Brook House Blog

Changing Scenes

2009-11-02T01:25:00.000-08:00

Finally I have got round to updating my photo gallery, adding some more pictures and redesigning the web pages. I have even put them on their own site at www.gareththornleyphotography.co.uk. Bit of a mouthful that address but it does what it says on the tin so to speak!
Back at Brook House more changes are afoot, with Sarah, Shaun and the boys moving out of the carpark kennels and into a house in the village. This will give the boys a bit of space to grow up in and they should sleep better when not being disturbed by cars leaving the carpark late at night!
Lots of winter jobs to be done this year, not least of which may be a new kitchen floor, if this goes ahead we will probably be closed for the best part of a week in January.

We have had a pretty hectic season, especially through September which was the busiest one yet. So I would like to say thank you for supporting us through the year and if you have stayed in this country instead of going abroard, well done, give yourself a pat on the back and please come again next year! I know it can be a bit wet sometimes and you might not get an all over tan, but that is what makes it our green and pleasant land.

Whilst I am giving thanks it would be completely unjust not to praise our wonderful staff, we have a great bunch working for us here, always ready with a smile when serving customers, and grafting hard in the kitchen to turn out so much good food, thank you one and all.

Rain, rain go away

2009-08-28T09:10:00.000-07:00

So I have just looked back at last August and I see that this wet weather is becoming a bit of a trend, so, fingers crossed it should stop raining in about a weeks time!
I am pleased to report that the Great British public have not been put off by the inclement weather and this summer has been just about as busy as last, with the campsites packed for most of the holidays.
Owain and I once again managed a descent of the Esk in our "raft" which proved most entertaining especially to those watching from the banks of the river. The water level was higher than any previous trips and we came close to being flipped on several occasions! The water was moving so fast it was difficult to find places to stop and empty the raft, we did not hit any rocks on the way down but did have to fend off plenty of trees!

We have had 6 or 7 beers on for most of the summer with the beers from Loweswater brewery finding a place on the bar quite frequently, Loweswater Gold and LPA being most popular, but I am looking forward to trying some of their dark one which we should have on soon.

As Easter was my last post I should mention what a great success the beer festival was, we had over 40 beers on just at Brook House and not much left by Monday morning! Next year is the 10th Boot Beer Festival, it would be nice to mark it with something special, but I will be happy with the same warm weather and great customers which attended this years festival.
The beer of the festival was chosen by 2 stalwarts of the festival circuit from Preston who judged Rudgate Brewery Revel to be best.

The Roosters (great local band) played at the Festival this year and went down a treat, so we have provisionally booked them to come back in early November when we shall have a curry night with music and maybe a few extra beers (but not a winter ale festival!)

Dates will follow soon, as will Christmas and New Years Eve menus. Quiz nights are every other sunday, next one on the 6th September. Mid week breaks are available from 1st Nov please see here for details

Happy Easter

2009-04-11T07:02:00.000-07:00

Hi All,
Brook House Inn currently, as in Easter Saturday, has 6 real ales brewed in Cumbria, available on handpull. This is probably a record for us, but also shows that the standard and availability of locally produced beers has improved tremendously in the last ten years. When we took over in 1998 the bar had 2 handpulls (theakstons best and Xp) and 2 of those creamflow things, now gone.
In these times of ressesion we would like to think that we are helping the local economy by supporting local brewers, and thanks go to the brewers who price their beers keenly, so we are able to offer our session bitter at £2.10 a pint, only 30p more than it was 10 years ago!

Boot Beer Festival dates are 4th-7th June 2009
If you would like to see a specific beer at the festival please let me know and I will see if we can source it.

2009-02-03T11:39:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year
A bit late I know, but I have been busy painting, replacing ceilings and doing other winter type jobs around the place. Even so I have got out caving, diving and even walking on the fells a few times! So for anyone who has not been able to get out in some snow here is the magic of Upper Eskdale, as seen today.

Last Blog of the Year

2008-12-22T08:24:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas Everyone, (or to both of you, as I only know 2 people that read this blog!)

This year we celebrated our 10th anniversary at Brook House Inn, we are all still working hard. I am pleased to say that we are in the 2009 Camra Good Beer Guide, 8 years out 10 – not bad going. In June we had our eighth Boot Beer Festival and the busiest yet, with over 40 beers just at Brook House Inn.

Ten years here also means that Emma is 10 years old, how time flies! She moves up to big school next year so we have had to choose which one. We picked Millom in the end because it‘s teachers seemed friendlier and more animated, it is slightly further away but they finish at 3pm so Emma will be back by about 4pm.

After spending May and June with a bad back, I have had quite an active year. Emma learnt to ride her mountain bike so we have been going on little rides up and down the valley. Ben, one of my diving buddies is also a canoeist so I have had my boat out a couple of times, down the river and on the sea at St Bees, and as of December I have taken up caving!

Sarah and Shaun's two boys are growing up fast, both are now in school which gives Sarah a bit of piece and a little more time to work without the help of Ben and Jacob! They both have bikes so with the help of Emma have spent most of the summer tearing round the car park and trying to drag us all out on bike rides, but Jacob is only 4 years old so that is a little scary on our narrow roads. Jacob loves to climb things and has just discovered the stone wall in the passageway - I think he needs a "no fear" tshirt for Christmas and I wish I had his strength to body weight ratio. Ben is a bit more sensible but likes to get his own way so there is plenty of arbitration to do between him and Emma. When it was not raining in summer, we spent time down by the river, I am glad to say that all 3 kids can now swim, but Jacob is not too keen on the cold water!

At the end of last year I was allowed away on my own so I jetted of to Florida to complete a cave diving course, after a week training and lots of diving I passed the course to become a certified cave diver. So from now on our family holidays will revolve around not only places where I can dive but also with caves to dive in! I have had a good year with some great dives, especially in Mexico at the beginning of the year, the cenotes and caves are truly amazing, incredibly peaceful in water so clear I imagine it's like floating in space with white stalactites like a thousand knitting needles suspended from the ceiling and the floor a bed of shining calcite crystals. Emma and Lesley really enjoyed Mexico too, we went to see Chichen Itza, now rightly one of the seven wonders of the world.

In Summer Lesley, Emma and I escaped for a week to Roccamadhour, in France, I met up with a cave diving buddy who brought my kit down in his car so I managed a few cave dives. We had a day canoeing on the Dordogne which Emma liked a lot. I will have to buy her a life jacket soon so she can come rafting down the Esk with me!

In November Lesley and Emma fancied going to Egypt where we have been before but only so I could dive, this time it was to be educational - to see Cairo, The Pyramids, Luxor and the Valley of the Kings, on a 2 day whistle stop tour.

The Temple at Karnack is immense, the workmanship is stunning, and some of the paintings are still clear and colourful on the walls, 4000 years on, we have to get our building painted every 5 years or so, they were damned clever those Egyptians! and the river Nile is pretty impressive too. After the tour we spent a few days on the coast near Marsa Alam and you guessed it I did a spot of diving, all very pleasant, no proper caves though. But I had forgotten just how reliant on the guide, holiday only divers are- no watches, no depth gauges that worked, it was only after 3 people had asked “what depth did we reach?” when I realised I was the only diver apart from the guide with a dive computer! We went through some lovely coral “caves” on the way through the reef and saw lots of Turtles. and a shark.

Although I do not get out onto the fells as much as I should, Owain and I did manage to climb Harter Fell in the snow last week, which brought back fond memories of winter holidays in Scotland. This was Owain's first trip out in the snow, we even managed to play with the ice axes and some frozen turf! Shame the weather has turned wet again.

Mum and Dad are now back from their trip of a lifetime down to New Zealand, with lots of tales to tell of scary aeroplane rides and beautiful mountains.

Well it is nearly Christmas eve so there I will end, is has been a good year for us all.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Gareth and all the gang at Brook House Inn

New Years Eve Menu

2008-11-26T10:00:00.000-08:00

New Years Eve Dinner 2008

As of today we still have some tables available. Please note that you must pre-order, preferably prior to Christmas. The menu and a selector sheet can be downloaded from our events section on the website

Appetizer
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Poached asparagus with fried quails egg and minted hollandaise
Chicken, chive and pancetta ballotine with basil vinaigrette and roasted plum tomato
Smoked eel with wasabi potato cake and caper relish
Braised hock of ham timbale with homemade piccalilli and caraway crisp bread
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Melon and ginger sorbet
Scallop soup
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Fillet of brill with a lobster tail spring roll, tarragon and fennel sauce and saffron rice
Cumbrian salt marsh lamb with mutton & oyster sausage, lightly pickled vegetables and a smoked garlic and rosemary sauce
Wild mushroom and barley risotto, blue brie fondue and red pepper bread
Baked fillet of local beef with confit of braised oxtail, winter vegetable puree and fondant potatoes
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Warm dark chocolate fondant with liquid toffee centre and Baileys cream
Vanilla pannacotta with passion fruit coulis, and jewelled wine jellies
Clementine and pomegranate syllabub with chocolate shortbread
Hazelnut and raspberry roulade with laphroaig & honey cream
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Cumbrian cheese board
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Champagne at midnight
Please arrive 7 for 7.30pm
£47.50 per person

Summer is over

2008-09-21T08:56:00.000-07:00

Thank goodness for that, summer comes to an end and the rain has stopped! I do not know if this was our wettest summer but it has rained a lot, I even managed to get my kayak out for a trip down the river!

September is my favourite month of the year, I like the changing points of the seasons, and love the still, cool mornings when I get up to cook breakfast and the dew is thick on the fields, with mist hanging over the beck.
September is always a busy month for us, but this year the weekends have been exceptional, our real ale sales are well up and we have had some very dedicated malt whisky drinkers!
Hawkshead Bitter and Tim Taylors Landlord remain our best sellers but we have had some great guests from Yates, Cumbria Legendary Ales, Barngates and many other breweries.
Eskdale show is on the 27th of this month and is now all set to go ahead, a dry spell now should see the field in good condition, it is always a great event and was sadly missed last year due to a F&M scare. So if you get the chance pop down to the field by the King George, there will be lots of events, from fell running to carrot judging, stalls selling all kinds of practical out door gear, locally produced food and handicrafts.

Oh yes and a beer tent!

Boot Beer Festival

2008-06-22T08:43:00.000-07:00

I would like to start with a big THANKYOU to all those that attended the beer festival, we had a great time. The Roosters playing live on the Thursday night set the tone for the weekend which was very busy but we managed to keep the beer flowing and even had a few still on the bar on Sunday!
We were once again blessed with good weather which really does help so thanks for that!

We are now getting some much needed rain, 6 dry weeks were making the place look a little dry- (I was going to say like Spain in summer but that just would not have been true) Everything looks really green now through the mist and the Esk looks like a river instead of a series of puddles.

Next Sunday we have been at Brook House Inn for 10 years so I think there may be a bit of a celebration! and a special quiz from Lesley.

Sunshine, Beer and more Beer

2008-05-16T05:27:00.000-07:00

A little bit of sunshine really does make the world a better place, I am not sure if it is because spring has finally arrived and the landscape has turned green, or maybe, as we are busier there is less time to think about events in the wider world - ie outside Eskdale! Anyway me and the rest of the gang up here are happily getting on with preperations for events such as the Boot Beer Festival, which kicks off on the 5th of June at Brook House with our curry night and also excellent local band THE ROOSTERS will be playing from about 9pm.

This year we will have over 30 real ales over the weekend on 11 handpulls with at least another 45 at the other 2 pubs. Hollins campsite is fully booked but Fisherground just a mile or so down the road and Parkgate Farm (3 miles) still have availability. see http://www.eskdale.info/ for more accommodation

So cheers to a happy sunny summer

Thanks to Homer for reminding me to post a blog this month.

April Already!

2008-04-13T11:35:00.000-07:00

I was in all honesty going to try and post ever month at least but at this rate I might just make 4 a year.

Easter came and went with a few flurries of snow but not the drifts and travel disrupting weather that was forecast. Over doing the severity level of the weather forecast is becoming more common. I often use metcheck and have noticed this year there seems to be many more severe weather warnings, even if it is just going to rain. Yesterday I was reading an old publication called "Preview of Lakeland" Which had an article on the great frosts of 1895, 1907, 1929 and 1959, during these winters the cold lasted long enough to freeze Windermere for several weeks.
This brought tourists from all over the North West to see the spectacle. I guess that the government of the day did not issue warnings not to travel and as many came by train they must have been able to deal with ice on the lines!

Windermere became a massive skating rink with all sorts of events including cars driven on the ice, ice dancing, races and fires lit for parties. This sort of behaviour would not be allowed today, a police cordon would be set up around all frozen water to keep us off and millions would be spent advertising the danger. Maybe this over-protection is not a bad thing, walking on thin ice can be very very dangerous but we all used to have common sense to tell us what was dangerous, in future generations this will have been eradicated and this country will have lost its spirit of adventure.

Rant 1 over.

I had a lovely walk up to Cam Spout on Tuesday last, I had hoped there would be some snow in the gullies onto Long Green but alas it had all melted away by 10am. There was still some on the tops but by then my boots last worn in 2005 had caused some blisters, so I put my slippers on and walked back home. Took a few nice piccies though.

The Beer Festival is fast approaching and it is time to think about our beer list, unfortunately the Government has struck again and increased beer duty etc so this year I am going to look for good value beers to have on during the festival. Hawkshead bitter is still on sale at £2.10 but Tim Taylors Landlord has now gone to £2.70

The general pub going public are once more being chastised for on the whole doing nothing wrong. The press coin the phrase "Binge Britain" and the government jump aboard like a child onto a roller coaster and up go the taxes on alcohol. I am just a layman and have no fictitious statistics to back my ideas but it does not take a great leap of faith to connect cheap beer with drunken behaviour and where sells the cheapest beer? supermarkets of course. So has the Government tackled the consumers heroes, our benevolent givers of cheap milk and alcohol, or is the beer in your local shopping giant still cheaper than bottled water? still cheap I would guess.

The Pub is a highly regulated place to drink where rules are adhered to, as demonstated by last years high profile campaign against landlords selling alcohol to drunken customers - only a handful of convictions from the 30 or more police forces involved. Quite rightly you can do pretty much what you please in your own home, but it is cheap alcohol which fuels binge drinking. Responsible publicans sell beer etc at a reasonable price to make a living, supermarkets sell beer at below cost price to entice customers into the shop.

Supermarkets make our hectic lives easier, there is no doubt about this but once upon a time everyone had a milkman, a village shop, a local baker and a local pub.

We are very lucky in Eskdale because spring, summer and autumn is full of holiday makers so business is good, but I feel sorry for the village and town pubs who I am sure feel they are bearing the brunt of the governments whims from smoking bans to taxes and I wont even go into the new rules and regulations which seem to appear nearly ever day!

Rant 2 over

What we want is a little sunshine and a breath of warm spring air.

Lo0king forward to 2008

2008-01-14T15:05:00.000-08:00

Another year gone! Hard to believe this is our tenth year at Brook House Inn, sounds like a good excuse for a party, but thats not until the end of June. Working backwards from then, we have the Beer Festival from the 5th to the 8th of June. A whisky tasting in May if we get enough interest, please see the whisky page on our site. Easter is early this year so maybe the fells will still have a little winter dressing, always a pretty sight and as the nights get lighter some longer walks can be planned. February half should see an improvement in the weather (well it can`t get any worse, feels like it has been raining for months)

All Our websites are undergoing a little remedial work at the moment so please be patient and don`t get too upset if links take you to unexpected places.

Happy New Year to all

Gareth

Photos of Eskdale For Christmas

2007-11-15T02:18:00.000-08:00

ONLINE SHOP

I have set up an online shop to sell my Photographs, if prints are ordered before 8th December they should be despatched in time for Christmas (assuming a normal postal service).

New Years Eve Dinner 2007

The New Years Eve Menu is now available, we have some tables but probably not for long.

Appetizer

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Carpaccio of Venison on crostini with horseradish and parsnip crisps

Trio of smoked fish with a dill and cucumber relish

and chilli hollandaise

Cambazola and avocado with vine tomato and roasted red pepper salsa

Crab ravioli in a seafood broth

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Wild mushroom soup

Tequila and lime sorbet

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Saddleback pork loin cooked under a sheet of belly pork, served on chive mash with a Bramley apple tart and calvados sauce

Fell bred lamb braised slowly with damsons and brandy

Poached fillet of seabass with halibut and scallop mousse served with a coral sauce, asparagus and duchess potatoes

Baked aubergine and fennel gratin with Gruyere cheese, smoked garlic and red pepper sauce

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Chocolate and ginger Pudding with crème anglaise

Cardamom pannacotta with poached pear in quince syrup

Cold soufflé of raspberries and blackcurrants

Baked vanilla cheesecake with blueberry compote

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Cumbrian cheese board

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Champagne at midnight

Please arrive 7 for 7.30pm

£45 per person

Changing Seasons

2007-10-29T01:35:00.000-07:00

I like the start of every new season but especially autumn with its cold crisp mornings. When the fields are lightly dusted with frost and the mist hangs around the trees and deep hollows in the valleys. We have had a week or two of good weather this month, even the half term holiday escaped with only a couple of showers, visitors have enjoyed the special quality of light, and even I have managed to escape the kitchen to take a few photos.View from room 6

So now our quieter season begins.
The fires get lit, the roads are quiet, we drop down to only 3 or 4 real ales, but we now have over 150 malt whiskies to choose from and an updated wine list on the way.
So if you fancy a break in Eskdale now is a great time, we are still busy most weekends but have availability through the week.

2007-08-29T13:50:00.000-07:00

We have 3 rooms available for Friday 31st Aug and Saturday 1st Sept, if interested please ring 019467 23288

2007-08-22T14:39:00.000-07:00

Well summer is nearly over and has not yet arrived! although we had a lovely week for the beer festival in June, since then I do not think we have had 2 nice days in a row.

It has been good walking weather and lots of visitors have enjoyed this more temparate summer. The Esk has warmed up a little and the brave or daft have been swimming, me included!

We have had lots of new beers on over the summer but the best seller has been Hawkshead Bitter, still at £2 a pint, very popular with locals and visitors alike.

Many weekends are booked up through the autumn but there are a few rooms left on some and also during the week.

We will be closed on Christmas day this year but are open again on Boxing day. There is one room left for our new Year package and plenty of tables available for our New Years Eve banquet, the menu for which should be available soon.

Brook House Inn's first Blog Posting

2007-06-15T15:09:00.000-07:00

This is the very first post from Brook House Inn,
new technology is catching up with us even up here in the Lakes!
Hopefully we will keep this updated with relevant news and events throughout the year.

Through April and May (and into June) we have had scaffolding around the building for some much needed maintenance and painting. The day before the Beer Festival the scaffold was finally removed and the work completed (almost).
The Boot Beer Festival was a great event, even busier and better than 2006, with at least 100 real ales available over the weekend. Next years festival dates are 5th-8th June 2008 and more information will be availble on www.bootbeer.co.uk.
We now have Hawkshead Bitter Timothy Taylors Landlord and Jenning Cumberland on permenantly along side a beer from yates and other guests.
Sunday June 17th is quiz night.