We continue to get our beer fix by ordering deliveries of cans and bottles.
We went for a longish walk the other day, met relatives and sat and chatted in person in the outdoors for the first time in months.
We watched someone appear with a plastic takeout container of appeared to be Harveys and sit on the grass nearby and enjoy it.
Sister asked whether we wanted to go and do the same...but both of us said no.
It wasn't about the beer, precisely. If we'd have been able to go to the Victoria we'd have relished the chance have a pint of Harveys and sit and chat for hours.
We had really good beer at home which we could enjoy in our own garden and yet it still doesn't match up to a good pint IN a pub.
Neither of us can quite work it out. We don't usually engage with other people that much so it's not exactly the company. It's not just the desire for cask beer since we could equally have got that.
It's the whole thing: a walk to the pub (not necessarily a serious walk, a five minute amble will do the job), the anticipation of what might be on the bar, a tiny bit of interaction with staff or other customers, finding a comfortable spot to sit in, then the beer at the right temperature in a glass pint. Remove any one part of this recipe and the whole isn't quite the same.
The pub industry is really suffering and although I don't care that much for rubbish pub companies or lowest-common-denominator breweries, I feel greatly for smaller organisations and indivuduals involved in the trade.
I can confidently predict that although Wetherspoons is likely to be amongst the first cask beer vendors to reopen we won't go there. Its about so much more than the beer.
We're very much looking forward to it and I only hope that not too many of the genuinely good ones struggle to reopen.
