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...
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