Ben, Pierateer Rob and Pierateer Sam at the British Pie Awards 2018

The 10th annual British Pie Awards took place just a few short weeks ago and we were delighted to once again be there for judging and full media coverage via our Live feed! 

Held in the heart of pork pie country - Melton Mowbray - we saw a record 146 judges rate a record 963 pies from across Britain! And we were delighted to share on Day Five of British Pie Week that the British Pie Awards Supreme Champion of 2018 was Turner's Pies!

🏆‼️ WE DID IT ‼️🏆

Absolutely honoured to be named the SUPREME CHAMPION 2018 at this years #britishpieawards #BritishPieWeek

Our Steak & Ale Pie overcame stiff competition from 963 other pies to be crowned #1 In the UK.

More news to follow soon...MR T@BritishPies pic.twitter.com/0yTfZvMDUJ

— Award Winning Pies (@TurnersPies) March 10, 2018

And after their win, Turner's Pies immediately set their eyes on another award - this time becoming the number 1 pie on Pierate!

Thanks guys, we were waiting for the official press release before we told the world but it seems that’s not coming today. We’re chuffed! Only accolade we need now is no1 pierated!!

— Award Winning Pies (@TurnersPies) March 9, 2018

Back to the Awards judging on Wednesday 7th March and we were glad to be back where it all began as the 10th annual British Pie Awards headed home to St Mary's Church in the heart of Melton Mowbray. You may remember that last year the Awards took place at an alternative local venue while the church was refurbished but I can confirm it was well worth the wait, as the new renovations looked great and the church really is the home of the Pie Awards!


After a three hour trip from Gloucester to Melton Mowbray via Birmingham, Pierateers Sam and Rob, ably accompanied by friend of the Pierateers Ben, arrived for the 10th annual British Pie Awards. It was the first time we'd driven to the Awards and after a light breakfast and coffee upon arrival, it was time to head to see the newly refurbished church. We weren't disappointed! And having settled in, it wasn't too long before new chairman Colin Woodhead conducted the all important judges briefings, where consistency in judging was the main point stressed to the judges.

Then it was over to Chairman of the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association Matthew O'Callaghan to welcome people and share a few top tips about judging, before the Vicar of St Mary's church in Melton Mowbray blessed the pies with a brief prayer, thanking the pie makers for all their hard work in baking! Amen to that!!

St Mary's Church in Melton Mowbray

The Pork Pie Class at the British Pie Awards 2018

There were once again a number of celebrities judging the pies, in particular TV's Andy Clarke on the Pork Pie Class and food critic Charles Campion. And we were delighted to catch up with a number of friends of the blog such as Katie "AwayDayPieGirl" Peel and "Life of Pies" author Martin Tarbuck, as well as Awards hosts Matthew and Stephen Hallam.

As always there were a number of interesting occurrences, such as controversy in the Savoury Pie (cold) class as a pie with a stilton lid - rather than pastry - got disqualified and a chicken and banana pie was rated in the Chicken pie class! Plus there were once again some interesting flavours in the Speciality Meat and Game Pie class. Rabbit, venison, wild boar and duck pies were among the entries there!

Speciality Meat and Game Pies

So who were the big winners and notable entries in the British Pie Awards 2018? Some of the pie-lights this year included:

- As previously mentioned, Turner's Pies from West Sussex grabbing the big prize - the Supreme Champion 2018 for their Steak and Ale pie. This was also followed up with the win in the small producers award category too! Many congratulations to them - we look forward to getting our hands on one to rate soon!

- Lesson Family Butchers winning the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie class. This was a turn up for the books, as last year the Supreme Champion was from this class, but this year the Dickinson and Morris Pork Pie didn't even win the class!

- Ben's Kitchen - who won the small producer award last year - won the Beef and any flavour class for their Beef Bourguignon pie.

Stephen Hallam and Pierateer Rob!

- MyPie London won the Chicken and other meat class with their Chicken, Smoked Ham & Tarragon pie, which follows on from last year's vegetarian class win! (You may also be aware we pie rated this chicken pie a massive 6.39/7 when we reviewed it!)

- The Speciality Meat and Game pie class was won by Stanbury Wild Game Pies, whose pies we ate at the end of British Pie Week (see Day Six and Day Seven reviews) and which will be formally rated in the next week.

- The Apple Pie class was won by none other than Graham Aimson, whose name may well ring a bell as in the past he won the class (and Supreme Champion) when working for Morecambe FC but this year won the class while working for Kendall Rugby Club! Find out more about Graham's transfer here.

The full list of winners can be found on the British Pie Awards website.

Once again there was a great array of top pies made from hundreds of pie makers (many small producers of less than 5 employees!) It certainly reminds us we have many more pies to set sail towards on the Pierate Ship! We'll keep searching these Great British Isles for more top pies and, as always, let you know how they all rate on the 7 Cs of pie rating!!

RAS

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Pie at the football!

Regulars to our pie blog know that the world's leading pie review blog - featuring over 600 pie reviews with multiple football pie media appearances - are fans of a pie at the football! We've talked about football pies in many articles, including giving a number of o-pie-nions on the results of the annual BBC Price of Football Survey that looks at the price of pies, had the chance to share our ex-pie-tise on BBC Radio, BBC TV (through our appearance on "Rip Off Britain") and even been in a pie-related video on the BBC Sport website!

But probably the best pie related video we've seen in a while - and the best save of the season thus far - happened recently, as captured on TV and posted on the BBC Sport website! A Scottish league footballer's wayward shot over the bar narrowly avoided taking out a fan carrying his pie and drink back to his seat due to the quick reactions of a fellow fan! In the video on the BBC Sport website you can see a leg pop out at the last minute to re-direct the ball and save him from a calamitous situation! The pie was saved and all remained well in the world due to the quick thinking of his fellow supporter. I'd like to think the guy walking down the stairs bought his life-saving friend a half-time pie as a way of saying thanks, but I guess we will never know!! Thanks to friend of the Pierateers Steve for sharing the video with us!

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

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More about us and our football pie pedigree:

Sam and Rob being interviewed by BBC Sport's Azi Farni Watch the video on the BBC Sport website

Just over two years ago we joined BBC Sport's Azi Farni at Morecambe FC, who make some of the best pies rated on Pierate (let alone football grounds) to discuss what makes the perfect football pie! Watch us featuring in the BBC Price of Football video here.

Top of our pie league, Morecambe FC's Globe Arena is certainly the place to be for top football pies! They are also winners of the British Pie Awards twice, and while Head chef Graham Aimson has sadly moved on, the pies at Morecambe are still made in the kitchen on site by hand, rather than just buying them in! Great work!

RAS

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As part of our Pie Pledges for British Pie Week last year, we decided to head up to Leeds to do a #LeedsPieTour! A bit delayed but we have finally caught up with this being the all important last place we really had to review!



As part of the Leeds Pie Tour one of the most highly regarded pie shops we visited was Wilsons. Some claimed that they produce the best Pork Pies in Leeds so we had to check them out!  It was nice to see that this was a shop specialing in pies which goes to show how much the good people of Leeds love their pies.

As you can see from our video, I devoured the pork pie straight away having gone for the hot option. As a Southerner, a hot pork pie is not something I would normally choose but I thought I had to give it a go. Unfortunately it made it hard to compare it to other pork pies I have eaten. The pastry was certainly nice with a crunch on the outside but nice and moist in the middle. It was a bit softer than normal because it was hot. I liked how the jelly had melted, I don't particularly like the cold jelly layer in a pork pie but when hot it makes more sense.

It did take me a bite to get through to the central pink ham meat. The filling was moist and certainly not lacking in flavour. I really enjoyed the first couple of bites but then found it got a bit sickly. I am not quite sure why this was, perhaps it was because there was quite a lot seasoning. I think it was a good pork pie but I prefer the cooked pork you find Melton Mowbray pork pie whereas this was cured meat; like eating a lump of ham. It was actually quite similar to the Voakes pork pie we had at Haley & Cliffords but I thought slightly not as good. However I was more in my comfort zone with the Voakes pie because I had it cold.

Pork (Wilsons [Leeds])
Score: 5.36/7


SJL



I also picked up a Wilson's Steak pie which TJP and myself ate hot later on. This was of course very different to the pork pie. The flavour of the filling was fairly standard Steak & Ale territory. The whole thing was moist because there was plenty of nice thick sauce. It was well filled with big chunks of meat although some were a little chewy.


The pastry was not your standard hot pie pastry, this was thick and in some ways a little dry but this did mean it had a good crunch and an almost biscuity flavour. It was quite nice to have this as a change to the soft and stodgy pastry you get with mass produced pies. Overall I enjoyed the pie and it was great value. I note that I also picked up a Meat & Potato pie which really wasn't as good so stick with the Meat & Meat!

Steak & Ale (Wilsons [Leeds])
Score: 5.05/7


SJL & TJP

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For those who missed the news, on Day Two of British Pie Week the Pierateers rummaged and pillaged the pies at Pieminister Birmingham as we hosted a Pierateer Takeover!

Pierateer Rob at the Pieminister Pie Night

You can read more about the plans we had in our preview article but from 5:30-7:30pm on Tuesday 6th March, Pierateer Rob and friends of the Pierateers enjoyed eating and rating some delicious pies!

For those who don't know, Bristol pie giant Pieminister opened up a shop in Birmingham city centre in mid-2017 and we've frequented it a number of times already. However we certainly hadn't waited until they opened a shop in Birmingham before rating one of their pies, for we have rated 19 Pieminister pies in total and one of our very first reviews over 8 years ago was from Pieminister!

Since then we've tried some of their "Pie Election" winners (when pie fans got to choose which old favourites to bring back to the menu for British Pie Week 2015) and we were even crazy enough to try their Cricket pie last year! Yes, that's right - it had actual whole insects in it!!

This year Pieminister decided to do a special offer each day of British Pie Week and it was a veggie pie-motion on the Tuesday - whereby meat free pies were only £2 when you bought a side. Lots of Pierateer Rob's friends chose a meat free pie, including their new vegan pie "Kevin" - but even a cheaper pie couldn't stop Pierateer Rob going for the meaty Moodog Pie! Here's what he thought, followed by a number of pie ratings from the guests at the Birmingham Pie Night!

The Moodog is British Beef Steak, Bacon and Brewdog 5am Red Ale (though with the recent news of a new "pink ale" from Brewdog, who knows if there will be a new "pink ale" pie in future?!) The pie was classic Pieminister, with a delicious crisp outer pastry and a well filled and meaty filling. The steak and bacon combined well and the gravy was a nice consistency - runny but not too runny! A little bigger and a bit more steak would have made this even higher rated, but in all I very much enjoyed the Moodog and hope to have another soon! (Remember, a pie - and thus a pie night - is not just for British Pie Week, as our "7 ways to survive post British Pie Week" article reminds us!!)

Pieminister “Moodog” British Beef Steak, Bacon and Brewdog 5am Red Ale Pie
Score: 6.11/7
[Colour 6, Capacity 6.25, Consistency 6.25, Condition 6.25, Chewiness 6.25, Cheapness 5.5, Content 6.25]



During the two hours Pierateer Rob chatted pies with his friends, including giving info about how to rate a pie on the 7 Cs of pie rating. This led to a number of guests completing a Pierate scoring card, the scores of which are as follows:

Moo and Blue (by Miranda) - 6.71/7 (Colour 6, Capacity 7, Consistency 7, Condition 7, Chewiness 7, Cheapness 6, Content 7)

Wild Shroom (by Aradhana) - 6.14/7 (Colour 5, Capacity 6, Consistency 6, Condition 7, Chewiness 6, Cheapness 7, Content 6)

"Kevin" Vegan (by Claire) - 5.86/7 (Colour 6, Capacity 7, Consistency 6, Condition 6, Chewiness 5, Cheapness 7, Content 4)

Wild Shroom (by Joel) - 5.86/7 (Colour 7, Capacity 6, Consistency 5, Condition 6, Chewiness 5, Cheapness 6, Content 6)

Saag Pie-neer (by Hajra) - 5.57/7 (Colour 5, Capacity 6, Consistency 5, Condition 5, Chewiness 5, Cheapness 6, Content 7)

Heidi (by Shereen) - 5/7 (Colour 4, Capacity 6, Consistency 5, Condition 5, Chewiness 4, Cheapness 6, Content 5)


Thanks to Pieminister Birmingham for hosting our Pierateer Takeover and we hope to organise another next British Pie Week! As you can see from the scores, everyone thought the pies were Pierate Recommended or better (5/7 or above) so I'm sure there will be plenty of guests again next British Pie Week!!

RAS

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Yes, British Pie Week is over. We hear ya! Pie specials will disappear from pub menus. Pie Week discounts will no longer apply. But we’ve got one important message for pie fans: “A pie is for life, not just British Pie Week!” We all know that pies are far too good to celebrate just one week of the year! So here's 7 ways to survive post British Pie Week:

1) Enjoy a pie as soon as possible post British Pie Week - after all, there's no need to just eat pies in British Pie Week!

2) Reminisce about your favourite pie or pies from British Pie Week and plan to eat them again soon!

3) Save up your money to buy some top pies even once the promos and discounts have disappeared.

4) Petition your local pub or pie shop to bring back some of their specials if they were only on sale for British Pie Week.


5) Search our pie rankings list of over 600 pies to find a new pie to try in the coming weeks!

Stephen Hallam (l) - compare at the British Pie Awards - and Pierateer Rob

7) Remember - it's now less than 365 days until we do it all again, for British Pie Week 2019! It'll be from 4th-10th March 2019.

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The final day of British Pie Week 2018 saw us trying another two pies from Stanbury Wild Game Pies, including the British Pie Awards class winner in the Taste of Game "Game Pie" class which was the Mixed Game Pie from Stanbury Wild Game Pies. Find out more below!

As always there is a summary of each day of Pie Week at the bottom of this article and on our dedicated British Pie Week page. Enjoy!

Judging the Speciality Meats and Game Pies

Pierateer RAS

I've made four #PiePledge commitments this British Pie Week, which are the following:

1) One or more pies eaten every day
2) 2 days of annual leave taken to eat, rate and tweet about pies (one of which was Friday just gone, in pre-pie-ration and to get some pies delivered for pie week!)
3) Organise a pie night - which happened on Tuesday evening in Birmingham!
4) Live blog the British Pie Awards


We're delighted to say that this British Pie Week has given us the most page views of any of the last 8 years, with over 41,000 page views already (and still a few hours remaining!!) Helped hugely by the massive response to the Radfords Pie Review we did on Tuesday night, which has had over 22,000 views in the past 5 days, we're delighted that there has been so much interest in British Pie Week and in our pie blog during it! Thanks to everyone who's taken a look!!

As mentioned on Friday, all bar the eating of pies each day of British Pie Week had been completed and I was very excited to get pie rating some top game pies from Stanbury Wild Game Pies again today! The two I had for lunch today were a Rabbit and Squirrel pie (which trades at £3.50 on market stalls and £4 on the Stanbury Wild Game Pies website) and the Mixed Game Pie - which won the Speciality Meats and Game Pie class at the British Pie Awards on Friday - which trades at £3 on market stalls and £3.50 on the website. Considering the unique nature of Squirrel meat, I can understand this costing a bit more, and the mixed game pie I thought was again very reasonably priced.

Both were well packed with meat, especially the mixed game pie which packed in four different meats - venison, pheasant, partridge and pigeon! Like yesterday, both pies were crisp on the lid pastry (though a little paler and softer on the side and base) with a moist, succulent filling. They had what I'd describe as more of a thick sauce than a gravy inside them both, which added to the flavour even if it wasn't quite as runny a consistency as I would personally prefer. However I could not fault the meat content and quality, and despite the warning they have to give that game pies like this may contain bones, there was nothing of the sort - so a good job in preparation there! I will review them fully soon!

Stanbury's Squirrel and Rabbit Pie and Mixed Game Pie

#britishpieawards class 12

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

— DUB Pies (@dubpies) March 9, 2018

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With the results of the 10th annual British Pie Awards making the headlines on Day Five of British Pie Week, Day Six was a far more relaxed affair! However we were delighted to find out on the Friday that the British Pie Awards class winner in the Taste of Game "Game Pie" class was none-other than Stanbury Wild Game Pies, who we had arranged earlier in the week to obtain a box of game pies from to enjoy this weekend! Find out more below!

As always there is a summary of each day of Pie Week at the bottom of this article and on our dedicated British Pie Week page. Enjoy!

Judging the Speciality Meats and Game Pies

Pierateer RAS

I've made four #PiePledge commitments this British Pie Week, which are the following:

1) One or more pies eaten every day
2) 2 days of annual leave taken to eat, rate and tweet about pies (one of which was Friday just gone, in pre-pie-ration and to get some pies delivered for pie week!)
3) Organise a pie night - which happened on Tuesday evening in Birmingham!
4) Live blog the British Pie Awards


As mentioned yesterday, all bar the eating of pies each day of British Pie Week had been completed and I was very excited to get pie rating some top game pies from Stanbury Wild Game Pies for the next two days! The two I had for lunch today were a Pheasant and Cider pie and a Venison and Mushroom pie. Both trade for £3 on market stalls or £3.50 on the Stanbury Wild Game Pies website, which for a game pie I thought was very reasonable!

Both were well packed with meat, especially the pheasant pie due to it not containing the mushroom that the venison pie had. Both pies were crisp on the lid pastry (though a little paler and softer on the side and base) with a moist, succulent filling. They had what I'd describe as more of a thick sauce than a gravy inside them both, which added to the flavour even if it wasn't quite as runny a consistency as I would personally prefer. However I could not fault the meat content and quality, and despite the warning they have to give that game pies like this may contain bones, there was nothing of the sort - so a good job in preparation there! I will review them fully soon!

Venison and Pheasant Pies from Stanbury Wild Game Pies

#britishpieawards class 12

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

— DUB Pies (@dubpies) March 9, 2018

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The Ship's Cook once again cooks up a storm in the kitchen during British Pie Week to try out an intriguing new pie flavour we've yet to try before! For all 20+ of the previous reci-pies made by the Ship's Cook, check out our Reci-pie Page!

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Grab a pie, take a seat, and let me tell you a tale about a legendary pasta pie!


Many years ago, before I’d joined the Pierateers as Ship’s Cook, a television cookery show introduced me to a pie concept so fantastic that I spent the next decade dreaming about making it. Seriously, I just looked it up and it was an episode of the Hairy Bikers back in 2006. They went to Emilia Romagna in central Italy and made a recipe called “Pasticcio di Maccheroni” inspired by Pellegrino Artusi’s Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well. “Pasticcio di Maccheroni” is a pasta pie – how brilliant is that?!

 
Ever since then I’ve been threatening to make my own pasta pie. Twelve years later and I’ve acquired an English translation of Pellegrino Artusi’s book and a husband who’s part-Italian, and I’ve put a four course dinner and a three-tiered cake in pastry, so this British Pie Week I decided it was finally time to tackle the Pasticcio di Maccheroni…

It didn’t quite go to plan.

For a start, the recipe has a very long list of ingredients that didn’t sound all that appealing. We’ve put a lot of things in pies over the years (pythons and crocodiles, for a start) but I really didn’t fancy chicken gizzards. I also didn’t have a clue where to get them from, and even if I had there was a bigger problem heading my way – some of the worst snow, ice and storms that the UK had seen in years. Getting to the shops proved to be pretty hazardous, but a Pierateer will not be stopped, so I decided I was going to make my very own pasta pie with whatever I could find in my kitchen cupboards.

The Recipe: 


This is probably one of the shortest ingredient lists you’ll ever see:

• Shortcrust pastry - I only had wholemeal flour, so that’s what I used, and I added some grated parmesan in an attempt to be a bit more Italian.
• Pasta – I used rigatoni but I see no reason why you couldn’t use spaghetti or any other type of pasta.
• Pasta sauce - I had some Dolmio Pasta Bake sauce, but you could use whatever you’ve got left in your cupboard after the Beast from the East.
• Cheese – I used Parmesan.
• Milk or egg to brush the top of the pie.

The method is just as simple. I rolled out two thirds of the pastry to line the pie dish, then blind baked the base.

 
Meanwhile, I cooked the pasta and added the sauce. Once the pie base was ready I filled it with pasta and sauce and grated some cheese on top.

 
Finally, I rolled out the rest of the pastry to make a lid, put it on top of the pasta and crimped the edges to make a proper pie. I didn’t have any eggs so I brushed the top with milk, then baked the pie until pastry was crisp and golden brown.

 
The Seven Cs:

Colour: A lovely golden brown – I find it a bit harder to tell when wholemeal pastry is cooked so I had to tap it to check it was nice and crisp.

Consistency: A little bit boring, as it was just pastry, pasta and sauce. It needed some meat or vegetables or something to add some more texture.

Capacity: Very full, but if you made this and really squashed the pasta down, or poured a really thick sauce over the top before adding the pie lid, you could probably get even more filling in here.

Chewiness: I’ll admit, this was a bit chewy, but then pasta is meant to have a bit of bite to it so if you’re going to put pasta in a pie then there’s not a lot you can do about the texture.

Content: Not the most exciting of fillings, but it tasted nice. I think Pellegrino Artusi might have been onto something with his much longer list of ingredients - pasta pie needs an interesting sauce (layers of Bolognese or cheese sauce would have been nice, I think).

Cheapness: Really cheap. In my case it was technically free because I had all the ingredients in the cupboard already. It’s also really filling because it’s pasta wrapped in pastry, so you get quite a few servings from one pie.

Condition: Surprisingly good! The first slice fell apart completely but the rest of the pie stayed intact and once it had cooled down a bit the slices held their shape really well – I think pasta pie needs time to set and should be served warm instead of hot.

 
So in the end, my pasta pie didn’t end up being anything like Pellegrino Artusi’s. It was a lot of fun to make, and it definitely fulfilled some of the key pie criteria of being warming, filling and tasty. Having said that, I’m not altogether sure that pasta needs to be in a pie after all.

Next British Pie Week perhaps I’ll try a pizza pie like SJL…

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The results of the 10th annual British Pie Awards are the headline of Day Five of British Pie Week. We were delighted to be able to judge and provide media coverage of the Pie Awards with friend of the blog Ben (who was judging for the first time) and would like to officially congratulate Turners Pies on taking home the Supreme Champion award this year! More details below and a full summary of all the results will be coming next week!

As always there is a summary of each day of Pie Week at the bottom of this article and on our dedicated British Pie Week page. Enjoy!

Pierateer RAS

I've made four #PiePledge commitments this British Pie Week, which are the following:

1) One or more pies eaten every day
2) 2 days of annual leave taken to eat, rate and tweet about pies (one of which was Friday just gone, in pre-pie-ration and to get some pies delivered for pie week!)
3) Organise a pie night - which happened on Tuesday evening in Birmingham!
4) Live blog the British Pie Awards

Ben, Pierateer Rob and Pierateer Sam at the British Pie Awards 2018

With hundreds of you following our live blog of the British Pie Awards 2018 - Live! on Wednesday, it's clear that there's an ap-pie-tite for top pies and knowing who will be crowned the Supreme Champion out of the 960 pies that were rated on Wednesday! So without further ado, we are delighted to announce that the winner of the British Pie Awards 2018 is Turner's Pies Steak and Ale pie with Highland Top Rump and Dark Ale.

The news was unveiled by the Evening Standard online this year as the British Pie Awards twitter feed didn't do a class-by-class unveil or even post about who had won as Supreme Champion! We're grateful to Gareth from Dubs Pies for unveiling the winning shot on his twitter later Friday evening:

#Britishpieawards

Supreme Pie award

Turner's Steak and Ale pie pic.twitter.com/oib609vPop

— DUB Pies (@dubpies) March 9, 2018

🏆‼️ WE DID IT ‼️🏆

Absolutely honoured to be named the SUPREME CHAMPION 2018 at this years #britishpieawards #BritishPieWeek

Our Steak & Ale Pie overcame stiff competition from 963 other pies to be crowned #1 In the UK.

More news to follow soon...MR T@BritishPies pic.twitter.com/0yTfZvMDUJ

— Award Winning Pies (@TurnersPies) March 10, 2018

And after their win yesterday, Turner's Pies immediately set their eyes on another award - this time becoming the number 1 pie on Pierate!

Thanks guys, we were waiting for the official press release before we told the world but it seems that’s not coming today. We’re chuffed! Only accolade we need now is no1 pierated!!

— Award Winning Pies (@TurnersPies) March 9, 2018

After an oven failure unfortunately meant we never got to rate the pies we obtained from Turners a few years ago, we certainly need to get our hands on them now following their Supreme Champion win! We'll make that arrrrghhh mission in the coming months!!

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Day Four of British Pie Week always feels like a bit of a lull each year, coming between the judging of the British Pie Awards on the Wednesday and the results being announced on the Friday. However there's still plenty of pies to eat and a great landmark to celebrate today on the Pierate Ship!

As always there is a summary of each day of Pie Week at the bottom of this article and on our dedicated British Pie Week page. Enjoy!

Pierateer RAS

I've made four #PiePledge commitments this British Pie Week, which are the following:

1) One or more pies eaten every day
2) 2 days of annual leave taken to eat, rate and tweet about pies (one of which was Friday just gone, in pre-pie-ration and to get some pies delivered for pie week!)
3) Organise a pie night - which happened on Tuesday evening in Birmingham!
4) Live blog the British Pie Awards


With all bar the pie eating completed in terms of my #PiePledges it was a bit of a quiet day on the blog and twitter, in part due to sad news in the family with the passing of my gran this morning, so I dedicate this post to her memory.

Ben, Pierateer Rob and Pierateer Sam at the British Pie Awards 2018

Something that put a bit of a smile on my face on Thursday evening after quite a hard day was seeing the amazing response to our blog on the Wednesday and Thursday, with over 20,000 views of our Radfords Pie Review on Wednesday (our most hits on an article in one day in Pierate history!) and thousands more of our British Pie Awards 2018 - Live! article and other pie week posts meaning that by Thursday night we had officially passed 900,000 views!!

It's quite amazing to think that what started as a little bit of fun from a punny name has spawned into the world's leading pie review blog that is now under 100,000 views from a landmark 1 million views!! Thanks to everyone who has even glanced over just one of our articles, making it what it is today!

The pie of the day was this Bowen's Steak pie and Steak and Stilton pie, which I hope to review later in the week. We've already pie rated the Steak pie as Pierate Highly Recommended, and will review the Steak and Stilton soon!

So it was a bit of a late night snack last night (well I had been at the pie awards all day!) but very much enjoyed this steak pie from @BowenPies last night! #BritishPieWeek pic.twitter.com/RCmGr1sfMX

— Pierate (@pierateers) March 8, 2018

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With Day Three of British Pie Week 2018 featuring the 10th annual British Pie Awards, what more motivation do you need?! Grab a pie, make a pie, tweet your #PiePledge. You may have already read our article "Everything you need to know about British Pie Week" but either way, here’s some things you can do this British Pie Week:

You can follow the Pierateers on Twitter and find out how our #PiePledges are going!
You can read about pies.
You can choose a pie (we have well over 600 pies reviewed in our rankings table!)
You can think up some puns for the Pie Dictionary!
You can suggest a pie you’ve enjoyed.

As for the Pierateers, we are ready for probably the biggest British Pie Week yet! We've made Pie Pledges for this week in our Friday Pieday Pie Week Special, showing our commitment to pie, plus this year the British Pie Awards 2018 are once again taking place today in British Pie Week! We'll be there as media to cover the event and Pierateer Sam will be judging again.

So whatever you do, go crazy for pie this British Pie Week! Enjoy!

Pierateer RAS

I've made four #PiePledge commitments this British Pie Week, which are the following:

1) One or more pies eaten every day
2) 2 days of annual leave taken to eat, rate and tweet about pies (one of which was Friday just gone, in pre-pie-ration and to get some pies delivered for pie week!)
3) Organise a pie night - which is what is happening on Tuesday evening in Birmingham!
4) Live blog the British Pie Awards


On Day Three of British Pie Week all eyes were on Melton Mowbray for the 10th annual British Pie Awards, which both Pierateer Sam and I were attending. Sam was there to judge the Savoury Pies (Cold) class and I had taken the day off to provide live blogging of the greatest show in pies!

We will be writing up the results of the British Pie Awards 2018 after the results are out on Friday. However for now you can check out our @pierateers twitter feed for photos from the British Pie Awards, a number of which are also viewable on our British Pie Awards 2018 - Live! article.

Ben, Pierateer Rob and Pierateer Sam at the British Pie Awards 2018

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Judges at the British Pie Awards, including Pierateer Sam

The day of the British Pie Awards has arrived! Held in the heart of pork pie country - Melton Mowbray - the scene is once again set for around 120 judges to rate well over 900 pies from across Britain and beyond! Of course you won't be surprised to know we've been invited again this year - having been a judge, media or helper at the British Pie Awards since 2013 - and this year we're there as judge (Sam) and media (Rob) to give you the inside scoop of what takes place - Live!

More than 900 pies entered from a record 179 piemakers. Around 120 judges will spend about 4 hours chomping their way through the best pies in the land. What's not to like!

— British Pie Awards (@BritishPies) February 27, 2018

As great as the alternative venue was last year, we're glad that we'll be back where it all began as the 10th annual British Pie Awards heads home to St Mary's Church in the heart of Melton Mowbray. And as well as looking forward to seeing lots of our pie friends at the Awards, we're looking forward to sharing our ex-pie-tese with fellow judges and a close friend of the blog Ben (who is kindly taking us to the awards and being a fellow judge alongside our very own Pierateer Sam).

As you may know 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 over 600 pies on Pierate) but there are very few pie experts with more ex-pie-rience than us when it comes to the pie-fect pie!

So check back here during the day for live blog posts below and on Twitter and we hope you enjoy hearing about the British Pie Awards 2018!



8.30 It's been another early start for Pierateers Sam and Rob but they are now on their way to Melton Mowbray for the British Pie Awards 2018! This is the first time they've done the journey by car (thanks fellow judge Ben!) and we look forward to chatting pie and building up to the greatest show in pie on the car journey there!

09:15 So we're going along a number of lovely country side roads to avoid some traffic on the way to Melton Mowbray. Conversation in the car has included how much is too much for a pie? and how good are MyPie? (who Chris Evans keeps discussing on BBC Radio 2!)

09:51 Three hours from Gloucester and two hours from Birmingham but we have finally arrived in Melton Mowbray!!! Show us the pies!!!

10:15 So we've had a light breakfast as pie judging commences in about an hour but we're already getting in the zone and taking in the ambiance.

Calm before the storm...

11:00 The head judges have had their briefing and now it's the regular judges getting their briefing! Colin Woodhead the new chairman is telling all the judges what to look for in a good pie!

11:15 Consistency is the key advice for the judges as they get ready to go to their tables! Soon to have the official opening remarks!

11:20 Chairman of the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association Matthew is welcoming people and sharing a few top tips about judging today.

11:25 The Vicar of St Mary's church in Melton Mowbray - where the pie awards are being held again this year - has just blessed the pies with a brief prayer thanking the pie makers for all their hard work in baking! Amen to that!!

St Mary's Church in Melton Mowbray

11:30 It's time for the control pie - which allows judges to get used to the marking criteria the British Pie Awards use. (Just remember not to fill yourself up before the proper pie judging commences!!)

11:40 With the control pie done it's time to get cracking on the actual category pies! Who's going to win a gold? Who will be supreme champion? We'd better get pie rating!!

12:15 The church is abuzz right now. Having spoken to a number of judges already, there are lots of great pies being judged!


12:35 Controversy in the Savoury Pie (cold) class as a pie with a stilton lid - rather than pastry - got disqualified!!

12:45 In the beef and any flavour category, pie blogger Katie Peel (@awaydaypiegirl) has enjoyed a number of great flavours but the beef and haggis pie stood out!

13:05 The pies are still flowing out of the ovens as we enter the third hour - with some interesting flavours in the Speciality Meat and Game Pie class. Rabbit, venison, wild boar and duck among the entries!

Speciality Meat and Game Pies

13:10 "Is it a pie? Or isn't it?" Conversations are going on between judges and there are seemingly some products that don't appear to really be pastry encased...

13:45 Some of the pie classes are starting to decide on their top 3 (which are the pie makers that get invited back on Friday for the unveiling of the class winners) but others are still in full flow!

14:15 More pie classes are starting to draw to a close and the top 3 pies in each class are being chosen. The top pie in each will be considered by the head judge to choose our supreme champion!



14:40 And with that the pie awards are done! The top pie in each class is being moved to the champions table and tables are now being packed away!

14:45 Thanks to all those who have stopped by for chats and we'll write up a full article soon, after the results are out on Friday!

Stephen Hallam and Pierateer Rob!

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The winners at the 10th annual British Pie Awards will be announced on Friday 9th March on the @BritishPies twitter feed and updated on the British Pie Awards website.


If you want to find out more about the British Pie Awards 2018, check out our Countdown to the British Pie Awards article.


Did you know? This is the third time that the British Pie Awards are happening in British Pie Week, following a successful but controversial first time out in 2016 when a pasty was crowned supreme champion and a more regular win for Dickinson and Morris Pork Pie in 2017!

RAS

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