We arrived yesterday afternoon after as painfree journey between Eastbourne and Bristol as we could hope.
The plan was to meet Big Bro at the Barleymow around 7pm.
Naively I thought that in this cycling-healthconscious-city it would be relatively quiet in the Barleymow.
Boy, was I wrong.
Leaving aside our slight niggle with the place that they allow booking of tables pretty much anywhere in the pub. When we arrive at around 5pm there wasn't table to be had.
Come 6.30pm when Bro arrived, there was barely anywhere to stand, let alone sit. The place was rammed. People were sitting outside in the garden and out front in order to enjoy their beer.
I know it was Friday and all that but I was really quite impressed with the pub's pulling power in what is often a quiet time of year for publicans.
Just goes to show that a place that knows its stuff can pull in the punters (pinters?) on a non-seasonable basis.
We eventually got a table around 7pm when the after-workers who were only in for a couple exited. Beer, as ever was excellent as was the food.
Still my favourite pub.
Saturday, 13 January 2018
Wednesday, 3 January 2018
You say you want a resolution...
Here we are, then, 2018. Beginning of the year and the traditional time to muse on the last year, and resolve to do better this time around.
We don't really go in for all that old guff. I'm a bit of a Christmasophobe - I hate the indecent vigour with which large corporates try and tell us what we want, nay...need in order to make our lives complete/better than the other guy's/more aspirational...whatever. Anyway, so we tend to do minumum decent celebration so we're not pegged as out-and-out-curmudgeons and try and get some quiet time with games and beer.
This year we made the (for us) radical decision not to run away but, instead, to stay in the main residence.
Travel chaos and weather prevented our plans to spend a week beering it up in Bristol before the real festive season (ie: that acceptable time to celebrate Christmas which runs from approx 23rd December to 1st January) so we bought in a load of bottled and canned beer and hunkered down.
Some of the highlights of our beer selection pack have been:
- Boon Kriek: I have to say I didn't like it quite as much as Morte Subite Kriek or the Lindemans Kriek I sometimes have at the Belgian bar. That's probably because it's a cherry geuze and lambic beers are not something that particularly float my boat. Still, it made a really good, hearty, beer to take the place of wine when eating a creamy chicken and mushroom dish.
- Anything by Moor: We got 20 assorted cans on the basis of knowing it all very well and sometimes you want an old friend you can rely on. Nuff said.
- Tiny Rebel Cali - an APA, and a deftly done one it is too! Was excited to find there was still one in the fridge. Any beer that can follow Moor So'Hop has to be a corker.
- Boon Geuze/Mariage Parfait - not beers for me, these. But the boy enjoyed them. He wasn't quite sure that the Mariage Parfait really held up to the expectation, but he loved the Gueze.
- Tiny Rebel Staypuft and Dirty Stop out (dark beers) were very greatly appreciated by the Boy especially as we don't often have dark beers in the house.
Also rans:
- Tiny Rebel Cwtch, Lervig Lucky Jack, Kona Big Wave: none of them bad but none that we'd rush to again, to be honest.
I've really (and I mean REALLY) missed being able to stumble out the door to either a "new" pub or one with a huge range of beer over the Christmas break but we did "shop local" by making sure the last couple of trips into town to buy presents and whatever were followed by a visit to the pub to imbibe there as well as at home.
Of course now people (and by people, I mean the media) will be telling us to have a Dryanuary (or whatever) and I'm afraid I shan't subscribe to that. Our pubs need us in January. December has been a time when they were full of people who don't often go to the pub and the uptip in sales probably didn't match the total number of people in the room. If we want our pubs to be there for us when we celebrate Christmas, then we need to be careful to support them the rest of the year.
You don't need to drink to excess in order support your local pub on a regular basis. Go in every week or two and drink a couple of pints. That way the landlord (used non-gender-specifically) gets to keep turning the beer over and you get to try new beers from time to time. Tryanuary is an actual thing and I think it's a great idea.
When we actually make it back to the Western Homeland, I'm going to make a special effort to try somewhere new.
We don't really go in for all that old guff. I'm a bit of a Christmasophobe - I hate the indecent vigour with which large corporates try and tell us what we want, nay...need in order to make our lives complete/better than the other guy's/more aspirational...whatever. Anyway, so we tend to do minumum decent celebration so we're not pegged as out-and-out-curmudgeons and try and get some quiet time with games and beer.
This year we made the (for us) radical decision not to run away but, instead, to stay in the main residence.
Travel chaos and weather prevented our plans to spend a week beering it up in Bristol before the real festive season (ie: that acceptable time to celebrate Christmas which runs from approx 23rd December to 1st January) so we bought in a load of bottled and canned beer and hunkered down.
Some of the highlights of our beer selection pack have been:
- Boon Kriek: I have to say I didn't like it quite as much as Morte Subite Kriek or the Lindemans Kriek I sometimes have at the Belgian bar. That's probably because it's a cherry geuze and lambic beers are not something that particularly float my boat. Still, it made a really good, hearty, beer to take the place of wine when eating a creamy chicken and mushroom dish.
- Anything by Moor: We got 20 assorted cans on the basis of knowing it all very well and sometimes you want an old friend you can rely on. Nuff said.
- Tiny Rebel Cali - an APA, and a deftly done one it is too! Was excited to find there was still one in the fridge. Any beer that can follow Moor So'Hop has to be a corker.
- Boon Geuze/Mariage Parfait - not beers for me, these. But the boy enjoyed them. He wasn't quite sure that the Mariage Parfait really held up to the expectation, but he loved the Gueze.
- Tiny Rebel Staypuft and Dirty Stop out (dark beers) were very greatly appreciated by the Boy especially as we don't often have dark beers in the house.
Also rans:
- Tiny Rebel Cwtch, Lervig Lucky Jack, Kona Big Wave: none of them bad but none that we'd rush to again, to be honest.
I've really (and I mean REALLY) missed being able to stumble out the door to either a "new" pub or one with a huge range of beer over the Christmas break but we did "shop local" by making sure the last couple of trips into town to buy presents and whatever were followed by a visit to the pub to imbibe there as well as at home.
Of course now people (and by people, I mean the media) will be telling us to have a Dryanuary (or whatever) and I'm afraid I shan't subscribe to that. Our pubs need us in January. December has been a time when they were full of people who don't often go to the pub and the uptip in sales probably didn't match the total number of people in the room. If we want our pubs to be there for us when we celebrate Christmas, then we need to be careful to support them the rest of the year.
You don't need to drink to excess in order support your local pub on a regular basis. Go in every week or two and drink a couple of pints. That way the landlord (used non-gender-specifically) gets to keep turning the beer over and you get to try new beers from time to time. Tryanuary is an actual thing and I think it's a great idea.
When we actually make it back to the Western Homeland, I'm going to make a special effort to try somewhere new.
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