Season's Drinking

We decided to hole up in our Bristol flat for the festive season.

This is as much to do with availability of beer as a feeling of getting away from other obligations.

As I've alluded to before, we're really not keen on loud crowds in pubs and we're very grumpy folk so are easily irritated by poor behaviour in other people.  Thus December is a time of beer hell...except it wasn't this year.

We had been putting off making a decision about our travel day because of chores we needed to do and a train timetable change which promised a potential travel clusterfuck.  In the end, we crammed final bits and pieces into a single day, arranged to swap presents with a helpful sister on our departure day and headed on the Thursday before Christmas.

It felt like a bit of a rush but we thought it was worth doing.

We arrived in Bristol at our usual late afternoon timing having had an uneventful journey and we figured that the Barley Mow would be unpleasantly heaving.  We remembered "Cask Thursday" in the Moor Brewery tap so headed there instead thinking that it would be marginally quieter.  Actually it was a lot quieter - and really nice.  The cask "Galaxy of Mosaic" (or something like that) was superb - freshly tapped, perfect temperature and having travelled zero miles.  Instant relaxation ensued.

Freezer provisions completed the day perfectly and set the scene.

We woke Friday to learn that we'd dodged a travel bullet - there was flooding and resulting chaos in Sussex.

We had some work to do and then some provisioning so we ambled into town and came back via The Volunteer.  We reasoned that it's not that much of an after work pub and that, as such, it might just be bearable.  It was.  It had been solidly booked out from 6.30pm but for our duration it was pleasant, and welcoming and .... well ...very nice.

We'd arranged to meet brother and sister in law on Saturday morning and we'd agreed on Keynsham for brunch.  It wasn't possible to linger in the Lounge but it was suggested we relocate to the Ship (which, it turned out, was closed) or the Trout (a pub I'd never been to).  After a pretty unsatisfactory pint of Doombar we said our fond goodbyes.  There only being one train an hour we had to time our departure carefully, so we decided to try The Bank.  In fairness, it did have a better range of beer than anywhere else, but it was busy with revellers and football watchers so we just grabbed a quick half of Owd Rodger.

A quick aside about this beer.  This was only the second time I'd ever had it - the first being some take out from The Anchor in High Offley on the Shropshire Union canal (a cult place, if ever there was one).  I reckon it's stood the test of time better than Theakstone's Old Peculier or (to some extent) Harvey's Christmas beer (entirely based on the judgement of the native Sussexer in the house).

40 minutes later we were on a train back to Bristol and we went straight to The Barley Mow, thinking it would be quiet.  It was and we had a chance to chat to Harry (the Manager) - he confirmed the pub had been utterly rammed the two previous days - so once again we had the sense of having bullet-dogded.

Sunday we wanted to pick up some canned beer from Moor so we popped around for a couple of pints and some cans - once again it was pleasantly peopled (maybe 2/3rd full?). We arrived back at the flat just as our grocery shopping arrived (about 10 mins early) and we counted it as another successful day.

We wanted to stretch our legs on Monday so we ambled up to North Street, really just wanting to visit the BBF Tap room.  Again, we found ourselves in a space with sufficient people to make it lively but it wasn't rammed or noisy.  Perfection (oh, and lovely beer an' all). Walking back via "Corks of North Street" we picked up a couple of bottles of nice wine and strolled home.

Christmas Eve we decided not to go out - the weather was quite grim but we figured that all the pubs we liked would be rammed and, in any case, most were closing quite early.

Christmas Day we returned to North Street, in glorious sunshine,  having ascertained a week or so earlier, that The Old Bookshop would be open all day.  It was glorious in there!  The beer isn't the most exciting but there's always something worth having and we were very happy with our choices.  Busy but space to sit with a really nice turnaround of punters means this place has it utterly nailed for us.  It's not just the owners of the business, either.  The balance of customers makes it perfect for us too.

Boxing Day means beer desert in the centre of town so we didn't venture out (also weather rubbish again) but we'll be heading out later today (once I can persuade him indoors that we really need some new bedding) and I have no doubt that beer will be happily on the cards.

I would like to point out at this stage that beer is not the ONLY thing we've been concentrating on.  We've played games, we've read, we've done a bit of work, we've taken (film) photographs, we have a little media server project coming along nicely and we've relaxed more than we usually do.

I absolutely don't begrudge other people their festivities - it's just that I'm usually quite happy when the official season has passed and I can stop feeling like I *should* have been spending the season in other ways.

This is also the time I remind myself (and others) that pubs really need us in January once all the seasonal-only drinkers have departed and the healthy people are doing the "Dryanuary" thing (do it, by all means, but please don't try and make me feel bad about not doing it...).