In the first of a new, occasional series, Paul Simon, nominates The Steamboat Tavern as his candidate for The Best Pub in Ipswich
They rather seem all the rage now, but I hate ‘love letters’ to this or to that building.
Such outpourings are usually smeared with a blasphemous adoration for crinkle crankle brickwork or pargetting or something that the architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner would have querulously picked out.
All at the expense of the messy and very animated humanity who actually created, lived in and sustained the inanimate.
Rather, this is an article of solidarity with and appreciation for The Steamboat Tavern.
Quite simply, it is Ipswich’s, if not Suffolk’s, finest pub.
By which I mean, it is not some bijoux adjunct to a incomers’ must-have view of a rural idyll. Neither is it one of those pumped up, production line entities that draw in wide-eyed identikit young people and which require the wary and weary protections of the HM Prison service’s finest ex-alumnae.
In so many ways, this place shouldn’t exist. Or rather it should have closed yonks ago as the forces that gave rise to its mid-Victorian relevance – manufacturing and damnable hard-work more generally – have been frittered away to China or Vietnam.
It is hedged in by rough land owned by some distant, doubtless Sauron-esque, property developer, overlooked by the once-again fading splendour of Felaw Maltings and perfumed by the occasional stench and belch of the River Orwell.
It’s mere rude existence, though, is a double-fingered salute against a skyline of glitzy, saccharine and neon inauthenticity on the posh side of the waterfront. And unlike its cozy and determinedly upmarket cousins around the hereditament of Christchurch Park, the Steamboat Tavern is totally classless. And that’s a good thing.
It certainly draws in some folks who live proximate to the place, including the denizens of the nearby houseboats: a raffish and bohemian lot. But crucially, it is the local for many more from miles away who either walk, take the bus or scoot on their mopeds like pilgrims to this shrine of the real.
For all that you need to bring with you as you gaze passed its monochromatic and deliberately understated exterior, is: your true self. Dress up if you want to. Or don’t dress up if you want to. Even cross dress if you want to.
Like the world of the now largely-neglected Jewish writer Gerald Kersh, the Steamboat is a self-selecting republic of the aged and the youthful, the buffed and the spindly, the sufferable and the insufferable and the innocent and the guilty.
It is one of the few places where bikers, goths, rastas, good ol’ Suffolk boys, Town fans, one Edward Sheeran Esq now and then and shining paragons of the whitest virtues such as your correspondent come together and get on – or ignore each other quite happily.
The Steamboat, crepuscular especially during the winter, allows the introspective and the nervous to blend into conspiratorial corners. Yet, it also permits the confident, the vocal and the downright gobby to express their opinions – but always in a way that is humorous and respectful of others.
It is a self-regulating community of drinkers, not quitters.
Some of the most wonderfully bonkers conversations (aka arguments) I’ve ever witnessed have happened here. As have some of the most moving.
The pantheon of staff is Olympian in its range, including the mighty ‘Duchess’: all of them under the benign gaze of Andy, the owner.
Of course, it offers rivers of real ales, ciders and a spirits cabinet with so many coloured bottles it looks like an old-school apothecary. So, folks it’s the folks that make it the best there is. If you visit for the first time, promise me that you won’t ruin it. All it needs is the honest you.
Do you have a favourite pub? Write to liz.nice@newsquest.co.uk with a photo of you at your favourite pub and tell me why you think it's the best
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