Join us on Saturday 24th January 2015 for a Traditional Four Course Dinner, Traditional Burns Toasts & Speeches and a Northumbrian Piper.

£25 per person

North Tynedale, in which Wark is located, was part of Scotland until 1296. Robbie Burns visited Hexham on his tour of the Borders in May 1787. Burns Night celebrates the anniversary of Burns’ birth. Burns’ Address To the Haggis was his first poem to appear in a newspaper (in December 1786).

Stay Overnight Worry about the drive home tomorrow. Dinner, Bed & Breakfast for just £160 per couple

Sorry we are now Fully Booked

Come and join us to celebrate the 4th Battlesteads Beer Festival!

The festival doors swing open at 4pm until 11pm on Friday 25th July, Saturday 26th July 12 noon until 11pm, and Sunday 27th July 12 noon until the beer runs out!

Bands to include:

25th July PM - Happy Cats

26th July AM The Mudskippers

26th July PM Alive and Kicking

Tickets: £4 per person including commemorative glass and programme (CAMRA members £3)

For accommodation please email us or call 01434 230209 asking for Katie for further details.

Barrel and Programme sponsorship packages are available, please email for further details.

Join us on Saturday 25th January 2014 for a Traditional Four Course Dinner, Traditional Burns Toasts & Speeches and a Northumbrian Piper.

See the full menu here.

Only £25 per person.

Worry about the drive home tomorrow.
Dinner, Bed & Breakfast for just £150 per couple.

They say that two’s company and three’s a crowd, well a crowd is exactly what’s expected at the third annual Battlesteads Beer Fest, taking place Friday 26th to Sunday 28th July at the popular pub, hotel and restaurant in Wark, near Hexham.

Battlesteads owner Richard Slade said: “The Beer Fest has been getting busier every year so we’re expecting a great turnout. We’re dusting off the marquee, racking up the beers and striking up the band in readiness. We’re just praying for the sun to shine now!”

Now a permanent fixture in the Northumberland events calendar, the Beer Fest draws lovers of beer and live music – as well as a loyal Battlesteads fan base – from as far away as Manchester.

As usual, there will be live music and hot and cold food from the highly renowned Battlesteads kitchen available throughout the weekend. As an added attraction this year, the team at Battlesteads have worked with Claire Watson-Laney of Northumberland Sausage Company, which is also based in Wark, to produce some exclusive new sausages in time for the festival. Brave visitors can try The Raging Norris, the hottest sausage in the world, but Claire also promises a few exotic delights to appease a variety of appetites and palettes.

The beer, lager and cider list runs to 19 this year with the usual local breweries supported as well as a smattering of international guest brews. Visitors to the event will help to raise funds for the Great North Air Ambulance, which also benefited from £500 raised at the 2011 inaugural Beer Fest. Accommodation packages are available for anyone wishing to make the most of the whole weekend.

The fun starts at 4pm on Friday 26th July and carries on until the beer runs out on Sunday 28th July. Tickets cost just £4 including programme and commemorative glass. CAMRA members can purchase discounted tickets for £3. The music line up is:

• Friday night – The Happycats
• Saturday afternoon – The Katy Freeway
• Saturday night – Little Stevie and The Business

For further information and tickets, call Battlesteads on 01434 230 209, email info@battlesteads.com or visit www.battlesteadsbeerfestival.co.uk 

In honour of British Sausage Week (5th – 11th Nov), Battlesteads Hotel and Restaurant in Wark, near Hexham, has expanded its menu and is offering customers The Great Battlesteads Banger – a specially created recipe of leek, real lager and pork.

The team at Battlesteads set a challenge to Wark-based Northumberland Sausage Company to create ‘The Great Battlesteads Banger’ by providing home-grown leeks from the hotel’s kitchen garden, together with a supply of new cask conditioned Adder Lager from Allendale Brewery. Claire Watson-Laney of The Northumberland Sausage Company is well versed in developing surprising sausage flavours, such as barbecued mealworms and llama and lavender; making the Battlesteads banger relatively straight-forward by comparison!

Claire and her butchers used their speciality sausage-making skills to perfect the balance of leek and real lager together with their own secret seasoning for the new sausage. The Great Battlesteads Banger will be served nestled on a bed of bubble and squeak with steamed kale from our gardens and could be washed down with a pint of Adder Lager – a perfect celebration of the great British sausage.

Battlesteads owner Richard Slade said: “The Great Battlesteads Banger is already proving popular in pre-tasting sessions; the balance of leek, real lager and pork is just right – and because all the produce was grown and sourced locally, it tastes even better! Battlesteads is renowned for its locally-sourced produce and, with our two onsite polytunnels, it’s easy for us to offer plentiful fresh, seasonal vegetables all year round.”

Battlesteads will be serving up the leek and real lager banger on the specials menu priced at £8.95 as part of British Sausage Week.

Sausage Statistics

• During the year to July 2012 the UK ate 196,152 tonnes of sausages, spending £707 million. The banger is the nation’s favourite meat‐based dinner.
• The most popular flavour of sausage is the plain pork sausage, which accounts for 43 per cent of sales, followed by Irish (17 per cent) and Cumberland (13 per cent).
• Sausages were nicknamed bangers during the Second World War.  Their high water content due to the scarcity of other ingredients meant that they were liable to explode when cooked as the water turned to steam.
• Sausages are even older than ancient Greece or Rome ‐ the Sumerians (modern day Iraq) made sausages 5,000 years ago.
• It is believed that sausages were brought to Britain by the Romans some time before 400 AD. Since then various English counties have each had their own way of flavouring their local sausage – e.g. Lincolnshire flavours with fresh sage and Cheshire uses Caraway and Coriander.
• The British sausage even has its own fan club, the British Sausage Appreciation Society.  The Society has over 5,000 members in the UK and the highlight of the society’s year is British Sausage Week.

Source: www.lovepork.co.uk

Seasoned beer drinkers at Battlesteads Hotel and Restaurant in Wark will have their taste buds tested this week when a cask conditioned lager sneaks alongside the bar’s real ales on hand pump as part of Cask Ale Week (28 Sept to 7 Oct). What’s more, a unique ‘Mussels in Magus’ dish is currently making a guest appearance on the menu!

Once the favourite tipple of the Great British pub-goer, national lager sales have been slowing down in comparison to cask ale which is now seeing growth for the first time in 20 years with more younger, female drinkers joining the real ale brigade. In a bid to convert even the most loyal lager fan, Battlesteads has turned to Hexham-based Allendale Brewery to serve Adder Lager - one of the North East’s few true cask conditioned lagers. Slowly fermented in a traditional lager style at zero degrees for eight weeks with not a carbonated keg in sight, even the most ardent ale-lover cannot dispute its cask credentials!

Cask Ale Week is led by Cask Marque and this year has a ‘try before you buy’ theme. Battlesteads will be serving four real ales and a lager in a bid to encourage new cask ale fans and show that there is a beer for everyone.

Battlesteads’ owner Richard Slade joked: “Cask ale is now regarded as our national drink and here at Battlesteads we are proud to support local breweries during Cask Ale Week. We’re even catering for our lager drinkers this time – by attempting to wean them onto a cask conditioned lager!” 

If, after all the sampling and sipping, customers still aren’t swayed by the nation’s favourite drink, then they can join in the fun by selecting a limited-edition ale-inspired dish from Battlesteads’ home-cooked menu. In honour of Cask Ale Week, chef Eddie Shilton has created Mussels in Magus – a twist on Moules Mariniere, where the mussels are cooked in Battlesteads’ most popular real ale Durham Magus.

In addition to Magus and Adder Lager, Battlesteads will be serving: Lovely Nelly and Jack the Devil from Cullercoats Brewery, Tyneside; and a German-style beer from Geltsdale Brewery, Cumbria.