24 Sep 22

Saturday Session – The Kernel Brewery

Our Saturday Sessions are back! A pretty simple idea. We have a cool skittles alley with it’s own keg bar. We also have a cool sound system. We like beer and we like music. On these Saturday Sessions we’ll fill the taps of our keg bar with some delicious beer in keeping with a certain theme. Then we’ll play some great music. You can drink the delicious beer and listen to the great music. If you really want to, you can have a deliriously happy dance while you drink the delicious beer and listen to the great music. That’s about it. For this one, our theme will be….The Kernel Brewery!! Yep, that’s right, London’s finest brewery in our not-very-humble opinion. Back in 2009 Kernel were one of the first UK breweries to really bring US-influenced craft beers to the fore – a true revelation to many of us. Often overlooked by the hype merchants, Kernel are the understated, elder statesmen of UK craft beer and continue to make simple but beautiful hop-forward pales and IPAs, Victorian-inspired stouts and porters, table beers and more. Unphased and unfussed by daft fads for daft beers, these guys have continued to plough their own delicious furrow and we love them for it. Come and see what all the fuss isn’t about. Starts at 3pm.

26 Sep 22

The Leftover Pie Lottery

According to the ancient English proverb, “the early bird catcheth the worm”. According to Diageo and Guinness’s marketing department however, “good things come to those who wait”. Difficult to work out which one is correct – the intellectual and philosophical heavyweights of 17th century England or the brewers of an iconic dry stout that has been responsible for making Irishmen and women late for work for over 250 years? It’s time for you to find out every other Monday night by entering our Leftover Pie Lottery. Allow us to explain. Each weekend we purchase a set number of delicious fresh pies from Plenty Pies of Woodchester. If we have a busy weekend we tend to have a few leftover, uncooked and uneaten. If we have a quiet weekend we can have a lot leftover. Previously we either cooked and ate these pies ourselves or we gave them to friends and family. Following a few quiet weekends this strategy has taken it’s toll on our waistbands and we’ve had a rethink. From now on, every other Monday night leftover pies (still in date and kept and served to professional food hygiene standards) will be available to you from 5pm, served with chips and gravy at a bargain price of £5. It gets better. From 6pm the same dish is available for £4. From 7pm £3, 8pm £2 and from 9pm just £1 for pie, chips and gravy! “Sounds great” we hear you cry, “but why is it a lottery?” Well, to add a bit of fun into the event, we’re not going to tell you how many pies we have available at any point either before or during the night. Your gamble therefore is when to place your order. Either you can be the early bird and secure your worm (or pie in this case) or you can hold out for an absolute bargain but risk the pies selling out and not getting any worms (pies) at all! This will be a bit of fun so best taken it in the spirit it’s intended. If you’re someone who gets ‘hangry’, this event probably isn’t for you. If you’re someone who writes furiously to Trip Advisor that you didn’t get a Cordon Bleu dining experience for your £4, this event is also not for you. If you’re someone who is up for a bit of fun and is willing to gamble for a bargain, we’ll see you at some point from 5pm for the Leftover Pie Lottery!

29 Sep 22

Cheese Club – Perry to the People!

On the last Thursday of every month we’ll take you on a guided tasting of five of the very best cheeses known to man. Each one will of course be paired with a delicious beer or cider and accompanied with fascinating fromage facts from our convivial host, “Jerry the Cheese”. On this very special Cheese Club evening, Jerry will be joined by local perry guru Steve Chandler who will present prime and rare examples of our local perries, from Hendre Huffcap to Teddington Green and beyond. Join us for our annual voyage of discovery into the subtleties and delights of our local Perry’s. Each different variety paired and served with a specially chosen and outstanding cheese. Always an amazing night with booking essential. Cheese Club starts at 7.30pm. Tickets are £20 available on the bar or you can buy them online here (includes a booking fee).

08 Oct 22

Belgian Beer and Cheese Festival

At the end of February 2020, our Belgian Beer and Cheese Festival was the last big event we put on at Sally before lockdown hit. We don’t know about you guys, but we had a blast and we have been itching to revisit it ever since. Well guess what? It’s back! The beers of Belgium are some of the most exquisite in the world and it is considered one of the greatest brewing nations in the world alongside Germany, the USA and of course, Britain. The same can be said of it’s cheeses – some of the very finest in the world. At this very special event we’re going to be showcasing and celebrating the great beer styles of Belgium – from rich, dark fruity Trappist ales, to vibrant zingy hoppy pales to the tart, funky and acidic lambics and gueuzes of the Seine Valley. We’ll have a number of beers brewed of course in Belgium in both bottle and keg as well as British interpretations including one from our own Tiley’s Head Brewer and self-confessed Belgian beer obsessive, Floz Hodgkinson. To accompany these fine beers, our Cheese Club host and fromage fanatic “Jerry the Cheese” is spending the week in Belgium sampling and sourcing the most divine selection the country has to offer. He’ll arrive back with his bounty the night before! On top of all of that we’ll have an epic music playlist for you to toe-tap and boogy the night away. Beer and cheese will be available from 3pm. See you there!

13 Oct 22

The Great Sally Alley Quiz

15 Oct 22

Haydon’s Saturday Night Soiree – Music of the 1970s (Part I)

Sometime Sally barman, Ham resident and general local legend Haydon Knapp is the biggest musical obsessive that we know. Haydon’s musical knowledge is surpassed only by the internet and even then it’s a bit touch and go (probably). Given our confidence in Haydon’s unsurpassed encyclopaedic expertise in the arena of song, we’ve asked him to host a series of soirees where he takes us through the definitive sounds of each decade starting from the 1950s up to the present day armed only with a sound system, an iPhone and his sidekick, “Haydon’s Friend”. Having completed his tour through the rock n roll of the 1950s and the sunshine pop of 1960s, it is the turn of the 60s rockier, older brother – the 1970s! As with the 60s, the 70s is a big decade to tackle in just one evening so Haydon has split this into two soirees. Part 1 covers 1970 to 1974, whilst Part 2 in a month or so’s time will cover the remaining years 1975 – 1979. Expect belters from Fleetwood Mac, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Pink Floyd, Kate Bush, the Beatles, the Stones and many more. The evening’s musical odyssey begins at 7.30pm – don’t tell your parents and don’t be late!

03 Nov 22

Live Music – The Holly Carter Blues Collective

Holly has wowed the Sally a few times now with her own brand of folk-blues fingerpicking musical magic. Each time she’s been so good we just had to book her up again. In order to save ourselves a lot of admin and Holly a lot of pestering, we’ve now just agreed to have Holly play here for you every first Thursday in the month (err, except for September). Each time however Holly will be joined by different members of her ‘blues collective’ to bring you an evening of the finest New Orleans blues, swing and Americana with a splash of country thrown in for good measure. Holly will host and curate a different ensemble of artists each month to give a fresh musical flavour as they take you on a journey through the finest beer-supping, hand-clapping, toe-tapping blues that neither Ham nor Berkeley has ever seen the likes of before! Music starts at 7.30pm.

04 Nov 22

The Sally Piano Singalong

“Sing us a song, you’re the piano man….”

Those of you that were in the Sally pre-lockdown will remember the epic Sunday nights spent singing our hearts out at the Sally piano as the legendary “Mike the piano” melted our weekends away. Hand-clapping, foot-stomping, ivory-tinkling, Elton John-eat-your-heart-out, piano playing legend Mike is the most gifted pianist we’ve ever heard and we are delighted to have him back for a special Friday night knees up! Mike can pretty much play any number you ask guys for (“Do you know your monkey’s stolen my pint? “No but if you hum it…” etc etc). American Pie, Crocodile Rock, Hey Jude, you name it and he will play it (and we’ll probably butcher it trying to sing along). Get yourselves in the warm by the fire, grab a pint and prepare for a night of unadulterated musical joyousness. The Sally Piano Singalong starts at 7.30pm.

20 Nov 22

The Big Fat Fry Up!

“If Carlsberg did fry ups”….well, if their brewing is anything to go by then they’d probably be pretty crap to be honest. If the Sally did fry-ups however….different kettle of fish altogether! Because they enjoyed cooking the Christmas lunch together last year, just for a bit of fun, the Landlord and Jeanette “Pasty” Palmer (of Berkeley’s From Home gift shop fame) are teaming up once again in the Sally kitchen to bring you another chaotic but delicious food service. Satisfied they have now mastered the roast dinner, (except for Pete’s cauliflower cheese!), this time they are setting themselves the challenge of the perfecting (ahem!) the crown jewel of British cuisine. The French may have their confit de carnard, the Italians have linguine allo scoglio and the Spanish have their paella Valenciana, but us Brits, being the culinary sophisticates that we are, have The Big Fat Fry Up! For any readers from overseas unfamiliar with this delicate little dish, it is traditionally served in the morning and weirdly enough, contains lots of meat. Yep that’s right, we eat fried meat first thing in the morning! For the Sally’s Big Fat Fry Up we will be sticking with tradition and serving our breakfast from 9.30am until 11.30am. The meat involved will be sausages and dry cured bacon from our own hand-reared Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs. We will of course have all the other goodies you would expect from a good fry-up – eggs, hash browns, mushrooms, beans, black pudding and more. Tea, coffee and fruit juice will also be available and if we get a licence extension from Stroud District Council, you could even have a pint as well if you want. As ever, it’s first come, first serve so please don’t ring to reserve a table. Now then, how do you like your eggs in the morning?

14 Jan 23

Billy in the Lowground – Live at the Sally

We’re very excited to be hosting this very special band here in the Sally. With a line-up consisting of drums, bass, lead guitar, fiddle, mandolin, banjo and vocals, Billy In The Lowground have a huge sound that ranges from Irish folk, Americana to country and rock. Formed in 1991 the band have headlined gigs up and down the country including multiple festival appearances and supported the likes of Shane MacGowan, John Otway, Norma Waterson & Martin Carthy, Oysterband and Fairport Convention. Despite comparisons with the Waterboys and the Levellers, ‘Billy….’ play all original material and have a sound which is uniquely their own. Packing such a big band into the Sally is going to be a bit of a challenge but this really is going to be one night you cannot afford to miss!