Chequered Flag - Corby

This post represents something of a milestone for the Corby Pub Safari. Six months of mostly pleasant pubbing in and around Corby Town, with just a couple more months to go before we wrap things up in style at the Pole Fair, and the time has finally come to step out of my pubbing comfort zone and do the really-really difficult ones.

Now you know me, I'll drink almost anything, brave just about anywhere in search of the Great British Pub Experience. I've toughed it out in some of the roughest toughest blokey boozers, endured the cacophony of Friday night Karaoke and Club Acts in pubs all over the country, and risked upsetting the locals in numerous back street dives and upmarket gastro pubs, all in the name of pubbing.

Experience has shown me that if you pick your time sensibly, approach the bar with the quiet confidence of a seasoned regular, steer well clear of the Ladies Darts Team (obvs!), and of course never be seen drinking the real ale, it's highly unlikely you'll come to any grief no matter how rough a pub might appear on the outside (or indeed inside). It's a Pub Man thing, literally nowhere is off limits if you're prepared to blend in with the Carling drinkers and pretend you like Football...

The Corby Pub Experience!

Corby Classics: Guinness, John Smith's Smooth, Irn Bru

Edge of town retail park family dining pubs though! Gulp!!! Even I have my pubbing limits! Technically they may indeed be pubs, but there are one or two national chains that are guaranteed to chill my marrow and curdle the smoothest John Smith's Bitter. National pub chains I tend to avoid at all cost, the names of which you'll no doubt be familiar with. Names I shall not utter here...

Hungry Horse for example. Now the clue is in the name! Generic nosebag dining venues for hungry Mares and Stallions, and their frisky, sugar lump rushing Ponies. Restaurants in all but name, safe, plushly upholstered eateries where the beer rarely if ever gets a mention. Barely pubs at all I'd suggest, though many of them started life that way. In fact I've taken so far against them that I can't recall ever drinking in one. Because prejudice this deeply ingrained doesn't in fact require experience, I just know!...

The Chequred Flag, a Bikers Pub. Who knew!

However... Every Pub In Corby it says at the top, and every pub in Corby it is, so for the next few posts I'll be swallowing my snobbish indignation and mucking in with the Baby Buggies and Belly Buster Breakfasts for a roundup of Corby's very finest family dining venues. Every single one of them! I hope you're happy now...

Now I'm not entirely sure whether the Chequered Flag is Corby's newest pub, but a 2012 opening makes it a strong contender. Located on the very edge of town near the popular Earlstrees Industrial Estate (aka Corby's Weetabix Quarter). The pub was presumably named after the now sadly defunct Rockingham Motor Speedway Circuit, so expect a name change in the near future. This is one of several licensed premises in close formation around Corby's main sports grounds, and as such it's probably a favourite pre-match breakfast/drinks stop for away fans struggling to find the Shire Horse.

It's a real ale pub though. In Corby! Now I wasn't expecting that! What I was expecting was at least one of the handpump'd offerings to not actually be on. My somewhat unenthusiastic first choice, the national CAMRA award-winning (Bitter Category, 2004) Greene King IPA, was the popular 'not on' choice when I visited, and given that I'll never knowingly run my tongue over an Abbot, I went for the Suffolk brewery's top craft offering (above). Sadly the draught Greene King East Coast IPA that wowed us at the Steelmens Bar last year doesn't have quite the wow factor in bottle. Expertly poured (by me), I'd estimate the foamy head at 14 chubby fingers, the cruelly pasteurised beer underneath a rather dull tasting affair with a mere fraction of the nettly hop prickle that characterises the draught masterpiece. You may fare better dear reader, I'd imagine the IPA is usually on and tasting utterly fantastic!...

Most of the space inside is a warren of cosy dining booths, ideal for the kind of segregation people seem to crave when eating out with friends and family. Some of them even come with a telly for the junior diners. All the comforts of home, with chips and bottomless chocolate milk. I can't comment on the food. I don't go to the pub for food. We'll leave it at that shall we...

There is however an area set aside for the more traditional pub pastimes of drinking Beer, playing Pool & Darts, and watching afternoon Cookery Programmes on the telly (above). Highly commendable I must say, a proper pub space attracting a good few Sunday afternoon topers when I was there. Do bare in mind though that if you choose the traditional pub stance of propping the bar up whilst watching Mary Berry, as I did, you're likely to be asked if you're ready to order. Again and again. And again. Great friendly service I'd have to say, but clearly the Chequered Flag is not a propping up the bar kind of place, so probably best not to.

I believe they do show a bit of the auld sport on that telly too, and competitive sports and games obviously play an important role in the success of the pub. Mini-Pinball tables are a feature, as is the hardest competitive pub game in the world bar none, the Cuddly Toy Grab Machine. All designed to put exciting plush and plastic toys in the hands of over-excited minors. Traditional pub games get a look in too with Hook-a-Duck a popular choice, and all proceeds from this one go to Macmillan Cancer Support, which seems to be the pubs chosen charity. Bravo Chequered Flag!

Corby's world-class Graffiti tradition is well supported at the pub with this innovative Black Wall in the garden. Start 'em young I say! Apologies if there are any profanities on the wall below, I think I can see the word ‘cock’, possibly a Chicken Nuggets reference, and also 'sucks', possibly a Chicken Nuggets reference, but I haven't checked it with any rigour in all honesty.