Archive for the ‘pubs’ Category

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There’s a brewery in Stratford!?

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

Westfield, Stratford, by Mallsecrets

Picture: Westfield, Stratford, by Mallsecrets, via Flickr Creative Commons.

It’s a rare departure from our usual two-bloggers-one-voice approach, but Bailey suggested I write this one alone, because I have to declare two interests in commenting on Tap East: my brother works there and it’s “on my manor”. I grew up and have lived in East London for most of my life; I used to work in Stratford and my Dad lives there now. To see it exploding into Olympic-inspired life is rather special for me. I really do remember when all of that was just fields (or wasteland, at any rate).

I’m not the world’s biggest fan of shopping centres but, if you have to have them, Westfield Stratford City isn’t bad. As well as welcome brands like Lego (big kid…) there are some quirky shops and cafes around the Great Eastern Market, which is where you will find Tap East, the first and only brewery in a UK shopping centre.

Inside you will be greeted by knowledgeable staff (I am very impressed by how much my brother has learnt in such a short space of time) who will help a baffled shopping refugee or hold their own with a lonesome beer geek at the bar, if required. When we arrived, they were gathered in a huddle, sniffing beer and discussing its aroma. A good sign.

Eight handpumps dispense local brews and reliably excellent guests (e.g. Oakham, Brentwood). We liked Tap East’s John Edward Edwin bitter in particular. On keg, various joys included Harviestoun’s Old Engine oil, perhaps the next step on from Camden Ink in the Guinness fan’s voyage of discovery? And there are bottles galore, so even the most adventurous beer geek should be able to find something new.

The main difficulty it will have is trying to feel even remotely as cosy as a pub when it is, after all, in a great big breezy shopping centre, without a separating door, and with centrally piped music to boot. Obviously, January and February in the middle of a recession will also make for challenging trading conditions. And there’s also plenty of competition, with Brodies and the Red Lion also offering excellent beer geek destinations nearby.

However, our experiences of being squashed in the Craft Beer Co., Cask and the Southampton Arms on the same weekend would suggest the market is not saturated, and Tap East is a worthy competitor to all of those in terms of the beer offerings, with the added advantage that you might even get a seat, all for the sake of a few minutes on the tube.

A couple of years ago, we were excited just to find a passable pub in Stratford. How times have changed.

Boak

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Posted in london, pubs | 5 Comments »

Bar well and truly raised

Friday, January 27th, 2012

The Bull, Highgate

Ten years ago, with the range of beers they offer today, the Red Lion in Leytonstone or the Bull in Highgate would have been among the best pubs in London. Now, while certainly way better than run-of-the-mill, they merely count as friendly neighbourhood craft beer bars.

That’s right: every neighbourhood in London now seems to have a craft beer bar and many (like the Bull) are also brewing. Everywhere you look, there are enamel signs advertising Orval and glowing neon Brooklyn Brewery logos. These days, you’re never more than a bus ride from a pint of Dark Star or a Camden Helles.

These kinds of places seem (thank God) to be replacing the kind of ‘style bars’ or ersatz ‘gastropubs’ which were everywhere until recently and which had snobbery without the saving grace of exciting beer. They were the kinds of places where you would be charged a fiver for a pint of stale Erdinger wheat beer or four quid for a pint of UK-brewed San Miguel; now, for that money, you get beers that are (arguably) worth the asking price.

There’s more detail on each of these pubs to follow in subsequent posts. Suffice to say we liked them all the more for their localness: drinking in them didn’t feel like a trip to Beerworld, Britain’s newest theme park.

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Posted in london, opinion, pubs | 8 Comments »

Them and us

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

Broken glass

Two hours in to a busy shift at one of London’s currently trendy specialist beer bars, we see a barman heading into the gents. He’s wearing rubber gloves and carrying a mop because someone has pissed all over the wall and floor.

Fifteen minutes later, he picks up a broken glass from a shelf near us, only just avoiding cutting his hand. His face reddens. “Fucking pigs,” he says under his breath, and you know he means all of us — every one of the tipsy, slightly loud people crowding the bar that night.

Later, when we’re at the bar, he doesn’t seem to be in the mood to talk to us or anyone else. He is tight-lipped and frowning. In fact, he doesn’t seem to want to be there at all.

Of course it’s never the customer’s problem that the barman is having a bad day but, sometimes, especially in overstuffed London, we do understand where the scowls and aloofness come from.

Some bar staff and managers handle this by Tweeting their fury in real time which can be enlightening and dispiriting in equal measure.

Pic by Paulius Peciura from Flickr Creative Commons.

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Posted in london, opinion, pubs | 13 Comments »

Ale, Cider, Meat… and hairspray?

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

The Southampton Arms, NW5, from their website

This weekend, we found ourselves at the Southampton Arms in North London with one of the friends who introduced us to it not long after it opened.

Although it’s more-or-less his local, he actually isn’t remotely interested in beer. In lieu of Becks or Staropramen, he drinks Camden Helles, but under protest.

Nonetheless, he also dutifully tried every hoppy ale that we brought back to the table, screwing up his face in disgust at each one.

His verdict, at the end of the night, was damning. Where we’d detected elderflower, citrus, grape, and so on, he picked up only one thing.

“All these beers… all these weird beers you drink… they just smell of cheap hairspray!”

In a funny way, we know exactly what he means.

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Posted in london, pubs | 11 Comments »

Why publicans need to connect

Thursday, January 5th, 2012

A friend of ours recently posted a status update on Facebook saying that a pub we follow on Twitter had ruined a special day — she’d been kept waiting for hours for food, the staff had been rude, and that no-one had apologised. She was never going there again. Her many Facebook friends piled in to sympathise and join her nascent boycott.

For once, though, we were able to do something about it: we dropped the pub a line to pass on the feedback.

Because the publican in question had previously acted like a human being, engaging us in conversation and answering our questions, we knew that our contact would be taken in the spirit it was intended.

Sure enough, an email arrived with a detailed explanation of what had caused the problem, their plans to deal with it, and a sincere apology. We were able to pass that on to our friend and, hopefully, convince her to give the pub (which seems, generally, to be doing all the right things) a second chance.

What went wrong really did go wrong, and the pub needs to look at why the explanation and apology we got wasn’t given to our friend on the day but, nonetheless, this shows why it is worth businesses investing time in social media and that it pays to really connect with people.

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Posted in opinion, pubs | 10 Comments »

Falmouth’s Must Visit Pub

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012

The Front pub in Falmouth, Cornwall

The Front in Falmouth (CAMRA Cornwall’s pub of the year) is a corker. It always has a long list of ales from a range of breweries; bottled beer from America and Belgium; and (because this is the West Country, let’s not forget) several interesting ciders. We’ve found the bar staff unfailingly friendly and enthusiastic on our several visits, and the building itself is the very model of cosy, well-worn wonkiness.

Now, it’s not perfect. On our most recent trip, we looked at the pump clips and despaired, recognising several Cornish breweries whose beers are, at best, bland and, more often, sadly undrinkable. We were momentarily stumped — there wasn’t much we actually wanted to drink.

Fortunately, Tintagel saved the day. Their Harbour Special (4.8%) was a dark amber delight with lots of citrusy hops up against chocolatey, roasty malt. Gwaf Tan (Winter Fire) (5.5%) was roastier still, with hints of rum and Christmas fruit — an attempt at a Burton, we think, but almost dark enough to pass for a stout in the low light.

The Front’s local loyalty is to be applauded but perhaps there’s something to be said for adjusting the balance to feature more beer from elsewhere in the UK to keep the local brewers on their toes?

At any rate, if you are visiting Cornwall, and like beer, this pub should certainly be on your itinerary. We’ll certainly be visiting again soon.

Notes:

1. On previous visits, we’ve been spoilt for choice, and excellent local breweries such as Coastal are more often found here than anywhere else.

2. Pints and Pubs liked Harbour Special too.

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Posted in beer reviews, pubs, real ale | 9 Comments »

Freehouses don’t embrace freedom

Friday, December 16th, 2011

We recently got our grubby hands on a copy of a catalogue from a company which supplies cask beer to freehouses.

The selection on offer did include some excellent beers, but the overwhelming impression was a of a long list of the usual suspects — lots of similar brown bitters, a smattering of golden ales, and very few dark beers at all.

It made us realise that the reason so many freehouses have the same old beers on is that, even they could theoretically buy and sell whatever they like, they choose to use these middle men because it’s convenient and (presumably) cheaper.

But aren’t landlords who use these suppliers severely limiting their options? Aren’t they just acting as if they were in the grip of a pubco?

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Posted in pubs | 13 Comments »

Personality Crisis

Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

A London pub, as illustrated by Kaffe Fassett for the New London Spy (1966)

It takes a certain kind of person to do a good job of running a pub.

A few years ago, a friend of ours gave up teaching after only a couple of years. She was doing well — she’d been promoted several times, and was popular with the children she taught — but, as she was sufficiently self-aware to realise, she just didn’t have the type of personality that could cope with it in the long term.

She was good with people but it just wore out her batteries, whereas some of her colleagues got a buzz from it. They were the ones who really enjoyed teaching: they liked being with 30 people for almost every hour of the working day.

She is an introvert, while the best of her colleagues were extroverts, just like the best pub landlords.

The best landlords create a good atmosphere, rather than killing it. They never seem tired or give the impression that they would rather all those irritating customers would just go home. They’ll make conversation with anyone who wants it and always honour the promise of a “friendly welcome for all” chalked on the board outside.

Yes, landlords can have a lot of worries, but, sometimes, aren’t they just in the wrong line of business?

We’ve used that illustration before, but we like it so much, we’re going to trot it out at least once a year.

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Posted in opinion, pubs | 9 Comments »

Where’s the catch?

Monday, December 5th, 2011
The Dock Inn, Penzance

Photo nicked from the Dock Inn website.

Yesterday evening, we finally made into a Penzance pub that we’d been meaning to visit for a while. We’d noticed through both traditional methods (looking through the window) and on Twitter that the pub in question served Spingo Middle (5%) from the Blue Anchor in Helston, a cult local beer which, for us, is usually a long, expensive bus ride away.

So, why did it take us so long? Partly because we don’t yet know how to read Cornish pubs like we used to be able to read them in London. We just can’t tell from the outside, in the dark, whether we’ll find a scary atmosphere, or a cheery greeting. So we dither, not wanting to wander into a… situation.

From the moment we entered the Dock Inn,  however, we felt comfortable and at home. It hits a sweet spot being clean, cosy and characterful all at the same time. Properly worn in, but not tatty. It has partititons and corners, sofas and tables, a fire and — most importantly — people behind the bar who talk to you like human beings whether you’re a regular or not.

The beer was good, too, although on the cold side, which, as it happens, we don’t mind at all. Spingo is Spingo, and in the sweet, malty West Country style which you either love or hate. (Although, this time, not at all sour.) Skinner’s Christmas Fairy (3.9%) was… a Skinner’s beer. The occasional pint of Betty Stoggs has impressed us but, sadly, we might have to face the fact that we just don’t get on with them. There was no faulting the condition, though, and this amber-gold beer could not have looked any more appetising in the squeaky clean glass.

This is our new favourite pub in town, without doubt. What a relief to have found it.

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Posted in pubs, real ale | 8 Comments »

Mid-morning crowds at the bar

Tuesday, November 29th, 2011

It was 11:45 in the morning at the Sheffield Tap and we couldn’t get served.

Two harassed bar staff — one of whom was a woman with a moustache (Movember) — were trying to deal with a four-deep crowd of football fans and beer geeks at the bar. One bloke wanted to taste a few things. The bar staff were patient about it but the punters behind him weren’t. A couple of low-key rows broke out: “Don’t let that bloke push in front of you! You were there first!”; “No I wasn’t, you nobhead. Shut up!”

Eventually, squeezed into a corner with our Thornbridge Pivni (“Possibly the best breakfast beer in the world” — Reluctant Scooper), we wondered whether, when this pub first opened a couple of years ago, anyone ever expected it to be this busy at any time, let alone before midday.

The market for craft beer bars isn’t saturated yet. If there’d been another one a few doors down, we reckon that would have been full, too.

Tasting notes (all Thornbridge): Pivni (3.7%3.2%) was delicious — how we falsely remember Summer Lightning tasting; Black Harry (3.9%) was one of those milds that’s coy about it, pleasant enough, but lacking oomph; Sequoia (4.5%) was our favourite, light-bodied and exotic-tasting — what Ewoks would drink; and Versa (5%) was a Schneider-alike with big banana aromas and lots of toffee flavour.

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Posted in beer reviews, pubs | 8 Comments »

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