Bridge Inn, Topsham, Devon

[Marco_Polo]

I've long maintained that my local pub, The Bridge Inn, is the best pub in

the world and my friends have allowed me this seemingly indulgent statement.

It's quite simply a totally unspoiled, unmodernized 14th century

inn by the banks of the tiny Clyst River.

The inn has been run by the Cheffers

family for more than a hundred years, and the present landlady, Caroline

Cheffers-Heard, keeps the place as it always has been, as her

mother Phyllis, father Norman, and her grandparents before them always did.

You won't find fruit machines or a juke box or cajun chicken here: what you

will find is quite simply the most outstanding range of cask-conditioned

ales served properly and with good cheer in a rather ramshackle and

old-fashioned Devon building. What more can you ask for in a pub?

But don't just take my word for it. The Bridge Inn has just

been acclaimed 'Beer Pub of the Year' in

the The Good Pub Guide 2005. This is a wonderful national award and I am

delighted. The beers here are so outstanding quite simply because they are

sourced and kept with immaculate care. Drawn direct from the cask (so no

taint of pipes), the beers are always at their freshest and Caroline keeps

an impressive and ever-changing range, mainly from local West Country

breweries, include Branscombe Vale, Exe Valley, Otter, O'Hanlons, Palmer's,

Moor, Teignworthy, Blackawton, and Topsham & Exminster. There are guests

beers, too, from further afield (Adnams Broadside makes a regular

appearance), and now as winter approaches, there will soon be some

dangerously potent high-gravity 'winter warmers'. No lager is available.

Says Caroline, "Our ale has always been kept in the traditional manner and

we are proud to have this recognition for the cellarkeeping skills that have

been handed down through the generations of my family in the inn."

There is always the fear that such national recognition could spoil a place,

and attract the hoardes, the hooray henrys and henriettas descending

on this quiet backwater pub to spoil our local. Well,

the Bridge was momentarily famous as the first - and only - pub ever visited by

HM the Queen and it was busier for a while. But things soon settled

back down to normal and nothing has changed since.

So here's raising a glass (mine's a Branoc) to Caroline, Rhiannon, Nigel and all at the Bridge.

It's a great place and I urge all beer lovers to make your way down this way

(but not all at once, please).

Marc