Butcher the Blog (Part 1)

Alpes the Butchers

Rather than the usual restaurant review, this weeks memoirs come from a couple of local butchers shops in the town where I grew up, Clitheroe. 

The first sells not only quality meat, but cooked foods, sandwiches, cooked breakfasts, cooked meats, fresh pizzas, ready to cook BBQ foods and the best sausage roll I've eaten to date.

What started out as a small corner butcher shop has expanded over the past few years in every direction possible. They now have a kitchen upstairs for cooking meats, breakfasts and sandwiches, and they expanded into the neighbouring property to further increase their sales floor area. They've made the most of this space too. 

Enter into the shop and it's a U-shaped, clean brushed steel and brass refrigerating unit displaying a huge selection of fresh meats, as well as also various seasoned meats, cooked pies, pizzas & fresh vegetables. There's probably more on offer in here than a local supermarket when it comes to meat produce. 

On the other side of the displays you'll find a small army of butchers kept busy by the constant stream of customers. It makes you wonder how they coped in the smaller premises. 

Walk down one side of the display and in the corner you'll see the heated cooked meat display. If the raw meat didn't get your taste buds tingling, the look and smell of these cooked chickens, pies and sausages rolls will!

Cooked meat displays

It's the sausage rolls that are the main attraction and focus of this memoir. On the top shelf, right under the heat lamps they sit, being kept at a steady too-hot-to-eat temperature. Arrive early enough in the morning and there will be a number of trays full, hot and ready to eat. Arrive later in the day, or even later in the morning at a weekend, and you'll often be met with disappointment when you're told that they're all sold out of sausage rolls. 

A tray of sausage rolls - £1.60 each

When your wait is finally over and you reach the front of the queue, ask the butcher for a sausage roll and you'll be taken aback by the money he asks for in return, £1.60. That's all!
Compare that to a famous high street baker/pasty maker we all know, and it's less than the price of 2 of their sausage rolls (which are mostly pastry and very little meat - if you can call that filling they put in them "meat")
In return for your £1.60 you'll be handed a hot, foil wrapped bundle of meaty goodness. 
Wrapping hot, take out food like this is great as it means that the food can stay hot or warm for you if you wish to eat it later in the day. Great if you're taking it with you on a trip somewhere.  

Foil wrapped

Start unwrapping the silver coat and you'll finally see it up close. The pastry to the underside of the sausage roll is slightly greasy where it was sat on the hot tray, but it's crumbly, flaky pastry on top and around the meat. At either end, the meat is crispy and dark where it's been cooked. Although the ends may not look the best, the crispy cooked juices taste amazing at the either end. 

Unwrapped with crisp flaky pastry

The singed sweet end of the sausage roll

Once you decide how you're going to tackle this beyond normal sized sausage roll, you'll bite through the flaky pastry while you're tongue gets a licking of the greasy, soft underside. Then you'll discover that the pastry isn't as thick as you first imagined it would be, and instead this is made of a lot of meat. Then you'll realise that this isn't the same imitation meat you get in your high street pastry maker sausage roll. This roll of pastry is full of high quality, juicy, perfectly cooked meat! 

A huge meat to pastry ratio

Just to try give a scale of the size of this sausage roll

 
Conclusion

As a butcher, Alpes is a successful establishment, selling high quality local meat. Their breakfasts, sandwiches and pies are taste fantastic. Some of their barbecue meats are very handy and really well seasoned, great for those who just want some quick things to throw on a BBQ.  Their sausage rolls have got to be their highlight though. If anyone can find sausage rolls which contain this much meat, and are of this size then please contact me, as I need to see if it's truly possible!
If you just want a quick breakfast, a better quality hangover cure, or a hot, ready to eat snack it's the one stop shop in Clitheroe. 
Is it the best butcher in town though? May be Part 2 of "Butcher the blog" will answer that question in the coming week. 

As Alpes doesn't have any social media pages I'll bring attention to their address at the bottom of the page should you wish to find them to try for yourself.  


Meat rating: 6/10

Money for meat: Paid in Full