A Turnip for the Books

...or something like that.

For the last week we've been staying at our Bristol abode.  We haven't visited for a little while, there was some work to be done by the engineer at a client's place in Wales; our water heater had broken and needed to be fixed; and...well, we really fancied a glut of great beer.

We arrived late on Tuesday after having run a kids' session in Eastbourne and S driving the 3 and a bit hours in the dark.  Rather than find beer, we made pasta, cracked a bottleored and crashed out.

On Wednesday, S fixed the water heater (you have to love having an all-round fiddler/fixer sorta guy on hand) and then drove to Wales for a meeting.  When he got back, he was famished and thirsty.
Thank goodness, the Barleymow is within 10 minutes walk of the flat; does brilliant beer; does good food too.

It was busy when we arrived but we luckily snagged a table as someone was leaving.  A choice of 8 cask ales (as is normal) had us joyous...and the steak and chips were delicious.

On Thursday S had a morning meeting but was back mid-afternoon.  We were meeting friends at the Barleymow again (both were arriving by train).  This is no hardship since we'd not tried all the beers yet.  Again it was busy but just before we were thinking about leaving and eating elsewhere a table became free and we dived on it.
There was food, and more beer and possible tipsy-ness.  Everyone went home happy.

On Friday we'd arranged to meet other friends at a new venue in a new mixed development by the harbour - Wild Beer.  We arrived early and got a table easily.  Slightly disappointed by the number of loud small children around but one by one they all went leaving the place for adults.
It's a perfectly good place but all of the beer drinkers agreed the beer was, at best, ok.  This is mostly because it was all keg beer with the attendant coldness and fizz.
Actually, I think what we all said was that it just wasn't really to our taste.  Wild Beer's own "Bibble" was the overall favourite.
We probably will go back there at some point (it's not fair to discount an OK place on one visit alone)

Then on Saturday we had errands to run so we schlepped around town for a while purchasing things and then declared ourselves thirsty.  At the point of leaving Gardener Haskins we figured that Left Handed Giant, Volunteer Tavern and Moor Brewery Tap were about equidistant.  The Barleymow was closer but we felt we really ought to try somewhere else.
So we went to LHG.  It was closed (despite an opening time on the website).  We were very disappointed.

By then we were closest to Moor so we staggered around there just planning to have one (on the grounds that we love their beer but the tap often only has keg available and we weren't keen on more fizz).
Let's just say that we stayed for three and a pork pie.
What was noticeable was the difference in texture between theirs and Wild Beer's keg beer. Moor was far less fizzy and not quite so cold, I fancy.
As a result the three pints we had were utterly enjoyed, along with a new board game I'd aquired as a gift from the friends we'd met the day before.  We also managed a cheery conversation with the knowledgeable guy behind the bar.  It's so nice to have someone so enthusiastic serving your beer.

Sunday included some work and then a little bit of an excursion.  We'd heard tell of a new pub not far from a firm favourite - The Old Stillage - so we strolled there along 'The Cut' and up through a park.  What a find!  The Dark Horse had four beers on - one Otter, one Arbour and two New Bristol Brewery.  All of them on gravity.  Naturally we tried them all.  All in excellent nick.
We also liked the look of the Pieminister Pies they were serving but had other plans for dinner.
the atmosphere in the place was lovely: a nice mix of people; a range of seating options and great friendly staff.

Monday took us back to the King Street Brew House after work.  We had a couple of their house beers which were really good exemplars of their style.  Then we returned home for dinner.

Tuesday was our last day in town so we decided to reprise a couple of Easton places.  We were too early for The Plough - so we went onto the Red Lion.  It was great that the first thing the barmaid did was to pull a bit of beer through the lines and discard it.  We had an Arbor smoked porter (always lovely) and a Portobello APA which is decent beer of the style.  We had a chat to the landlord - and his small son who was fascinated by a new film camera we'd just bought and chilled out a bit.
From there we strolled back to the Dark Horse.  Sadly, they only had Otter beer on so we plumped for cider from a selection of about 6 different brews.  A second beer came on shortly after but we didn't mind.  We ordered pies and enjoyed the place again.
Our walk home takes about 20 minutes so by the time we got close to the Barleymow we had just enough room for one last pint.

Now here's the weird thing:  our foray into canned beer in Brownsea made us sufficiently confident in the dispense method to assert that if anyone can can a beer well, it'll be Moor (this has also been endorsed by CAMRA).
So as we headed for Eastbourne on Wednesday morning we popped into the brewery and picked up a mixed box (24 cans) of their beer to bring back.

No, no, no...we haven't gone to the darkside.  If anyone had even one Moor beer on cask in Eastbourne and we had a fridge full of assorted cans of it...I would still be putting on my coat and rushing to the pub...it's just that no one ever has Moor beer in Eastbourne. 

Times They are A-Changin'

OK - this title is a cheap reference to Mr Robert Alan Zimmerman, Nobel Laureate...completely unrelated to matters of beer, in general, but someone who has a special place in my heart and history.

Anyhoo - actually, times they are changing.  I've only been going to the Evening Star in Brighton for five or six years.  My cohorts have been regular attendees for far, far longer, and we've all noticed it.  It's still a good pub; it's still a useful pub in terms of geography but it's not a great pub any longer.

I like the place, don't get me wrong, but I can't help but feel it has lost a little something.

I was there yesterday to meet the guys after football (for the three people in the world who don't know the ES - it's within spitting distance of Brighton train station).  It's the usual post-match haunt for a lot of BHAFC fans and it has always been a busy pub, post match.

But there has been an erosion of the pub's loveliness since it changed management, well over a year ago now.

The staff are still pleasant but not nearly as effective at managing a crowd around the bar, the appearance of plastic glasses on match days is very irritating, especially when they blame it on the police and licensing committee (the previous managers didn't have this issue - so what has changed?) and yesterday I noticed the pricing structure had shifted so that guest beers are now considerably more expensive than the house beers.

Finally (and this is not the fault of the staff) the people using the pub seem to have become less...well..."nice".  Variously, yesterday, I was shoved aside by one bloke clearly knowing he was queue jumping but just being unpleasant...then as I tried to negotiate my way back to the tiny corner I'd managed to carve out (the guys who welcomed me to their table were old-style pleasant...so that was nice) with a couple of pints a cluster of blokes just stood in my way effectively blocking my path. OK, I'm a foot shorter than them but were they so wrapped up in their, undoubtedly fascinating, conversation about the demise of the sweeper system that they weren't aware I needed to get past and my hands were too full to push them out of the way? (OK, it probably wasn't anything to do with the sweeper system...but you get the point, right?)
Then as the three of us sit, taking up as little space as we can so that the space can be used by everyone, S got buffeted from every side by people as they walked past even though there was obviously enough space to pass.
It's sad.  Instead of wanting to linger for an extra pint, we were sufficiently irritated to forego a pint of one of the (expensive) guest beers and leave to find some food.

I hope this isn't a general lowering of good nature in favourite pubs - fingers crossed it's just an isolated incident.

On a happier note - our lovely (but quirky) Eastbourne local, The Crown, has a beer festival on.  It's running for four days - from Thursday to Sunday and we've already been twice.
There is something wonderful about feeling so at home in a pub that all you do is hand over the cash for your beer and then go and pour it straight from the cask for yourself.
We've tried almost all the beers that Andy has put on (actually we've tried a couple of them more than once) and they've all been in terrific condition and really nice choices for a festival.
I predict that  we'll get down there again before all the beer runs out - though I would imagine that the nine of Jaipur that was on will have evaporated.
All this in a pub that doesn't have an obvious REAL ALE core.  It's a good trick, for sure.

Mind you, I don't think we'll ever get one of our Harveys-Drinking sometime companions to enjoy other styles of beer.  But we'll keep trying...