So have you blogged recently?

...S asked me yesterday.
The answer was "no".
Partly because I've been dashing between residences, partly because I've been tied up with a few projects in Eastbourne and partly because beer had been very much "some ol', same ol'" for a little while.

Still, we went on holiday in Appledore in Devon which was sooooo nearly the perfect place that it hurt.  Why was it not perfect?
Well, the walking wasn't terribly interesting for one - there was a dearth of footpaths and there's only so many times you want to walk up and down a railway path.
The other reason were the pubs - of which there were six (of which we tried five).  They were fine.  But that's all and that's really quite sad.

There was real ale in all the pubs we did try - but for the most part it was the Otter, St Austell, Sharps triumvirate you inevitably get in the area with only rarely a ray of something a little more unusual - viz Clearwater Brewery "Real Smiler".

The one pleasant surprise was in Appledore's "posh" pub - The Seagate.  This is one of the places that served the Smiler.  The second time we went in, the young chap who served us said "ooh - that's just gone off, hang on a second and I'll change the barrel".  Now, this is usually a bad sign since we don't really approved of serving beer back-to-back once a cask has emptied...so I stood with trepidation waiting for him to come back.  He pulled about five or six pints through the pump, then carefully drew a half, put it on the bar and watched it clear.  Then he sniffed it, swished it and tried it.
Only then did he draw our two pints and apologised for keeping us waiting.  The beer was perfect.

Real Smiler isn't a truly great beer, it's a nice beer.  But it was probably the best beer we had all week.

Is it really so hard to get something different on a bar with four pumps?

Actually, we noticed that the beer that seemed to sell best was Doom Bar.  We guessed it's a little like the "Harveys" effect in Eastbourne - it's what people know, and what they like.  There's no crime in that, but as S is wont to say "It's a bit like paying to see your wife's knees".

Getting back to civilisation, I started to catch up with my blog reading and stumbled on this blog and it pretty much sums it up for me.  And we've been to that neck of the woods and I know what she means...

If you've read other posts in this blog - you'll not be surprised to learn that, whilst under the influence, S & I spent quite a lot of time musing whether we could set up a pub in Appledore with a better range of beer.  I mean...how hard can it be?