Two Pumps of Pride: The Quiet Rise of the Dandelion and Burdock Brigade

Stand at the bar at The Royal Oak on a busy Saturday and you'll see the usual choreography — pints pulled, heads checked, change counted. But drift your eyes to the left-hand end, past the optics and the guest casks, and you'll spot something that wouldn't have been there a decade ago: two pumps, dedicated entirely to soft drinks, drawing glasses with all the ceremony of a proper pour.

We asked landlord Dave Whitfield why he gave over prime bar real estate to stuff that wouldn't get anyone tipsy. He laughed. "My mother-in-law told me I'd gone soft. I told her that was rather the point."

The Corner That Earned Its Keep

It started, as most things here do, with a complaint — a gentle one, from Margaret at the bowling club, who was driving half the village home and was tired of being offered orange juice from a carton or, worse, tap water in a pint glass with a pitying look.

"She said, and I quote, 'I spend as many evenings in here as my husband, and he gets Lincolnshire Poacher ale and I get a squashed lemon.'" Dave shrugs. "What could I say to that? She was right."

The first summer, the range was modest: a bottled elderflower pressé, some proper lemonade from a supplier near Louth, and a couple of fruit crushed drinks. By Christmas, the zero-alcohol end of the bar had quietly doubled. Now there's ginger beer with actual fire in it, a low-alcohol cider for those who want the theatre of a bottle, and — the undisputed monarch of the corner — dandelion and burdock.

The D and B Loyalists

You can tell a dandelion and burdock drinker at fifty paces. They're usually over sixty or under twelve, and they will not be persuaded to try anything else.

Take young Alfie from Ferriby Road, all of ten years old, who comes in with his grandad on Sunday lunchtimes. "It's got a taste," he told us, very seriously, when we asked why he liked it. "The other ones taste of nothing much. This one tastes of something." Hard to argue with. His grandad nodded along like Alfie had just delivered a eulogy.

Then there's the designated driver contingent — a proud brotherhood and sisterhood who've turned the soft drinks corner into a point of honour. Christine from the allotments swears by the elderflower pressé with a splash of soda: "My G&T substitute. Nobody's the wiser, and I get to drive everyone to Scunthorpe and back." Her husband, she notes, now owes her roughly forty rounds.

And we must mention the mums-to-be. The Oak has seen a small boom of late, and the pregnant regulars of Barrow have developed their own hierarchy of drinks, with the ginger beer topping the list for reasons we understand but won't print.

What Your Order Says About You

We polled a few villagers on the eternal question: what does your soft drink choice reveal? The results were unscientific but fiercely defended.

Elderflower pressé — refined, possibly owns a bird feeder, definitely remembers everyone's birthday.

Dandelion and burdock — loyal to a fault, suspicious of change, probably right about most things.

Traditional lemonade — honest, straightforward, the sort of person who tells you when you've got your collar inside out.

Ginger beer — adventurous but sensible. Owns a good coat.

Fizzy water, plain — either training for something or hungover. We don't judge. Much.

Two Pumps and a Promise

The landlords are clear that the soft drinks corner isn't a trend-chasing exercise. "People said no one comes to a two-hundred-year-old village pub for a pressé," says Dave's wife and co-landlord Susan. "Well, Margaret does. Alfie does. Half the Christmas party crowd do, because somebody's got to drive to Brigg for the last bus connection."

She points out the economics of it, too — a family that stays for lunch because the under-tens are happy with a proper glass of something and a bag of crisps is a family that comes back. "The beer pays the bills. But the lemonade pays for the roof."

So next time you're in, spare a glance for the left-hand corner of the bar. It might not have a hand-pull or a pump clip with a witty name, but it has something better: a queue of villagers who know exactly what they like, and like exactly what they know.

Cheers — in whatever glass you fancy.