Next on our tour was the Norfolk Bottle Shop, located near to Wells-next-the-Sea and pretty much in the middle of nowhere. It’s great if you want to get away from it all, but as someone who likes “all”, it’s not my natural habitat. My first concern as we were driving into a farm was that I wouldn’t have a mobile signal for Untappd, but, fortunately, it transpired it was better than the signal that I get in Norwich.
There were plenty of bottles available from a range of different breweries.
I don’t like differential pricing like this, I’d rather half a pint was half the price of a full pint. If it had been, I would have tried halves of two different beers. Anyway, I don’t want to sound like a CAMRA obsessive with this and so I won’t digress far as otherwise this is exactly the sort of minor pricing issue that can occupy me for considerably longer than would be considered healthy by most normal people. There were four beers from the Malt Coast Brewery and this is effectively their taproom, with the service being friendly and welcoming.
I went for half a pint of the Malt Coast IPA and it was piney and bitter, although I’m not sure that it was entirely well rounded. Incidentally, my drink was considerably over-poured so I was surprised and delighted.
The indoors seating areas and there is an apology for the swallows’ nest which has meant that the table area isn’t the cleanest. But, it was the middle of summer, very few people would have been opting to sit inside. Well, I would, but that’s a different matter. Anyway, the squatters seemed quite happy with their nest and this is their natural habitat, so I can’t begrudge them that.
There are six glamping tents on the site and there’s pizza available during the summer weekends. The pizzas that were being served looked rather delicious, but it was still early on in the day although I was a little tempted.
It was an interesting location and I hadn’t heard of it, but Roy seems to have heard of most drinking places, whether they are obscure or not, in Norfolk so that’s always useful. I was pleased to find a shady spot outside in the beer garden, the team member was friendly and there were lots of beers to drink in or takeaway. They’re also proud of their locally grown barley, so it ticks all the local sourcing boxes which is rather lovely.