Stanbury Wild Game Pie Reviews

So a couple of weeks back we had the small matter of British Pie Week to enjoy, and unsur-pie-singly we had a few pies to celebrate this momentous occasion! And while we managed to document the pies we got our teeth into via our daily diary articles (see the bottom of this article), now comes the time to write up all our new pies on the world’s leading pie review blog!

Stanbury's Squirrel and Rabbit Pie and Mixed Game Pie

A pie-light at the end of British Pie Week, enjoyed on Day Six and Day Seven, were the wild game pies that we had from Stanbury Wild Game Pie Company. This is a relatively new husband and wife team producing – you’ve guessed it! – wild game pies. They’ve been making wild game pies for about 3 years now, selling mainly at local farmers markets and food festivals near Exeter in Devon. However this has recently changed with a new online delivery option via their website, so now more people can get hold of their pies!

Venison and Pheasant Pies from Stanbury Wild Game Pies

To mark British Pie Week, the owners of Stanbury Wild Game Pie Company arranged to send us six of their game pies – 4 of which we ate in British Pie Week and review below and 2 of which we froze to eat soon. The pies we review below are the Venison and Mushroom, Mixed Game, Pheasant and Cider and Rabbit and Squirrel pies. Each of them sell for £3 on market stalls or £3.50 online (apart from the Rabbit and Squirrel pie, which is £3.50/£4).

As with any wild game pie, you’ve got to be careful to look out for small bones or leftover shot, but I’m pleased to say all four were fine in this regard, with no fat left on the meat either. This is a great sign of a company who take care of their produce and only want to provide the best pies to their consumers. The pastry was good – especially the crisp golden pastry on top of the pie, even if the side and base were a little paler and less crisp on them all. But all in all, not bad at all.

Pheasant and Cider Pie

Pheasant and Cider Pie
Certainly a combo I’d not tried before – I think I had only consumed Pheasant within a mixed game pie before this one! And there was a good amount of meat too, with no criticism there! The cider added an interesting flavour to the mix, fortunately not making it too sweet in the process but acting as a nice balance to the pheasant’s meat flavour. I’d certainly recommend this pie. The pastry, as with all of them, was lovely and crisp on top and looked beautifully golden. Besides the meat the filling was more thick sauce than gravy, an interesting consistency, but balanced the pie well.

Score: 5.82/7
[Colour 6, Capacity 6.5, Consistency 5.5, Condition 5.75, Chewiness 5.5, Cheapness 5.5, Content 6]

Venison Pie

Venison and Mushroom Pie
Venison pies, understandably, are a lot more common nationwide than some of the other wild game pies on their menu, however they have done a good job of providing a lovely venison pie here. While I personally wouldn’t go for a venison and mushroom option over a straight out venison pie – and also would prefer a gravy rather than a thick sauce – when putting my personal preferences aside this was a nice pie and I still enjoyed it. The pastry (especially the lid) was nice and crisp and complemented the meaty content well. While I have to admit I was more excited by the other (more unusual) flavours, it’s encouraging to see them doing the slightly more regular flavours well too!

Score: 5.54/7
[Colour 6, Capacity 6.5, Consistency 5, Condition 5.75, Chewiness 5, Cheapness 5.5, Content 5]

Mixed Game Pie

Mixed Game Pie
Like London buses, you have your first pie with pheasant in for a long while, and then a second comes along slightly after! This time the pheasant was in a mixed game pie also containing venison, partridge and pigeon! And we also found out on the Friday before we ate it that this pie was the Class winner at the British Pie Awards for best speciality meats and game pie 2018!

As for the pie itself, it was crammed full of lovely, tender meat. The moist succulent filling balanced well with the crisp pastry and it was an unusual mix of flavours rarely seen all in one pie. I can see why this rated well with the judges at the British Pie Awards!

Score: 6.07/7
[Colour 6, Capacity 6.5, Consistency 5.75, Condition 6.25, Chewiness 6, Cheapness 5.5, Content 6.5]

Rabbit and Squirrel Pie

Rabbit and Squirrel Pie
Of course both rabbit and squirrel pies are pretty unique (although we have tried both individually), this was the first time we were rating them in combination. And I certainly enjoyed the meat mix! Not your usual combo but one for your dinner guests to talk about! Personally I’m not sure I’d choose to pay more to have a rabbit and squirrel pie over the rest of their wild pie range but interesting flavour mix to give people the option if needed.

Score: 5.82/7
[Colour 6, Capacity 6.5, Consistency 5.5, Condition 5.75, Chewiness 5.5, Cheapness 5.5, Content 6]


All in all, some unique meat flavours in there and some top rated scores, particularly the mixed game pie which backs up its British Pie Awards class win with a Pierate Highly Recommended pie score! Our thanks to Nel from Stanbury Wild Game Pie Company for supplying us with these lovely Pierate Recommended pies. I certainly commend them to you if you fancy something a bit different from your standard beef or chicken pie!!

#britishpieawards class 12

Stanbury's wild game pie pic.twitter.com/vNrSeADb4C

— DUB Pies (@dubpies) March 9, 2018

RAS

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Nice Pie Wild Squirrel in Red Wine Gravy Pie Review

Some might argue you’ve got to be a bit nuts to call your company “Nice Pie” – for it is surely a potential rod for your own back! Are the pies really that nice? Because if not, you’re surely going to get some stick for having a name like “Nice Pie”. However rest assured; no need to panic - I can confirm these pies are very nice indeed!

We sampled a range of pies from Nice Pie – three exotic (at a bargain of £3.50 each) and three from their more traditional range (at just £3.00 each) – and they will all be reviewed shortly on the web’s premier pie reviewing website www.pierate.co.uk

So onto the wild squirrel in red wine gravy pie. I’m sure the first thing you’re wondering is “Squirrel – really?!” Yes – really! The grey squirrels are shot near to the farm that Nice Pie operates from and they pack plenty of meat into these pies, which makes me think they must take down a large number of these critters to make all these pies! After all, there can’t be much meat on each one. And sure, you may think I’m a nutcase for trying one, but on board the Pierate Ship we are always looking for new pies to rate and new flavours to try.

Wild Squirrel Pie from Nice Pie

So what did the squirrel pie taste like? Well, before I dig my claws in, I think you’d have to agree with me that this is one of the most beautiful pie decorations I’ve ever seen. It’s amazing that with just a little extra pastry a nice, but rather dull, pie lid can be transformed into a beautiful work of art! The pie arrived in top condition, and while a little crumbly around the edges, this pie gets a near perfect score for condition.

But what about the meat? Well, as you’d probably expect from an animal like a Squirrel this meat tastes quite gamey. It was quite light and not at all chewy, but was in quite small pieces within the pie, as you would expect for meat from such a small animal. The meat content was therefore consistently spread throughout the pie. The capacity was very strong, with only a small amount of potato and carrot to bulk out the pie filling. It was pretty much full capacity and at no point was I left feeling “there’s not much meat in this!” In fact, almost the exact opposite! I was quite surprised at how much Squirrel meat was in this pie, considering this pie was just £3.50 to buy! Very high scoring on cheapness for an exotic pie.

Wild Squirrel Pie from Nice Pie

The main thing for me that stops this pie from quite reaching pie-fection is that the pastry was a little bit dry and crumbly. I certainly don’t think it is bad pastry, by any means. It held together well and was nice and golden. But having sampled so many pies, it was a bit too dry for me. This certainly didn’t affect the pie content, which was actually very moist and succulent despite there not being much noticeable gravy in the pie. It just resulted in a noticeable contrast between the moist, succulent content and crisp, drier pastry.

Let me clarify that this should not in any way stop you buying the pie, for the pastry was good, held together well and when eaten with the lovely moist content was a very nice meal, but when you are looking at the very fine margins between a recommended and highly recommended pie on www.pierate.co.uk, this is the sort of constructive feedback we look to give. I am sure that Nice Pie are looking to improve their pies even more and with such a great range of exotic pies on the menu we will definitely be rating more!

Finally, the red wine gravy also added an interesting twist to proceedings, which made the meat moist and succulent. I would have personally preferred a bit more gravy in the pie, which would have possibly counter balanced the outer pastry too, but it was certainly very flavoursome!

It certainly won’t take much to shoot this Squirrel pie to the top of the tree, with the succulent meat and packed content I could go nuts for! And the pastry was good too, just a tad dry so holding the score back a little but still resulting in this being a great pie – not a drey-dful one!

In a nutshell, this is a Pierate recommended pie!

Nice Pie Squirrel in Red Wine Gravy Pie
Score: 5.89/7
[Colour 6/7; Consistency 5/7; Cheapness 6.25/7; Chewiness 5/7; Condition 6.5/7; Content 6.25/7; Capacity 6.25/7; Total: 5.89/7]
RAS

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