, throwaway clothing or “fast fashion” as it is known raises serious moral and environmental concerns. In 2015 the global fashion industry produced 1.2bn tonnes of CO2 – more than international flights and the maritime shipping industry combined. If this trend continues the fashion industry could account for a quarter of the world’s carbon budget by 2050. Un-ironed check shirts aside, you’ve probably noticed the Sally isn’t exactly a focal point for fashionistas (less Milan more Ham) but nonetheless we can still do our little bit to help. May we introduce to you a new drop-in clothing repair service called the Monday Night Sew and Sews, headed-up by our favourite local laundrette ‘Hard Pressed for Time’ and the award-winning handicraft-duo ‘Havin’ A Hoots Crafts’. If you’ve got an old shirt that needs a new button sewing on, a pair of trousers embarrassingly ripped across the buttocks or a favourite jacket in need of a new zip then bring it into the Sally on Monday night and if you buy them a drink, our Sew and Sews will fix it for you. So for the price of a pint you can have your favourite clothes fixed, save money on buying new ones and you can even have one of our “Hotpot and Pints” whilst you wait. If you’re a dab hand at sewing and want to join the Sew and Sews for a needle and a natter then the more the merrier! They’ll be there every Monday from 5.30pm – 7.30pm. Best get there early though as they might just get a tiny bit slower as the evening goes on!

19 Dec 19

Folk Night

The Sally house band (Sally and the Hamonites) will be playing in the front bar of the Sally on the third Thursday of every month. Expect screaming fiddles, rattling banjos and heaving accordions with some traditional Irish jigs and reels! As Shane MacGowan once described it, it’s “heart, b*lls and feet music”!! Music usually starts about 7.30pm.

19 Dec 19

The Great Christmas Sally Alley Quiz

Yes that’s right Ladies and Gentlemen, roll-up roll-up roll-up your sleeves, its time to start swotting, sweating and rubbing those brain cells together for The Great Sally Alley Quiz!

“What’s so great about it?” we hear you cry. Well, it’s at the Sally of course!

“We thought you said you’d never do a quiz – running out of ideas are we?” Aah sod off!

Enough with the awkward questions, here’s how it works; on the second Thursday of every month (except this one) we’re inviting a different Berkeley charity to set the questions, act as quizmaster and trouser all the entry fees. Adding to the fun, each quiz will be sponsored by one of our favourite local breweries who will be donating a case of bottled beer as the prize. There will be six rounds of different topics chosen by the charity, including one specific to their own cause. They ask you questions, you try and answer them. The team with the most correct answers wins beer. We’re allowing teams of up to six people and entry fee is £4 per person. Register your team for 7.45pm and the great quizzing commences at 8pm. It’s going to be great…I don’t know why we didn’t think of this before?!?!?

This month’s quiz will be hosted by Mike and Bob, aka The Gravediggers and proceeds will go towards Winston’s Wish.

20 Dec 19

Xmas Carols with the Woodford Silver Band

Christmas at the Sally wouldn’t be Christmas without our annual carol singalong with the Woodford Silver Band! Drunken Christmas singing that even Shane McGowan couldn’t match for sheer poignancy and loveliness…and if perhaps not tunefulness. The full silver band will be packed into one bar with the rest of the pub filled with you lot singing your hearts out. It will of course all be brilliant!

21 Dec 19

The Tremendous Tiley’s Tap Takeover (T.T.T.T.T.)

Given that the Salutation is the official brewery tap for Tiley’s Brewery (it is of course all made here), it seems odd that in the four years that we’ve been brewing, we’ve never hosted a Tiley’s “tap takeover” (especially odd given our fondness for alliteration in marketing copy). Anyway, the time has now come. Since the legendary Mr Jonny Mills became our head brewer in 2017 he has developed a stunning range of beers that we have been incredibly proud to pour here at the Sally. The brewery’s reputation for producing consistently brilliant beer has meant it is now regularly seen on the bar in only the very finest beer pubs in Bristol, Gloucester, Cheltenham and Stroud and of course, Thornbury(!). As Mr Mills steps back from his day-to-day role in the brewery and we welcome another Bristol Beer Factory alumni “Floz” as head brewer this seems like an excellent time to reflect on Mr Mills’ work to date. From stunningly balanced hoppy pale ales, to big bruising IPA’s, to palate-bending stouts and porters to our everyday favourite Ordinary Bitter and it’s bigger brothers the Special and Extra Special Bitters. To accompany this dazzling array of beers we’ll have some delicious food in the form of American-style wings and ribs from Chef Brian and live music from our talented friends The Broken Stones. Food will be served from 6pm and the band will start at 8.30pm. See you there.

22 Dec 19

The Sally Xmas Knees Up

The Sally Xmas Knees Up is back everyone! Time to gather round the Sally piano and sing your tipsy hearts out whilst “Mike the piano” belts out the Xmas classics. We can’t be certain what’s on the set-list yet (except for the official Sally Xmas anthem Fairytale of New York) but you can rest assured by the time you lot have butchered it, it won’t really matter anyway.  Less an exercise in musical craftsmanship and more of an intense work-out in having a ruddy good time. The Sally Xmas Knees Up is one of the highlights of the Sally calendar (didn’t she present Points West?) and definitely one not to be missed!

23 Dec 19

Christmas Hotpot and Pint Night

Well, it’s properly Christmas now so we’re giving everything the ‘X(mas)-Factor’ treatment and even our Hotpot and Pint Night isn’t going to escape unscathed. In this festive festival of feasting we’re upping the offering to from a one-bowl hotpot to a cracking Christmas banquet. For just £12 per head Chef Brian will be serving up turkey curry and rice with cranberry-studded flatbreads plus of course your pint, PLUS a mince pie, PLUS we’re even throwing in, just for fun, a Christmas cracker (the type you pull, not the one you put cheese on) so you can all wear daft hats and inflict terrible jokes on your co-diners. If you’re lucky, we might even dust off our copy of “Now That’s What I Call Christmas Volume 478” and we can all sing along to ‘Fairytale of New York’ and ‘Last Christmas’ for the only 400th time this month. Food will be served from 5pm till 8pm and trust us, it’s going to be fun!

25 Dec 19

Christmas Day at the Sally

Some things just become an essential part of Christmas Day. Turkey, family arguments, the Queen’s Speech, a tie from great aunt Janice, consuming more chocolate than a chocoholic trapped inside a Cadbury’s distribution depot whilst feeling “on form”. A Christmas pint at the Sally is one of those things. One of those things that make Christmas Day the special day that it is. Hence, your favourite pub (in Ham), is open for two and a half very special hours on Christmas Day, between 11.30am and 2.00pm (last orders at 1.30) to make sure we get to see all of you, you all get to see each other and we can all enjoy a delicious pint or two before we head on home for an ill-judged round of “Cards Against Humanity” with Grandma. See you on the big day!