The Mashed Meeple

The Mash Tun and The Gin Palace.

This pub was formerly known as the ‘Hog in Armor’ and is still sporting the plated pig on the top of the outside wall. Now with the 2014 established name that comes from the big metal thing that bullies all the alcohol out of poor innocent beer plants you may expect this pub to be all about the booze and you’d be right… Well that’s if they have anything in stock that is. The owners are currently funneling all their money and supplies into a new thirsty ‘Panda’ that will eventually entertaining people just down the road that was formerly ‘The Tap Room’ bar. Let’s pretend that this is not going on, review from as if everything would be in its absolute form and hopefully it will be all sorted soon anyway.

Upon entering this great pub you’ll be greeted with the massive board of all the beers available with almost too many to choose from. You’ll also notice the unusual configuration of the taps, showing the usually unseen parts of the beer engine on instead of underneath showing the beers colour. The staff call these useful parts; optics or lighthouses but I personally prefer beer engine which is the closest name I could find. There is also a big infuser, of as I call it ‘The V8 Supercharger’, which is in the same style and used for infusing fruits and other flavours with various beers or cider. These are hard to explain so please check it out in the pictures. There are some great homages to the various breweries they have stocked and even a massive map of where they come from. This is a big pub with lots of tables and even a yet to be explored upstairs. We liked the unofficial bike park that can be view out of window, keeping our minds at ease that no one will steal our steeds.

I had been to the Tun on many occasion but never on a non game night but when I was on my personal tour… Oh yeah I was given an exclusive look at The Gin Palace and the function rooms most probably because they have seen my banging blog. The site stat must be broken when it is showing that the blog only has one viewer, which is us. Anyway, I was more than impressive with what I was shown. The 1920’s style room of the palace is gorgeous and would be impressive enough by itself. Only one half of our party is a gin geek but it made us both want climb our ways up the stylish stacked tower of juniper juice. Offering 100-120 gins and many tonics, mixers and fruit you cannot get bored for choice. One of the drinks we had was a gin cocktail with absinthe sprayed on top from an atomiser. This cocktail is meant resurrect the dead after having 4 in a row but we only had one so only seem to wake up our hunger. This venerable venue of romance is often home to relaxing jazz and solo musicians and we plan to return to drink in the full experience.

We frequent this establishment to attend the weekly Monday and Tuesday Norwich Board Gamers club. This is a great way to get into board games and try out ones you maybe interested in. Our interest in board games only started when we moved Norwich and NoBoG community has been a big part of that as well as the many other board game clubs and venues the fine city has to offer. Either going on your own or in a group there’s always great games to be played with welcoming meeple… I mean people. We’d avoid the role-playing games though, unless you want to spend 3hrs making a character and choosing how much magic to put in your wand. The Tun with all its space and tables is perfect for this function and they even look after all the gaming table cloths.

Entertainment

Every board game imaginable on Mondays & Tuesdays. Live events sometimes.

Drinks

Lot of guest beers, ciders well displayed on the board and 100+ gins!

Rating

9.2 pints out of 10