/">News From The CountryMan Inn

With Game season now in full swing, it seems a waste to not take advantage of the range of fantastic game right on the doorstep of The Countryman Inn, Shipley.

Our country pub is situated in the middle of the Sussex countryside and is perfectly placed for superb access to top quality game, allowing us to produce excellent dishes such as Game Pudding, Pheasant Supreme and Roasted Patridge.

All of our game dishes are served with our home-grown vegetables giving them a lovely fresh quality. The Pheasant Supreme is served in Calvados sauce and the Roasted Partridge is served with Poached home-grown Pears, delicious.

We also have our superb local Venison to offer, which is slowly braised in port and redcurrant, a real treat and warming dish for these Winter months.

To book a table at The Countryman Inn and experience our fantastic selection of game first hand, please call us on 01403 741383 or click here to book.

The Countryman Inn, Shipley is pleased to announce it is now working with a new supplier called ‘Nutbourne Fine Foods’. Nutbourne Find Foods is a small, family business producing a range of Jams, Chutnies, Oils and Vinegars and The Countryman Pub is pleased to be working with them.

In association with Garlic Wood Farm, Knepp Castle is now finally able to produce ‘Old English Organic Beef’. This has been a long time coming but is great news for The Countryman Inn and it’s customers. The project started with just a dozen cows and takes at least three years to mature, which is why it has taken so long.

The Knepp Castle, former commercial farmland is now organic and grazed by herds of cattle, pigs, deer and ponies which spend all of their lives in their family groups and in massive, outside enclosures. (The smallest enclosure is 700 acres!)

Although slow food production, this provides peace of mind for the ethical consumer and incredibly, the beef produced actually has health benefits over commercial beef. The evidence is that Grass Fed beef contains fewer calories and less saturated fats than those of animals fed grain-based rations.

This fantastic Beef will be served on the Countryman Menu alongside other organic and free range Pork, Lamb & Chicken. If you want to try out our new healthier and organic meats, come and visit us by booking a table here, or calling us on 01403 741 383.

The Countryman Inn, Shipley, is proud to announce that due to the bumper number of crops being produced in our own garden, combined with additional produce supplied to us by local gardeners in the village, we are now able to offer a variety of fruit and vegetable boxes for sale in our shop.

Each box will contain an assortment of fruit and vegetable and will vary day-to-day, week-t0-week, depending on what is currently being harvested. We will be selling these in three different sizes, small, medium and large for £5, £7.50 and £10 respectively. Although as mentioned, the contents will always vary, a typical box may contain the following:

So if you like your fruit and veg and you like it fresh and locally produced, then come visit us to see what we have to offer. The Countryman Inn in located in Shipley, near Horsham and is a very traditional sussex country pub, something which is becoming harder to come by nowadays. We pride ourselves on using fresh, local produce and involving our local community in everything that we do. Call us on 01403 741383 to book a table, or click here.

The Vegetable Garden and Polytunnel at The Countryman Inn, Shipley is now in full production with Broad Beans, Tomatoes, New Potatoes, Cabbage, Courgettes and much more growing very well!

You may or may not be aware, but 95% of the produce used at The Countryman Inn, near Horsham come from a 10 mile radius or is home grown/produced. This is part of our commitment to producing and using the freshest local ingredients.

The project has been such a huge success that we will be expanding into a second polytunnel in the Autumn allowing us a bigger capacity for growing vegetables and produce to use in all our meals.

Polytunnel at The Countryman Inn

Garden Produce

We have already started our winter vegetables off in our greenhouse to protect them from the elements with Brussels Sprouts nearly ready to go into the main plot! These should then be ready for the first week in December.

Why not come and visit us to try out our delicious meals, prepared using the freshest ingredients from the most local of sources- our own garden! Call us on 01403 741383 or book a table online today, we look forward to seeing you soon.

The Countryman Inn received a welcome boost to it’s involvement with the ‘Making Local Food Work‘ campaign when The Plunkett Foundation agreed to support the campaign. They will be involved in the marketing of the project and networking with other small producers and suppliers in the area.

Making Local Food Work helps people to take ownership of their food and where it comes from by providing advice and support to community food enterprises across England. If you are involved in a community food enterprise or interested in starting one in your community, MLFW may be able to help you.

Here at the Countryman Inn, Shipley we are helping the local food network by being totally involved in creating a database of supplier information giving full traceability on all of our produce – much of it home grown – and sharing detailed information of all our suppliers and origins of all food used here at both our country pub and shop.

We periodically run visits to local country farms to see where some of our meat comes from, and we also have a barter/swap scheme whereby local amateur gardeners can exchange their produce for something else or even exchange for points that can be used for restaurant meals, bar snacks, or tickets to any of our events.

Making Local Food Work is achievable and is working well here at the Countryman Inn in Shipley.

The polytunnel at The Countryman Inn is part of our commitment to producing and using fresh local ingredients. At the moment, the tunnel is yielding a wide range of crops including Pak Choi, Mizuna, Claytonia, Swiss Chard, Lettuce, Rocket, Chicory, Watercress and Landcress. All of these will be used in various dishes on our menu such as our Baby Leaf Warm Salads and our Soups and Sauces.

This week we have planted more into the tunnel including seven varieties of Tomato, Carrots, Courgette, and Cabbage and our forager, Debra Wood, has already started picking wild garlic which we are using in our Leek and Garlic Soup as well as in a sauce to go with our Roasted Monkish.

Polytunnel at The Countryman Inn

95% of the produce used at The Countryman Inn in Shipley comes from within a 10 mile radius or is home produced / grown. Much of it is collected on a daily basis to ensure absolute top quality at all times. We are an active member of the keep food local campaign, and go out of our way to support local producers at all times. We will also take excess fruits and vegetables from local gardeners in exchange for points which can be redeemed against free meals, take away, bottles of wine, Christmas gifts or alternative produce from our shop.

If you want to book a table at The Countryman Pub to try all of our fresh produce, please call us on 01403 741383 or book a table online.

Garden Produce at The Countryman Inn

On Friday 11th March, The Countryman Inn will be holding a visit to Bough Cottage Farm Lambing shed.

The lambing shed is where we get all of our lamb from and it is why our Braised Shoulder of Lamb and Slow Roasted Minted Lamb Shoulder taste so nice – there’s nothing like getting your meat from locally farmed animals. We thought it would be a great day out to visit where our food comes from and have arranged a full day’s activities as part of the visit.

Minted Lamb

We will be meeting at 10.45 am at The Countryman Pub, Shipley for Coffee and Biscuits before heading on via a tractor ride to the Lambing shed. You will get a tour of the farm before heading back to the Countryman Inn for a Ploughman’s lunch. If you are interested in this day, we advise you book in advance. Tickets are £10 per person and you can book by phoning us on 01403 741383.

Deerwood chutneys and pickles

Deerview Products is the latest in a long line of top quality suppliers to the Countryman shop. Deerview Products produces jams, marmalades, chutneys in small quantities using home grown soft fruit and vegetables which are prepared and cooked in their kitchen in Coolham, just three miles from The Countryman. Deerview Products has agreed to take on our own Countryman recipes and produce them exclusively for us. Check out their website by clicking here.

Come along to The Countryman pub and restaurant in Shipley, West Sussex and enjoy a meal and a spot of Christmas shopping in our farm shop. Call 01403 741383 or reserve a table online. We look forward to welcoming you soon.

The Countryman Allotment

As you know, all the food we serve is grown locally. You can’t get much closer than The Countryman allotment.

So far we have planted swiss chard, beetroot and courgettes. Unfortunately, we had to replant our carrots as the frost got them before. You see, things like this happen to landlords too!

So keep an eye out on our menu for our allotment offerings.

The Countryman Pub and Restaurant, Shipley, West Sussex

St. George’s Day – Friday 23rd April 2010

Come and celebrate St. George’s day at The Countryman pub in Shipley, West Sussex.

We will be joined by the Sompting Village Morris Dancing Men from 7pm followed by BBQ (weather permitting) http://s-v-m.moonfruit.com/

Over the Moon at The Countryman, West Sussex

We are pleased to announce that we will be selling a a new winter brew called ‘OVER THE MOON’ now being sold until end of February. It is brewed by the Dark Star brewery in Partridge Green.

A brief history on the Dark Star brewery

Dark Star was originally the name of a porter developed by Rob Jones when he was emoloyed by the Pitfield Brewery. The name ‘Dark Star’ comes from the Grateful Dead stong and was highly successful, being voted Champion Beer of Britain in 1987. Rob Jones took the ‘secret’ recipe with him when he moved to the brewery based at the Evening Star. The beer itself is now known as Dark Star original.

The Dark Star Brewing Company was launched in 1994 in the cellar of The Evening Star Pub, Brighton. It became apparent that the brewery could not keep up with up with their customers, so in 2001 the brewery relocated to a new purpose-built brewery in near Haywards Heath, and finally, a third move to a 16,000 square foot site in Partridge Green, which makes the Dark Star Brewing Company our closest brewery.

Enjoy great ales at The Countryman pub in West Sussex

Over the Moon is 3.8 ABV so you can enjoy a few without falling over. Remember that The Countryman is in the CAMRA guide and is a popular pub in West Sussex with a wide range of good quality ales and great food.