The Alan Winfield Trail: New Zealand

Don’t be fooled by the title of this post as I haven’t suddenly become a globetrotter to rival Rich and Dunc.

They are often gallivanting to far flung places blowing their pensions on overpriced beer in Ukraine, Japan and China but it is the lure of the Midlands that drags me into boozers.

The greatest compliment I can pay this pub is that Alan Winfield would have loved it.  Not only is it a bona fide backstreet boozer tucked away on an estate on the edge of a city centre, near thousands of chimney pots…it  also sells fantastic beer.

I can’t think of many other big cites whereby an estate pub would have on tap top notch cask ale, but the New Zealand suburb of Derby most definitely does.

(three is more than enough – one option per punter)

Of course, in the grander scheme of things, whether cask is on or not doesn’t matter one jot as to whether or not a boozer is good, but a good pint does help.

If I walked into most of the boozers in East Brum then I would be hard pushed to find a Worthingtons Creamflow let alone nectar cask, but Derby is different.

Certainly 414 – The New Zealand Arms DE22 3GL is as it is on the corner of Langley Street in the New Zealand region of Derby, incorporating the Morley estate.

The other boozer near here is The Traveller’s Rest, which is on the main drag in from Markeaton Island and a long standing stalwart of the original Derby Mile of boozers.

I’ve covered that and other options on the Ashbourne Road here but there are thousands of houses tucked away.

You can still pick up a pad in New Zealand for less than £100,000 and there is a good community hustle and bustle with cars parked tightly, allowing you just enough room to squeeze through.

 

It’s not a big rugby playing area of Derby though and the name came about after a farm belonging to the Chandos-Pole family which formerly stood in this area of Derby.

The farm was originally named to commemorate the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, which established a British Government in New Zealand

Anyway, enough of the history, you want to hear about a backstreet boozer in Derby.  It was formerly the Dancing Duck tap house but is now back in Star Pubs stable, but still has plenty of DD livery around

(Duck on the wall)

, including funky beermats.

It’s also kept on a couple of their beers and the DCUK (Dancing Duck) was fantastic.

It had a pool table, dart board, jukebox and BT Sports along with an enormous plate of food being brought out for one of the two other punters to eat aside from me.

(should have asked for The Clash)

At 5pm on a Wednesday it was fairly quiet but the fact that people were dropping in means that there is a local client base as this is no tourist trap.

(DCUK £3.25 a pint)

If you moved this boozer to Scotland then it would be an absolute shoe in for the GBG and judging by Martin’s recent reports, it would stand a pretty good chance in Wales too.

However, it was clean, served great beer and the barman was very friendly and happy to chat.  This sort of place looks embedded in the local community and has all the things (darts, pool, juke box, sport on the box) a local needs to be good fun and a million miles away from any pizza/gastro pub.

I love a throwback boozer when it works!