Happy Christmas!! The now legendary Christmas day at the Bulls Head was bigger than ever as off duty Bulls Head team members rubbed shoulders with locals and customers from further afield (thanks to the folks that travelled from the other side of Manchester!) As loyal customers walked, cycled and drove to their village pub!!

Our very own Sophie arrived by horse (pictured with owner Mary) and enjoyed a glass of Prosecco before heading home for the turkey!!

Talking of food…… all our chefs (except Steve who was at home cooking) enjoyed (maybe too much) a day off together as the kitchen closed for Christmas day to give them a rest!!!  The picture says it all!!!

Our Christmas Day ales went down too well on the day with such varieties as Christmas Stocking and Christmas Pud by Coach house brewery in Warrington and ‘Looks like Rain dear’ from Storm Brewery in Macclesfield. The badges pictured give you the idea.

Thanks again for your support!!! Look forward to seeing everyone again over the festive period.

We are delighted to announce to all our customers that the Bulls Head was awarded a “Highly Commended” (effectively second place) in the final of The UK’s ‘Best New Site’ Award at the National MA 250 Awards held in London in November 2011. This marks a hat trick for the Bulls Head having won ‘Best Turnaround Pub in the Northwest’ in September and the CAMRA Award for supporting local micro-breweries also in September. On top of this our entry in to the ‘Good Beer Guide’ in our first full year for 2012 was a proud moment.

The recognition is gratefully received and reflects the hard work of every member from within our pub team…….. Chefs, Kitchen Porters, Cleaners, the Front of house team and our management team have really been fantastic!!

It is all down to them and of course the exceptionally loyal support of all our customers everywhere.

Here’s to 2012!! Another year of opportunity!!

As the December chill sweeps in the fires are lit and the ‘winter drinks’ board is outside the Bulls Head again. As you can see Soph and Tom are well equipped hat wise as they show off the warming drinks available.

Toms Toddy this December has to be our lovely Mulled Wine but Sophie has added her own twist on Toms Toddy with ‘Soph’s suggested Sip’ which for the month of December is our Winter Pimms with warm apple juice and cinnamon stick!!!

So get to the Bulls Head and drink to winter by the fires!!

Also over 67 whiskies await you too this Christmas!!

See you soon!!!

Our new wine list has just ‘gone live’ but the work towards this list took place last month……

Here at the Bulls Head on Tuesday 15^th November 2011 we held our very first ‘winter red’ wine tasting evening. We were joined by local wine enthusiasts/customers and some of our team in search of great reds for our winter wine list. The evening was hosted by our favourite wine merchant Ed Cross from Boutinot!!

Ed spent 3 years making wine in France, New Zealand & Australia but remarkably came home to England because he “preferred the nightlife of Manchester”!!!

Ed guided us through the evening, drawing on his experiences to prepare us for the hard work of choosing our new reds. Firstly we had a brief chat on how wine is made, followed by how to Taste Wine – Ed says it’s like having a cup of tea!!! Apparently it’s all about the smell, the sight and the taste. Then we matched food with the wine.

We selected five different ‘Bulls head to Ed’ taste offs!!

• A Pouring Rioja or a Pouring Cabernet? – We’ve been asked for both, but our tasters got to choose the winner!! Both were served with our little sausages from the Cheshire smokehouse. The Cabernet Sauvignon won hands down and is now on our list by the glass and the bottle!!
• Barolo ‘lookalike’ v a Medoc ‘lookalike’ – Nebbiolo d’Alba, Poderi Colla v Tabali Cabernet Reserva served with a tiny Pigeon stew. The Tabali won easily with great blackcurrant flavour and a deep finish, a truly great wine which stays on the list!!
• A Mallorcan Double Bill – Is Macia Batle’s Reserva better than its Crianza? Each were served with a good mouthful of our famous steak and ale pie. The Reserva Privado won this one and many selected this as the best wine of the night!! Certainly one of the best wines from the shores of Mallorca!!
• Poor man’s Amarone or the Real Thing? – Ripasso v Amarone from the same producer was served with 28 day aged Sirloin steak. While the unbelievable Amorone won this challenge, it was decided that the Ripasso should stay too. The Amorone was the overall winner at the tasting….a stunner!!
• P is for Dessert wine – PX from Spain or Pink Port a new release from our friends at Wiese & Krohn, served with our popular cheese board and a custard dessert. Both the chilled pink port and the PX are now featured on our dessert wines section….the pink port is certainly one for the girls!!
• Also good news for our wine loving customers is that we have moved our Reserva Pinot Noir to a wine served by the glass as well as the bottle!!

The list also shows a half bottle of Champagne which again is a request from several customers and now we have a ‘Reserve’ Red wine section on the list for three Reds which are simply ‘top dollar’ but memorable.

We have also reduced our fizz with our Kiki Sparkling Sauvignon Blanc now only £22 a bottle and the Pink Lallier Champagne down to £35 a bottle….ready for the celebratory season. To view the new wine list click on ‘drinks’ then ‘wine’.

Thanks to all our customers who took part in the tasting.

If there are any customers who are interested in wine tasting here at the Bulls Head email and let us know then we can include you in the ‘Spring whites and Pinks tastings email invitation’!!

Just after we launched Mobberley Fine Ales second brew…Whirly Bird…we were visited for lunch by Harry and Emily with their Harris Hawk!! The Harris’s Hawk or Harris Hawk, formerly known as the Bay-winged Hawk or Dusky Hawk, is a medium-large bird of prey which breeds from the south western United States south to Chile and central Argentina.

Birds are sometimes reported at large in Western Europe, especially Britain, but it is a popular species in falconry and these records almost certainly all refer to escapes from captivity.

John James Audubon gave this bird its English name in honour of his ornithological companion, financial supporter, and friend Edward Harris. The Harris Hawk is notable for its behaviour of hunting co-operatively in “packs”, consisting of family groups while most other raptors hunt alone.

Anyway we are regularly visited by pet dogs (even on their own), Peacocks(grrrrh) and we’ve had the cows well now we’ve had our very own Hawk….he must have heard about ‘Whirly Bird’ Bitter!!!

We would like to thank Mobberley Parish Council for the wonderful plaque presented to us for coming third in the ‘Open front Gardens’ for the commercial property section in Cheshires best kept village competition.

We have tried hard this year with the planting but still have room for improvement. But in our first year to come third is great and we are all very proud indeed!!

The plaque hangs proudly in our whisky snug above the fire place. We would like to thank the Parish Council and particularly Sarah Sherwood for her lovely letter in making this award.

We are honoured….roll on next summer!!

As everyone knows Mary and Soph acquired 50 pumpkins for the Bulls Head and Cholmondeley Arms of which some became salad, some became soup and some were carved really well by members of both teams. The winner overall for pumpkin carving was The ‘Chum’ with Rob our industrious Kitchen Porter as individual Champ and Steve our second chef at the Bulls Head in second place overall!!

Thank you to all the Ghouls that supported us over Halloween never sold so many spirits!!!

I apologise to Pete that the ‘Trick or Sweet’ competition didn’t happen on Halloween night It will happen on Guy Fawkes weekend instead!!!

‘Mobberley Fine Ales’ celebrated the launch of their second beer at the Bulls Head in Mobberley on Friday 28^th October.

Following the superb success of their first brew ‘Hedgehopper’, a really traditional golden hoppy 3.8% ABV bitter, Phil Roberts and Ray Britland, the two partners who established Mobberley Fine Ales back in July 2011, have created an really easy to drink amber ale called ‘Whirly Bird’!!  At 4% ABV the ale is less bitter than ‘Hedgehopper’ but still has the depth of flavour we have come to expect from Mobberley Fine Ales. Needless to say it sold out on the Friday night as ale enthusiasts enjoyed a pint or two.

Bulls Head owner Tim Bird felt there was no better pub to launch the beer bearing his surname, of course this is purely a coincidence, according to Phil and Ray, but a few residents of Mobberley may argue!!!

The beer badge once again depicts a Mobberley pheasant and was designed by Phil’s daughter Sophie. The graphics have been carefully designed to not only to be bright and cheerful (a bit like Phil and Ray!!), but to represent the rural countryside in which the brewery is based. This new micro-brewery is housed in an old milking parlour on a working farm, set in the heart of the Cheshire countryside.

Phil was on hand to pour the first pint from behind the bar of the Bulls Head while Ray his business partner was busy delivering a firkin of Whirly Bird to Tim’s second pub the Cholmondeley Arms in South Cheshire.

There is no doubt that ‘Whirly Bird’ bitter will ‘fly out’ where ever it lands!! (If you’ll pardon the pun!!)

Sophie and Mary (pictured) had a great night out shopping last Thursday!!! Now all you girls(and guys for that matter) may have thought they were off to Manchester city centre or to the Trafford Centre!! But no they went to Chelford Market to get a supply of  pumpkins for both the Bulls Head and the Cholmondeley Arms ready for Halloween.

Fifty (yes 50) pumpkins were bought and already adorn the two pubs ready for certain members of the team to start carving them into various funny and spooky faces for this coming weekend. Pumpkin also features on both menus and may well be doing for some time to come!! How the two of them loaded up the car with all the pumpkins???……….hilarious to see them pull in outside the Bulls Head with a bright orange interior to the car!!! Anyway happy half term and here’s to a great Halloween weekend where there will be more treats than tricks here at the pub.