Bottle & Board – Peterborough

On the third part of our Peterborough craft beer tour, we decided to pop into ‘Bottle & Board’ on Wentworth Street. This is a place which focuses on the more Germanic and Belgium beer side of things, so technically it isn’t “craft beer’. This may upset some of the purists reading the blog but it does offer unique imported European beers you will be unlikely to find anywhere else in the city.

As this was our third stop, the photos were starting to get a little choppy but as you can tell, the pub was very basic from the outside but it did offer a seating area.

‘Beer & Board’ doesn’t look much more complete on the inside either, feeling very much like an incomplete work. It did however have a rustic charm with a barrel, numerous beer signs, and a selection of beer taps which made the room pop with colour slightly. The venue is just a single room with a couple of tables.

Looking at the bar, ‘Steigl’ is on tap from Austria’s leading brewery. This is a helles beer that I have never seen available on draught in the UK before. ‘Vedett extra blonde’ is also available, another Belgium beer aimed at the more sessionable range (5%).

‘La Chouffe’ is a Belgium pale ale served from a charming gnome beer tap. I will admit, I ordered this solely on the gnome alone. Coming in at 6% this offers a good balance between being just about sessionable (according to them!) but it’s also a high enough percentage to have a boldness to its fruity and citrus flavour. I thoroughly enjoyed this!

There was also a further selection of taps built into the wall available, offering extensions on the Stiegl, La Chouffe and Vedett range that was already available at the bar. This gives drinkers looking to explore the range further an opportunity to do so.

• ‘Kernel’ is also available, a London based brewery. Pale ale Citra.

• ‘Boon Framboise’ another sessionable Belgium fruit based (raspberry) beer.

• St Bernardus Day, a Belgium beer.

This gave Beer & Board a total of 9 beer taps.

‘Fritz Cola’ was also available for your dedicated drivers and sensible people. This is a fizzy soft drink produced in Hamburg Germany. I thought this was a refreshing change from the usual stranglehold by ‘Coca Cola’ and they do lemonade too.

The gentleman inside was very quiet and did not really engage with us much, which I thought was a shame but service was good none the less. The place was absolutely dead for a Saturday afternoon.

I enjoyed my visit and I was glad to expand my rudimentary knowledge with Belgium beer. I could see myself coming here again, as I do enjoy exploring European beers, but I feel that unless you are very much into this particular type of thing then it may be a place you may only want to visit once. I wish them all the best as I think they are an important and unique link in a rich Peterborough beer scene.

Thanks for reading.