Tuesday, 28 February 2017

Sound as a Pound

Pound Farm Shop - Pie Reviews

Farm shops can often be a good place to find a satisfyingly meaty pie. One of my favourite ever pies comes from King's Farm Shop in Buckinghamshire. So I was pleased to find a couple of good farm shops near my adopted home of Gloucester. I have already reviewed the Plenty brand pies available at Over Farm Shop which are a good option but are not made by the farm shop themselves. Just to the south end of the city is Pound Farm who do make their own pies on site with their own meat. I have bought quite a number of these pies now and it is about time they got a review as they tend to be some of the best in the area. They meet all my expectations of which a good farm shop pie should be like. They don't do any pretentious flavours but what they do tends to be well seasoned and with plenty of flavour. Available fresh and frozen, in a good variety of flavours, they are one of my go-to local pie options, let me explain why....


The pies come in a variety of sizes but I tend to go for an individual pie because I don't like sharing pie as you will know if you read my guide to the ultimate pie (and my other half is coeliac which is a good excuse). They look every bit the part of the handmade creations that they are with a simple but pleasing appearance. Sometime they can look a little on the messy side with a bit of boil out here and there but nothing to detract many points.

They are currently £2.10 which isn't bad for a good quality pie with decent chunks of meat. They aren't all that tall though so given the big size of the chunks I have sometime found that the pie is filled by just four or five pieces of meat, but if they are big pieces of lamb or steak I can't complain too much! This may be less of a problem if you opt for the larger sizes of these pies. I have tried a number of flavours with the Lamb, Steak & Onion and Turkey, Bacon & Leek reviewed this time. The pastry for all of these pies was very nice. I particularly liked that there was a bit of crunch to the pastry lid.


Turkey Bacon & Leek
5.86/7

I think this might be the first Turkey, Bacon & Leek pie I have ever tried. A variation on the classic Chicken, Ham & Leek, it had plenty of flavour, the different ingredients seemed to work well together. There was plenty of satisfyingly thick sauce. The meat was well dispersed through the pie and there was enough of both types of meat to provide some variety to the flavour. As a bit of a twist, the turkey used was darker meat rather than the generic whitish cubes of meat found in mass produced poultry pies. It made it seem reassuringly like real food. This is a risk as these parts of the bird can be more fatty and grissly but there was none of that in this pie. If anything, this meat was more moist than if breast meat was used.

Lamb
5.76/7


I do quite enjoy a lamb pie, I am not sure why they aren't more common, it is not something you typically find in a supermarket. The lamb was in chunks that were perhaps a bit too large for this size of pie but it did make them very satisfying to chomp into and I wouldn't complain about not having enough meat. The flavour was basic but it was nice as the main attraction was the flavour of the lamb rather than any particular seasoning. Lamb is naturally fatty which in this case helped keep the meat nice and moist (which was not the case for the steak pie). There were a couple of congealed lumps of fat which were not so appealing but otherwise this was an enjoyable pie.

Steak & Onion
5.43/7

It was a good marketing ploy from Pound Farm to go with the name 'Steak & Onion' rather than the more common 'Beef & Onion'. With Steak you expect big meat chunks and that was indeed the case here. In some ways the pieces were a bit too big which meant they were dry in the middle. However, this didn't take away too much from the fact that they were very tasty and there was a
delicious, thick gravy to help it all slide down. There was a bit of flavour from the onion but this didn't dominate proceedings. For the price I thought this was very good. The pie did fall apart a bit but I cooked it straight from frozen whereas the guidance for these pies is to let them defrost first.

SJL







continue reading "Sound as a Pound"

Monday, 27 February 2017

British Pie Week - Everything you should know

With British Pie Week just around the corner and Pierate - Pie Reviews becoming the leading promoter of the pie this British Pie Week, we thought you might want to find out everything you should know about the greatest week in pie!


When is British Pie Week?

British Pie Week is held the first full week of March, which this year is 6th-12th March 2017.

What is British Pie Week?

Originally set up by a pastry maker as a way to sell more of their pastry, it is now Britain’s main celebration of pie! Pubs, restaurants, pie shops and more have used British Pie Week to run com-pie-titions, pie specials and the like (so why not ask what your local pie-selling pub is doing to celebrate pie week?), while supermarkets sometimes use the week to discount their pie ranges. The British Pie Awards have even moved their awards to this week, to coincide with British Pie Week.

However it’s also an excuse for pie lovers like the Pierateers to do various pie stunts and for the average pie fan to excuse their pie eating for a week! (“Well it’s Pie Week, so I have to have a pie!!!”)

British Pie Week Pierate
British Pie Week 2017 is from 6th to 12th March!
How can I get involved?

Well, the pies the limit! Of course the more traditional ways include eating a pie from a pie shop or pub, or making your own pie at home. The more adventurous might host friends for a “pie night” – much like we are for our Pierate Birmingham Pie Night – or do some crazy pie stunt like only eating pies for a day (which we’ve done numerous times) or create an unusual filling for a pie – like we did with our Pie-thon (python meat pie).

Python pie
The infamous Python meat pie!

PIE-LIGHTS OF PAST BRITISH PIE WEEKS

During British Pie Week 2014 we Pierateers consumed a quite incredible 55 pies and you can see the breakdown right here! There were so many highlights that we had to do a whole day-by-day account of it, including a Python pie, a day of just eating apple pie and Pierateer SJL eating 21 pies - one for every meal of British Pie Week.

In fact, Pierateer SJL didn't just eat a pie for every meal but he proved that you can eat pie and lose weight!!! Yes, we can hardly believe it either!

In 2015 we raised the bar even higher by consuming a whopping 71 pies between 2 Pierateers! This included a Pieathon (seeing how long we could just eat pies for) and Rob eating pie for 67% of his diet that week!


When did it all start?

British Pie Week was created by a pastry company in 2007 to sell more pastry, but it seems that company have now ditched the idea, with the lucrative www.britishpieweek.co.uk webpage now just re-directing to their main pastry website and their @BritPieWeek twitter account not having been updated since March 2016!

This means the new home of British Pie Week is really www.pierate.co.uk, who don’t care about making money or selling more pastry, but want to celebrate the pie – with almost 600 pies already rated and numerous pie-related stunts highlighting their love of pie! For more information on what Pierate have got up to over the years since first celebrating British Pie Week in 2011, check out our dedicated British Pie Week page!

British Pie Week Pierate Pie
The Pierate Logo Pie made for us in British Pie Week 2014!
Find out more about this Nice Pie here.
How can Pierate help me this British Pie Week?

Well, if you haven’t already, we’d suggest you take a look at our Countdown to British Pie Week article! There you can find a countdown timer to tell you to the second exactly how long you have left to wait until British Pie Week 2017, alongside other useful Pie Week info!

In addition, you can browse our Pie Rankings of almost 600 pies rated and ranked so that you can avoid the bad ones and grab the best ones, plus we have a pie pun dictionary (so you can pun-ctuate your conversation in pie week) and more pie trivia than you can shake a stick at! We truly are the home of the pie review at www.pierate.co.uk and you can find out more about the piefessionals (pie experts) in our About Us section!

Finally, if you’re a pie maker or pie seller and have any special promotions for British Pie Week, get in touch with us and we can celebrate your British Pie Week offers right here! Either send us an email to pierateship@yahoo.co.uk or tweet us @pierateers to let us promote your pie week plans!


So whatever you’re up to this British Pie Week, we hope you have pie and enjoy it! For more ideas, why not check out our #PiePledge video below? We'll be posting our Pierate #PiePledge article soon!



RAS

Pierate is a pie review website charting a course to find the ultimate pie. For all the pies we have reviewed have a look at our Pie Rankings or find pies of a particular flavour under Pies: Categorised.

Make sure you 
and let us know your thoughts!
continue reading "British Pie Week - Everything you should know"

Sunday, 26 February 2017

Com-pie-tition: And the winner is...

British Pie Awards 2015 Judges
Judges at the British Pie Awards, including Pierateer Sam

One of the highlights of British Pie Week 2017 will be the return of the British Pie Awards and we'll again be there on Wednesday 8th March 2017 to provide a live feed of the awards. However this is the first year since 2013 where we won't have a Pierateer judging, which left a vacant spot to judge that needed to be filled! And so, following a com-pie-tition held on the world's leading pie review blog we can announce we have a winner!


Well I say winner... we actually have 4 winners! For the chosen competition entry to find a judge for the British Pie Awards was won by Anya, who is part of a new football pie blogging community called the "Sisterhood of the Travelling Pies" - made of of four students at UCFB. Having got in contact with the organisers at the British Pie Awards, they've kindly let all 4 bloggers come and judge! So Anya, Charlie, Jessica and Katie will be there joining the predicted 800 pies and around 100 judges to help rate all the pies on 8th March!

Bridal Pies Review British Pie Awards 2015
The amazing Speciality Class "Bridal Pies"
at British Pie Awards 2015
Following the pie judging itself, we hope to catch up with these new pie bloggers on the block for a short interview about how they found it and feature that in our British Pie Awards 2017 article, as well as finding out their ins-pie-ration for blogging and where they hope their blog will take them!

Don't forget that even if you didn't win the com-pie-tition this time (and following on from our "British Pie Awards 2016 - Live!" article last year and "British Pie Awards 2015 - Live!" the year before) - on Wednesday 8th March we'll be there for a pie-filled day of photos, interviews and behind the scenes info! Do check back then!!!

This isn't the first time we've attended the British Pie Awards! Oh no! Find out more in our other articles here:
Judges in 2016  |  Judges in 2015  |  Judges in 2014  |  Helpers in 2013



Pierate Rip Off Britain
Pierateer Rob on Rip Off Britain
Last year was another exciting year for Pierate at the British Pie Awards, with over 2,000 of you viewing our live blogging from the pie event of the year, our post-event review and preview articles.

This year it will just be Pierateer Rob in attendance, who you may recognise from TV shows "The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice" and "Rip Off Britain: Food" but we look forward to meeting our competition winners at the Awards!

RAS

The Pierateers are on a mission to find the best pie they can and you can see a list of their pies rated so far in the Pierate Pie Rankings or find pies of a similar flavour on the Pies: Categorised page.

Make sure you 
and let us know your thoughts!
continue reading "Com-pie-tition: And the winner is..."

Tuesday, 21 February 2017

Football Pie Story: "I wouldn't eat that on TV!"

So unless you've been hiding under a rock for the last 24 hours, you might have heard of a pie-ticular incident that happened in the Sutton United v Arsenal FA Cup tie. No, I'm not talking about Sutton's dream run from non-league obscurity to Round 5 of the FA Cup, or Theo Walcott's 100th goal for the Gunners. Of course I'm referring to the pastry-based object that the reserve keeper Wayne Shaw ate DURING the match, now subject of a pie-tential betting infringement.

What an actual football pie looks like - this one at Yeovil Town
But you know what makes it worse? He ate a pasty! IT WASN'T EVEN A PIE!!! No wonder he's now ruing his decision! A pasty?! I wouldn't eat that on TV! I wouldn't eat that at all!!!


That's right - while the subject of most of the debate has focused on Mr Shaw admitting he knew he was the subject of a bet to eat a pie during the match - leading to an FA investigation and Mr Shaw offering his resignation - what we at Pierate are most outraged at is the fact that everyone keeps calling the pasty he ate a pie!


A pasty is not a pie!!!

How many times do we have to say it?! As if the furore surrounding a pasty winning the British Pie Awards 2016 was not enough, now it seems the mainstream media don't know the difference between a pie and a pasty! Not helped by the BBC commentator calling the pastry based product a pie during the coverage of the game on BBC One on Monday night, it seems the papers and other news outlets have jumped on the "pie" wagon.

As stated in our pie dictionary, we define a true pie as "filling fully encased in pastry with clearly defined base, sides and lid." Even putting the fully encased in pastry v top crust issue to one side for a moment, a pasty quite simply does not conform to this or any correct definition of a pie, as it is just one piece of pastry folded over the filling. #NoPie

We've rated almost 600 pies, including a number of football pies

Even Morrisons supermarket seemed to get caught up in all the excitement by supposedly offering Wayne Shaw a one year deal to be one of their pie tasters - though following the later sacking and potential legal proceedings coming Wayne's way that may sink without a trace!

Whatever the future may hold for Mr Shaw, we hope it won't put him off his pies. Maybe that offer from Morrisons will be even more lucrative now he's a free agent?!



Sam and Rob being interviewed by BBC Sport's Azi Farni
Watch the video on the BBC Sport website
You don't need us to tell you we know a thing or two about football pies! If you've even glanced at our pie blog you're bound to have seen mention of our football pie video with BBC Sport (at the home of our top rated football pie, Morecambe FC) or our football pie article with Buzzfeed or our Pieremiership table, detailing all the football pies we've eaten in-ground! We've even been football pie experts on BBC One hit show "Rip Off Britain"! We know our pies (and they're not pasties!)


RAS


Pierate is a pie review website charting a course to find the ultimate pie. For all the pies we have reviewed have a look at our Pie Rankings or find pies of a particular flavour under Pies: Categorised.

Make sure you 
and let us know your thoughts!
continue reading "Football Pie Story: "I wouldn't eat that on TV!""

Monday, 20 February 2017

Com-pie-tition: YOU could judge at the British Pie Awards!

British Pie Awards 2015 Judges
Judges at the British Pie Awards, including Pierateer Sam

One of the highlights of British Pie Week 2017 will be the return of the British Pie Awards and we'll again be there on Wednesday 8th March 2017 to provide a live feed of the awards. However this is the first year since 2013 where we won't have a Pierateer judging, which has left a vacant spot to judge that could be filled... by YOU!!!


That's right! You could be joining a host of pie raters, food journalists and more to help judge hundreds of pies and determine who is considered to be the Supreme Champion of them all! Held in the heart of Pork Pie country, pie makers, pie enthusiasts and - most importantly - the pies themselves head to Melton Mowbray on 8th March and - if you win the com-pie-tition - you will be there joining the predicted 800 pies and around 100 judges to help rate all the pies!

Bridal Pies Review British Pie Awards 2015
The amazing Speciality Class "Bridal Pies"
at British Pie Awards 2015
The key things are that you are free on Wednesday 8th March and are able to travel to Melton Mowbray (Leicestershire) for the Awards, which mean you can arrive for 10:30am and stay til 3pm. (It may finish slightly earlier though, depending on how many pies are entered.)

You'll help judge around 15-20 pies, eating samples of them and providing a score and feedback for each one, alongside a fellow judge, as all pies are judged by two people.

Following the pie judging itself, we'd love to do a short interview with you about how you found it and feature that in our British Pie Awards 2017 article, if you wish to contribute. And we'll happily buy you a pint in one of the local pubs while we do so as a thank you for getting involved!

So if you are able to travel to Melton Mowbray on Wednesday 8th March and want to judge, to enter the competition just email us on pierateship@yahoo.co.uk with your name and an (up to) 50 word reply to the question "Why would you like to judge at the British Pie Awards 2017?" The deadline to enter is 12 noon on Sunday 26th February, at which point we'll pick our winner from a hat from all the entries!

Don't forget that - whether you win the com-pie-tition or not (and following on from our "British Pie Awards 2016 - Live!" article last year and "British Pie Awards 2015 - Live!" the year before) - on Wednesday 8th March we'll be there for a pie-filled day of photos, interviews and behind the scenes info! Do check back then!!!

This isn't the first time we've attended the British Pie Awards! Oh no! Find out more in our other articles here:
Judges in 2016  |  Judges in 2015  |  Judges in 2014  |  Helpers in 2013



Pierate Rip Off Britain
Pierateer Rob on Rip Off Britain
Last year was another exciting year for Pierate at the British Pie Awards, with over 2,000 of you viewing our live blogging from the pie event of the year, our post-event review and preview articles.

This year it will just be Pierateer Rob in attendance, who you may recognise from TV shows "The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice" and "Rip Off Britain: Food" but we look forward to seeing who joins us at the Awards as the pie competition winner!

RAS

The Pierateers are on a mission to find the best pie they can and you can see a list of their pies rated so far in the Pierate Pie Rankings or find pies of a similar flavour on the Pies: Categorised page.

Make sure you 
and let us know your thoughts!
continue reading "Com-pie-tition: YOU could judge at the British Pie Awards!"

Friday, 17 February 2017

British Pie Week - Birmingham set for a Pierate Pie Night!

The countdown to British Pie Week continues with our most exciting announcement yet! Pierate are going to rummage and pillage the pies at the Jekyll n Hyde pub in Birmingham as we host a Pie Night takeover in British Pie Week!


They have a few gins in their Gin Parlour!
Being held from 5:30-7:30pm on Monday 6th March, the night will be a chance for pie fans across the Midlands and friends of the Pierateers to catch up on what's been doing down on the Pierate Ship, and most importantly to eat and rate some pie! It's going to be a great way to kick off British Pie Week 2017 and comes just days before we go to the British Pie Awards to provide our live feed of all the pie action!

British Pie Week Pierate
British Pie Week 2017 is from 6th to 12th March!
For those who don't know, the Jekyll and Hyde pub has provided the highest rated pie in Birmingham so far, when we enjoyed a Steak Pie there back in 2013 and a number of Pierate Recommended pies since! You can read all about it in our "Best Pies in Birmingham" article.

And you may also recognise the upstairs Gin Parlour because that is actually the backdrop for when Pierateer Rob filmed with hit BBC show "Rip Off Britain" in February 2015!

So here's the details of the pie night and how you can sign up to come:

Kick off 5:30pm
The upstairs Gin Parlour will open at 5:30pm (though you can pick up a drink in the bar downstairs if you arrive a bit early!)

Rob was filmed in the Jekyll n Hyde by BBC TV!
Pick your pie!
Manager Matt has put on a special offer for our Pierate Pie Night, to compliment their pie specials board and regular pies on offer. For one Monday night only, you can order 2 pies and a bottle of house wine for just £21.95! (This will become their regular Pie Night offer soon!)

Who rate all the Pies?!
While people arrive and settle in, from about 6pm we'll give you a bit of info about how to rate a pie on the 7 Cs of pie rating, as well as a brief update on what we've been up to recently!

All eyes on the Pies!
We'll keep the spiel short so that you can tuck into your pies from about 6:15 onwards, while any late comers get their order in! The Pierateers will be around to chat to and answer your pie questions as best we can!

Stay as long as you like!
We realise it's a school night, so go when you need to, but you're welcome to stay as long as you like! (Well, until just after last orders at the bar!) We'll be hanging around and there'll be a few chances to pick up a limited edition Pierate mug for just a fiver should you so wish!

This pie night is open to friends plus readers of our pie blog and entry is free - you just pay the pub for your food and drinks - but to attend you need to register by sending an email to us at pierateship@yahoo.co.uk with the names of those who are coming (as places are limited).

We hope to see some of you there!



In the meantime, you can find out more about The Pierateers or about what we've been up to in previous British Pie Weeks on the world's leading pie review blog! Plus we'll soon be posting our our British Pie Week #PiePledge article - with our full plans for British Pie Week - but for now why not watch our short video clip to find out how you can get involved in British Pie Week too?




Pierate is a pie review website charting a course to find the ultimate pie. For all the pies we have reviewed have a look at our Pie Rankings or find pies of a particular flavour under Pies: Categorised.

Make sure you
and let us know your thoughts!
continue reading "British Pie Week - Birmingham set for a Pierate Pie Night!"

Pierateers join the call for new Wigan football pies!

You don't need us to tell you we know a thing or two about football pies! If you've even glanced at our pie blog you're bound to have seen mention of our football pie video with BBC Sport (at the home of our top rated football pie, Morecambe FC) or our football pie article with Buzzfeed or our Pieremiership table, detailing all the football pies we've eaten in-ground! We've even been football pie experts on BBC One hit show "Rip Off Britain"!


So it will come as little surprise that we were intrigued to find out about a pie-tition that's circulating online calling for the DW Stadium, home of Wigan FC and Wigan Warriors Rugby League Club, to stock local, Wigan based pies! The e-petition, which started a few days ago, has already seen dozens of people sign up to protest that - despite noting "there is nothing wrong with Holland's Pies", the current supplier - the stadium built on pies (though we don't think literally!) should stock local Wigan pies - namely from Galloways.

We've rated almost 600 pies, including a number of football pies

Now it has to be said that this does leave us in a slight quandary, in that we've rated Holland's Pies (during our visit to The Emirates for an Arsenal game) and a Galloways Pie (on the High Street of Wigan) and these are our findings:

Holland’s Big Peppered Steak Pie
Score: 5.29/7
[Individual Ratings: Colour 6/7; Consistency 4/7; Cheapness 5/7; Chewiness 5/7; Condition 6/7; Content 5.5/7; Capacity 5.5/7]

v

Galloways Meat and Potato Pie
Score: 4.36/7
[Individual Ratings: Colour 3.5/7, Capacity 4/7, Consistency 3.5/7, Condition 3.5/7, Chewiness 5/7, Cheapness 5/7, Content 6/7]


1-0 to the Holland's Pies, you could say!

However at Pierate we like to try and see the bigger picture. And if there is a local supplier, one which doesn't have the big spending power of one of its larger pie rivals, we want to factor this in. If it's a case of local v wholesale, that's important too. Ultimately it's a tricky one to call - does the more expensive pie that rates better trump the cheaper local supplier? We'll ultimately leave that decision up to the caterers at the DW Stadium, but lend the petition makers our support.


"I'm signing because I believe in locally sourced pies!" - Pierateer Rob



Sam and Rob being interviewed by BBC Sport's Azi Farni
Watch the video on the BBC Sport website
But before we go any further, after slicing through the crisp top pastry of this e-petition we came to find out that it was in fact friend of the blog Mr Martin Tarbuck - of "The Life of Pies" fame - who is behind the "Pie Eaters Protest Group" who set up the petition! Some would argue that man would do anything to get a book plug, but genuinely he has eaten hundreds of pies himself, so if he's recommending Wigan FC go back to their pie-eating routes and source locally, the man has got to be heard!

So, while we'll happily back the man from Wigan who's had a "journey of a lunchtime", we're also here to do our own football pie campaigning - to say no to #PieHighPrices and keep the price of pies low but the quality of pies high when it comes to the Pies of Football!

RAS

Pierate is a pie review website charting a course to find the ultimate pie. For all the pies we have reviewed have a look at our Pie Rankings or find pies of a particular flavour under Pies: Categorised.

Make sure you 
and let us know your thoughts!
continue reading "Pierateers join the call for new Wigan football pies!"

Friday, 10 February 2017

Countdown to the British Pie Awards 2017

British Pie Awards 2015 Judges
Judges at the British Pie Awards, including Pierateer Sam

Now into its second year being held in the month of March rather than April - and in British Pie Week no less - the British Pie Awards are firmly etched in our pie calendar. Held in the heart of Pork Pie country, pie makers, pie enthusiasts and - most importantly - the pies themselves head to Melton Mowbray every year for the judging of up to 1,000 pies in just one day and to crown their supreme champion. Sadly this year marks the first year away from the beautiful St Mary’s Church, located in the heart of Melton Mowbray, while the church building undergoes renovation. However do not fear! An alternative location has been found nearby and we look forward to attending, with the judging taking place on Wednesday 8th March and the Award's Lunch taking place on Friday 10th March.


British Pie Awards 2014 - Church
This year due to renovations the British Pie
Awards will be held away from St Mary's Church!
This year will be an unusual one for us as for the first time since 2013 we won't be lending a hand to judge the over 800 pies sent in from across Britain and beyond. With Pierateers Rob, Sam and Tim all having judged numerous times before - and lets face it, with almost 600 pies rated on our pie blog we've had no shortage of pie judging outside the Awards - we have decided to give someone else a go and instead focus on providing insightful media analysis of the day with yet another "British Pie Awards - Live!" blog.

So following on from our "British Pie Awards 2016 - Live!" article last year and "British Pie Awards 2015 - Live!" the year before, on Wednesday 8th March we'll be joining around 100 judges and over 800 pies for a pie-filled day of photos, interviews and behind the scenes info!

This year's list of judges is set to include Food and Drink TV producer Andy Clarke, Channel 4's Felicity Spector and pie judging regular Xanthe Clay from the Daily Telegraph. In addition to this are friend of the blog Nik Speller, author Martin Tarbuck - who you may recall has written pie review book "Life of Pies" - and fellow football pie pundit Jonny Smith, who like us has featured in The Sun newspaper regarding football pies.

And while the British Pie Awards use a significantly different set of criteria to us, rather than the 7 Cs of pie rating that we have used to rate almost 600 pies on Pierate, there are very few pie experts they could call on with more ex-pie-rience than us when it comes to judging the pie-fect pie!


This isn't the first time we've attended the British Pie Awards! Oh no! Find out more in our other articles here:
Judges in 2016  |  Judges in 2015  |  Judges in 2014  |  Helpers in 2013



Pierate Rip Off Britain
Pierateer Rob on Rip Off Britain
Last year was another exciting year for Pierate at the British Pie Awards, with over 2,000 of you viewing our live blogging from the pie event of the year, our post-event review and preview articles.

This year it will just be Pierateer Rob in attendance, who you may recognise from TV shows "The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice" and "Rip Off Britain: Food".

So what have we got to look forward to at the British Pie Awards 2017?


Well... following the success of our Countdown to British Pie Week, here's our Countdown timer to the British Pie Awards 2017, happening on Wednesday 8th March at 11am!


Of course if you are a pie producer, you need to remember you only have until Wednesday 22nd February (extended from 17th) to make your application! This year the organisers have made it even easier to enter your pies with an online form available, so don't miss out on this fantastic way to promote your pies! (Who knows... it might lead to a review on our world leading pie review website, like our review of 2015 Supreme Champion Great North Pie Co!)


Regional Specials to be celebrated in 2017


Bridal Pies Review British Pie Awards 2015
The amazing Speciality Class "Bridal Pies"
at British Pie Awards 2015
We're looking forward to once again seeing what pie producers come up with in the Speciality Class, following an amazing selection of entries in the 2015 Speciality Class of Bridal Pies and some royally good pies in the "Pies Fit for the Queen" Speciality Class last year.

This year's Speciality Class is the Regional Pie, which organisers have deemed “a celebration of the magnificent traditional pies associated with different regions across Britain”. Think Shropshire Fidget Pie, Cornwall’s Stargazy Pie, Devon Squab Pie or, of course, the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie. This category is - perhaps after last year rather controversially - also open to pasties, as the British Pie Awards define a pie as "filling fully encased in pastry." You don't need to tell us that opens them up to offers of slices, beef wellingtons, steak and kidney puddings or even apple turnovers - we've been there, done that, got the t-shirt - but alas this is what the British Pie and Pasty Awards have deemed their definition to be and we respect that, even if we don't agree with it.


Will a pie once again reign supreme?


I'm sure it can't have escaped your attention if you heard anything about the British Pie Awards 2016 that a pasty won the supreme champion title. And if you saw anything on our blog or twitter feed you'll have spotted we were anything but quiet about our disapproval of a pasty even being allowed to enter - let alone win - the pie competition. One of the knock-on affects of this was that for the first time since 2013 we have not reviewed the BPA Supreme Champion, as we wouldn't touch a pasty with a barge pole!

Fast forward almost a year and it's fair to say we're still trying to get over it, but if anything it has made us even more passionate to share the love of the top rated pies that are produced and judged this year. Here's hoping pies can rightly make all the headlines at the British PIE Awards 2017!


And if you want a flavour of the British Pie Awards check out our interview with Andy Bates from 2015, who you will recognise from the Food Network TV Channel. Andy was compere of the British Pie Awards Lunch 2015, which involved announcing the class winners and handing out the trophies on results day. He's been involved with the Awards numerous times.



All that remains to be said is you won't be surprised to hear we will once again be covering the event and providing regular tweet updates from Melton Mowbray as we once again get involved in the greatest pie show on Earth, so check back on Wednesday 8th March for more pies than you can possibly imagine!

RAS

The Pierateers are on a mission to find the best pie they can and you can see a list of their pies rated so far in the Pierate Pie Rankings or find pies of a similar flavour on the Pies: Categorised page.

Make sure you 
and let us know your thoughts!

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Monday, 6 February 2017

British Pie Week 2017 Pierate Countdown

The countdown to British Pie Week has begun!


British Pie Week 2017 - which runs from Monday 6th March to Sunday 12th March - is now just 4 weeks away and we're busy at Pierate HQ making our final pre-pie-rations for the big event! And exciting news is that this year the British Pie Awards will once again be happening in British Pie Week too!

British Pie Week Pierate
British Pie Week 2017 is from 6th to 12th March!
Some of you may have spotted recently that 23rd January is America's National Pie Day - where Americans spend a whole day celebrating the pastry beauties.

But in Britain this is simply not enough! We can't compress all our pie-excitement into one day! Oh no! We need a whole week to celebrate and enjoy the wonder of pie, which is why we are proud backers and - some would argue - the strongest advocates of British Pie Week! Yes, it's a week dedicated to pie!


Some of you may well have come across British Pie Week before, which has in fact been around since 2007 as the ingenious marketing spin off of pastry company "Jus-Rol" - and they managed to bag the lucrative web domain www.britishpieweek.co.uk to encourage pie makers up and down the land to get involved. However in an obscure turn of events, it appears they have ditched this lucrative web domain this year to re-direct straight to the generic Jus-Rol website and no real mention of pies or pie week! With the @BritPieWeek twitter account having not tweeted since March 2016 it appears Jus-Rol may have had their pie and eaten it, meaning we may be defaulted to be the premier resource for pie advice this British Pie Week!!!

And while others may have used British Pie Week to just promote some pastry, as good as it is, we at Pierate are dedicated to promoting THE PIE!

That's why on Pierate you won't just find an encouragement for you to make a pie this British Pie Week - though we certainly do encourage you do! We don't just suggest a reci-pie or two - though we plan to do that as well! We don't even just encourage you to go out and eat a pie (or two) during British Pie Week. We go above and beyond!

British Pie Week Pierate Pie
The Pierate Logo Pie made for us in British Pie Week 2014!
Find out more about this Nice Pie here.
We aim to be the pie experts you turn to for all your pie rating and eating needs during British Pie Week and beyond! With almost 600 pies rated and reviewed on our unique 7 Cs pie rating system, we commend pies to you, tell you which ones to avoid, and give you the low down on what we think makes the perfect pie!

PIE-LIGHTS OF PAST BRITISH PIE WEEKS

During British Pie Week 2014 we Pierateers consumed a quite incredible 55 pies and you can see the breakdown right here! There were so many highlights that we had to do a whole day-by-day account of it, including a Python pie, a day of just eating apple pie and Pierateer SJL eating 21 pies - one for every meal of British Pie Week.

In fact, Pierateer SJL didn't just eat a pie for every meal but he proved that you can eat pie and lose weight!!! Yes, we can hardly believe it either!

In 2015 we raised the bar even higher by consuming a whopping 71 pies between 2 Pierateers! This included a Pieathon (seeing how long we could just eat pies for) and Rob eating pie for 67% of his diet that week!


Also on 8th March we'll once again be involved in the British Pie Awards, where we have helped judge the pies for many years. So whatever pie (or pies!) you enjoy in British Pie Week, we hope it's a good one that rates well on the 7 Cs of pie rating! If you need any ins-pie-ration, you can of course see the hundreds of pies we've rated on our pie blog via our Pie Rankings or our Pies Categorised!

Why not watch our short video clip to find out how you can get involved in British Pie Week too! For more ins-pie-ration see our #PiePledge article!






Pierate is a pie review website charting a course to find the ultimate pie. For all the pies we have reviewed have a look at our Pie Rankings or find pies of a particular flavour under Pies: Categorised.

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