16 Nov 19

Sally Cider 2019 Picking and Pressing Day

Sally Cider has become something of an institution and the picking and pressing day has become one of the most anticipated days of the Sally calendar. There is something hugely satisfying and rewarding about sitting back after a good day’s picking and pressing, knowing that in eight month’s time there will be 500 litres of the most natural, local, traditional and most importantly delicious beverage ready for us to consume. The concept behind Sally Cider is that this is a cider picked and pressed by the Sally locals under the expert eye and tutorage of Wild Cider Co’s John Barnes. Each November a team of locals go out into a nearby orchard and pick and press enough apples to create 500 litres of juice. John then keeps an eye on the fermentation throughout the winter and packages it for us the following summer. For each pint that we sell, in return for the bounty the orchard has given us, £1 is spent on replanting Gloucestershire orchards. This year we will be picking and pressing in a North Nibley orchard where the previous year’s Sally Cider has already funded some replanting. If you want to see how real cider is made and be involved in the making a community cider that not only tastes delicious but also contributes towards preserving our local landscape and heritage, join us in the Sally car park at 11am armed with wellies, waterproof trousers and a trug. We’ll provide refreshments in the form of sandwiches and cider and in the evening we can all retreat to the Sally for a pint in front of the fire with the warm satisfaction of knowing that one good day’s work is going to yield something very special in the months to come.

18 Nov 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. That’s Monday sorted, just got to get through Tuesdays now….!!

21 Nov 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.

21 Nov 19

The Great 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 Pip and Nathan, with proceeds going towards Berkeley Educational Swimming Trust.

23 Nov 19

Live Music – Cat Amongst The Pigeons

Cat Amongst the Pigeons are an up-tempo folk outfit made up of musicians you might just recognise from the Severn Vale and beyond. Their sound is a soaring, swoon of fiddle, accordion, guitar, trumpet and vocals covering a range of folk styles from traditional Irish to foot-stomping Balkan gypsy jazz to Pete Seeger-inspired big-band Americana. We’re going to pack them in to the Sally to really ramp-up the atmosphere to 11! It’s going to be a lot of fun! Music starts around 8.00pm

24 Nov 19

The Sunday Sally Singalong

The late afternoon/early evening Sunday session in the Sally is one of our favourites. Sunday lunch is all washed up, you’ve kicked out the relatives, Saturday’s hangover is starting to clear and before you even start thinking about another working week, there is just one last treat to squeeze in. Time to get out of the house, have a brisk walk up to the Sally and sink a few relaxing pints with friends sat by the warm fire. Well, those Sunday evening sessions just got even better since we found hand-clapping, foot-stomping, ivory-tinkling, Elton John-eat-your-heart-out, piano playing legend “Mike The Piano” (OK we’re not sure what his surname is). Mike is the most gifted pianist and 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). The Sunday Sally Singalong is brilliant way to round off your weekend and is well worth delaying Mondays for.

25 Nov 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!

28 Nov 19

The Sally Cheese Club

One of the few things that we love almost as much as beer and cider here at the Sally is cheese. Being based in Berkeley we are also steeped in cheese-making history with the town once famous for being the cheese capital of the county (Double Berkeley anyone?!). Given this, we’ve decided that we need to celebrate, nay worship, our favourite booze accompaniment on a monthly basis. Ladies and gentlemen, may we present to you The Sally Cheese Club! Our resident cheese connoisseur Jerry (no, not a cartoon mouse but actually a cheesemaker for the legendary Jonathan Crump) will take all you fans of fromage through a hand-picked selection of world cheeses that would make Wallace and Gromit wet themselves. Jerry will be pairing each cheese with a sample of perfectly paired beverages from some of the world’s finest beers and ciders and some alright wine as well. Sally Cheese Club will run on the last Thursday of every month starting at 7.30pm . Tickets are £17 each (available to book in advance now from the bar) and include a selection of and introduction to six different cheese and drink pairings from our man Jerry.

30 Nov 19

Haydon’s Saturday Night Soiree – Music of the 1950s

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”, for this inaugural evening, Haydon will take us all on a magical mystery tour of his definitive tracks of the 1950s – the era that brought us rock ‘n’ roll and first made parents crap themselves about what their children were listening to. Haydon’s musical odyssey begins at 8.30pm – don’t tell your parents and don’t be late!