Raising the Bar
We meet Jeff, the landlord of the Ypres Castle Inn, for a chinwag in the pub’s beer garden. It’s a sunny yet chilly morning. Perched above South Undercliff, we can look out across the Rivers Brede and Rother, with open fields and the Little Cheyne Court Wind Farm off in the distance.
Jeff Bell, Landlord, Ypres Castle Inn, Gungarden TN31 7HH.
How did you get from where you grew up to being here today?
Jeff. I’m from South Shields on the North East coast. I moved south for university, then to London where I was a city lawyer. At the age of 30 I decided that I wasn’t going to do that forever, and bought my first pub in Clerkenwell, The Gunmakers. I liked to escape London, so I’d get on the train and make my way to destinations in Sussex: Hassocks, Lewes, Brighton. One day in 2013, I challenged myself to walk as far as I could, tackling the entire 1066 Country Walk from Pevensey Castle to Rye. This walk is supposed to be about 30 miles so I thought to myself, I can do that! It ended up being 35 miles but I still did it in a day. I turned my ankle somewhere around Westfield, but managed to walk through it. Finally, I arrived in Rye, got to Dumb Woman’s Lane, (how they giggle!), after taking a photo of it, I ran along West Undercliff simply because I was so sick of walking. I’d looked in the Camra Good Beer Guide and decided, as a beer head, that the Ypres was the place to visit. I walked into the pub, looked at the garden, and was very impressed. Of course, I ordered a pint and when that was delivered I asked the bartender, could I have a glass of water as well, please? By the time she turned around with that pint of iced water, I’d already drunk the pint of ale, so said, give us another one, please? It was a weekday afternoon. The place was quiet and I thought, this is great, I want to come back here, I like the look of Rye. That was my first visit.
After that, I thought I’d like to get a pub in Sussex and move down there. I had a dream list of pubs, and the Ypres was on it. Fast forward four years, and I’m living in Italy, having a year out after selling my London pub leases. I was ready to buy that dream Sussex pub. There were others I looked at, but the Ypres Castle Inn came on the market, so I made an offer and bought it. There was no doubt I wanted a pub to be in a Sussex town where stuff was happening, connected by rail, and with opportunities for hiking. Here in Rye, the opportunities for different landscapes are amazing. You can experience a totally different outlook, all in an hour. People ask me are there any short walks around here? Absolutely there are, you can head off in every direction, up the hill, along the rivers and by the coast.
“Rye is nothing like any other place in Sussex, culturally it has got more going on than towns four times its size.”
What did you do before you became a landlord?
Jeff. I studied law in Oxford, then I did the legal practice course at BPP University in London. For the rest of my 20’s, I was a lawyer in London, with one year in Prague (that was where I really fell in love with beer, as it happens). I specialised in leveraged finance. It was alright, but it was not for life, and I’d had enough of it by the age of 30. I knew I wanted to be in hospitality. I’d started writing about beer for newspapers and magazines, then from 2007 I wrote a blog that was quite successful, it still exists - stonch.blogspot.com - I still occasionally do something on it, just to keep my hand in. I got to know a lot of people and felt that I could make the move to being a pub landlord. So at the age of 30, I bought a pub lease, The Gunmakers. I ran it for six years and it was great - it got me into the life. The time came when it was difficult to take that business forward, I didn’t own the place and I was tied to Punch Taverns, a pubs company. I had some freedom of choosing my beers, but not enough. As someone who is focused on a quality product it was a drag on my ambition. I wanted to own a pub; somewhere that was going to be my home, that I would love living in. Rye and the Ypres ticked all the boxes, so it was only ever going to be this place if the truth be known.
How was it opening up the Ypres as the new landlord?
Jeff. I opened the door straight away to get a feel for things, just for two months leading up to Christmas. Then I closed the pub and entirely refurbed in January, with the assistance of an old friend. Simon used to work for me in my London pub. We returned the interior from something very modern to a more traditional feel in keeping with the building in terms of materials, furniture and colour scheme. We wanted to allow the natural features of this old weatherboarded building with its ancient wood frame to stand out, rather than be obscured. Dare I say, we transformed the place. Simon’s friend’s wife, an interior designer, basically plotted it out for us; it was deliberately very simple.
Recently we took the weatherboarding off and replaced a lot of it, which you have to do periodically with these buildings. Now we’ve seen all the original wooden frame hidden inside, you get to see how it’s been treated over the years little insights like that are important. The actual wooden frame sections in the middle of this pub are hundreds of years old!
What are your thoughts about pubs and food?
Jeff. My focus is absolutely on quality drinks. I want the food to follow from that, organically. At the end of Summer, I will reintroduce a food offer that matches the drinks we serve. It won’t be an identikit pub-grub or indeed gastropub menu. We have Moons Green Charcuterie near us, one of the best charcuterie places in the country. There are great cheeses around here too, one of the Borough Market cheese stores is also quite close, so their Sussex and Kent cheeses will feature. In Rye we have sourdough bread from The Lazy Baker, which is very good indeed. We’re going to focus on these local producers. Plus tins of Sardines, Spanish olives and things like that. It’s going to be that sort of thing and you order from a list and you enjoy it with the natural wine, a craft beer or a real cider. It is not going to be pies, burgers, fish and chips . . . because it isn’t me. Fortunately, the Ypres is not the only pub in town, there are lots of other pubs offering that menu.
A lot of the drinks are local, but also I get stuff from further afield, otherwise you end up with all the pubs having the same. I have got connections to craft breweries around this country and indeed in other parts of Europe. Ultimately too much of a focus on everything local is nice for tourists, but locals living here all the time will want some variety.
Have you seen much of a change in Rye, since you got here?
Jeff. I have; existing businesses are changing, new things are starting, which is great. The changes reflect the composition of the town today. The population has changed a little, from some people who perhaps were second homeowners deciding to make Rye their first home. Faces that weren’t around as often that I recognised, before they were here on weekends only, are here all the time. People have committed to living in Rye full time and I welcome that.
What do you think makes a pub great today?
Jeff. You can’t please everybody, particularly not with exceptionally high standards in certain things. I think that there is room for places that have a speciality and the passion that goes with that. In my case, that speciality is craft beer with a bit of natural wine and real ciders, and that is what the Ypres is focused on now. The food will follow from that. If you’ve got those things; a lovely interior, an open fire, nice low-level music in the background, in this setting, what more do you want? Friends to join you maybe? Or you can come on your own, sit and read a book, relax in a calm environment. That kind of comfort can be undervalued in pubs. Pubs should be places you come to relax to rest, to be thankful, not necessarily places that are party venues or venues for anything else. Relaxation, conversation, contemplation, enjoying those quiet moments; that is what I want the Ypres to be. It’s almost like when I sanded down the tables to take away layers of varnish, I am doing that with a lot of the unnecessary things that have accrued to the business.
“If you look back at what pubs were before, over recent decades, they didn’t try and do everything. They were simple, homely houses. And that’s what I want this to be.”
I’m sending a very clear signal. The Ypres is for people who want somewhere that is relaxing and serves amazing drinks. By amazing drinks, I don’t mean the brands that the multinationals want us to sell. The best drinks are not the premium and super-premium brands; quite the reverse. I prefer things from artisans; producers that I believe in, that have a story, where I met the people who make and sell it. That matters to me because my business has an individual character and theirs do too. They marry up like that, and I honestly feel that is enough. I appreciate for some people that it isn’t what they want, and that’s fine. What’s wonderful about Rye is they’ll find what they are looking for elsewhere: there’s something for each and every one of them.
Being an independent pub sounds very important to you?
Jeff. Completely, I own the freehold and it was independent beforehand too. It has been for years. I believe that the last time the Ypres wasn’t independent it was a Whitbread pub, back in the day. Then a couple - still spoken about fondly by customers, and coincidentally the grandparents of a friend I know from London - Dick and Barbara Pearce, made the pub a freehouse. It hasn’t been part of a chain or tied to a brewery since.
John Ryan, the creator of the Captain Pugwash books and animated series, lived in Rye. He drew Pugwash drinking outside the Ypres. It has the same sign, but instead of saying free house, it says ‘Dick and Babs’!
At this point, Jeff’s first thirsty looking customers appeared at the garden gate, so we said our farewells, but not for long.
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From Jeff’s Black Book:
Brewing Brothers at the Imperial Hastings TN34 1RL. brewingbrothers.org
Eel & Bear 28 Waldegrave Street, Hastings TN34 1SJ. eelandbear.com
Moons Green Charcuterie Owley Farm, Acton Lane, Tenterden TN30 7HL. moonsgreen.co.uk
The Lazy Bakery Whitehouse, 24 High Street TN31 7JF. lazybakery.co.uk
The Three Legs Brewing Company Unit 1/Burnt House Farm Udimore Road, Brede TN31 6BX. thethreelegs.co.uk
Tillingham Dew Farm, Dew Lane TN31 6XD. tillingham.com
