19 Oct 19

The Sally Apple and Cider Festival

Autumn is here and the apple harvest is upon us. The ancient orchards of the Severn Vale are fully-laden and groaning with glistening fruit. Cidermakers across the South West are bent double, soggy-kneed and with tannic-stained hands diligently picking and pressing before the fruit spoils. It is a busy time and one for which the industrious are not rewarded until months later when fermentation finishes and the cider can be poured. Now seems a good time therefore to provide some much needed respite for our cidermakers, to celebrate our local fruit and of course its most important product, cider. Our Apple and Cider Festival will be a fun evening of apple-based antics including a cider making competition, a cider blending demonstration, live music, apple-bobbing and of course a mouth-watering array of 15 authentic, traditional ciders for you to explore. In case you get a bit peckish we’ll also have bowls of warming, hearty pork and apple stew to soak up the cider. For the cider competition the rules are pretty relaxed with any styles welcome. The only stipulation is that apples must have been picked in Gloucestershire (or South Gloucestershire) and they need to be with us here at the Sally by 6pm. We’ll need roughly 4.5 litres of all entries and we’ll be putting them to the public to taste and vote on from 7pm. Our favourite local cidermaker John Barnes from Wild Cider Co will be on hand to demonstrate the art of blending ciders from 7pm onwards and we’ll have live music from local favourites the Broken Stones from 8.30pm. Apple-bobbing for the adventurous will take place around 9.15pm before we finish the evening by dancing our way into the night. Hope to see you there!

21 Oct 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….!! This weeks dish is Moroccan spiced squash and chickpea hot pot, served with crusty bread and butter.

21 Oct 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!

27 Oct 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.

31 Oct 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.

You are invited to our special Second Anniversary evening, where we shall celebrate with a selection of our finest and most popular cheeses and pairings, as voted for at our regular monthly events held over the past two years – our Top Four. We will look back at old friends and new favourites and on this special occasion, choose our ‘Sally Champion Cheese’. You will also be introduced to two new pairings specially chosen for you to celebrate this landmark – to cheese and beyond!

09 Nov 19

The Sally and Butcher’s Hook Bristol Beer Festival

The craft beer scene in Bristol has exploded. There are over twenty breweries now in Bristol and it has become one of the UK’s top beer destination cities. It is a city which we bloody love and we think we should celebrate its incredible achievements in beer. How on earth could you encapsulate such as success story in one pub though? The answer – you don’t, do it in two. That’s right, for one day only we’re celebrating the beer scene of our favourite city simultaneously in both the Sally and it’s sister pub the Butcher’s Hook in Thornbury. Do these pubs have the credentials to pull off such a feat we hear you ask? Well the Sally, the long-established, old hand has won more awards than Boris Johnson has had extra-marital affairs including winning of course National Pub of the Year. The Butcher’s Hook in Thornbury, the cheeky upstart that has in it’s first year, picked up a CAMRA National Pub Design Award, catapulted itself straight into the Good Beer Guide and become the go-to place for beer lovers of Thornbury. Between them we think they can handle it. Across the two pubs we’ll have the finest Bristol beer from the likes of Moor, Arbor, Lost and Grounded, Left Handed Giant, Bristol Beer Factory, Wiper and True, Good Chemistry, New Bristol Brewery and more. Both the Sally and the Hook will have live music and the beautiful part that brings the whole thing together – a shuttle bus running constantly between the two pubs! Return tickets for the shuttle bus (starting in either location) will be available for just a fiver and will run from 2pm until 9pm. So that’s over twenty Bristol beers, two boozers, two bands, one bus and one hell of a lot of fun. Starts at noon.

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?!?!?