Small glimmers

 The beer scene in Eastbourne remains a long way behind other places we spend time.

We get that it's tough in the industry but there's probably something else at play in Eastbourne - a lack of interest in beer (other than Harveys Best) seems to be the most likely.  

Anyhow, we've been doing our usual haunts since we've been back from Bristol - Crown, Beerarama, Belgian Bar and Ninkaci. We haven't even been to the Lamb or the Hurst.  Mostly because the warmer weather doesn't lend itself to Harveys beers (in our opinion) and partly because clientele in the latter place have "views" that we don't want to be in amongst - especially at the moment.

There was a fun trip to The Seadog in Hastings because I was there for work and I may have won BBB over to the idea of bao with beer.

But yesterday, I'd promised to do a day at the Wish Tower.  By the end of the open day, we needed to convene to talk to one of the other members about the renovation of the front door (that's another story) and it required a bit of thought and geeking - both best done over a pint.

We were going to head to Beerarama but we decided to have a quick look at the newly-opened "was the Buccaneer" which is the closest place to the Tower.  It's now called "Bohemian" and it's had a bit of a makeover.  In the past the venue has been a bit of a place of necessity so we don't generally have high expectations of the offering. Added to that, it was tennis finals day so we anticipated it might be stupidly busy.

Anyhow, all appeared to be well, so we ventured in.

The cask offering was pretty respectable - 4 cask beers (2 Longman, 1 Burning Sky, 1 Three Legs) and there were a few keg beers - including 2 local offerings (Beak & Longman).

I think we'd say the cask was a little too cool but the beer was in excellent nick.

It was pleasant in there, they had Euros Football on and you could kind of see the tennis out the back.  It was probably busier than usual but it was a good place for us to be.  The beer was quite pricey but not so much it would actually put us off.

All in all?  A welcome addition to place we might go from time to time but I still think it's unlikely we'll venture out to it specifically.  Still, small mercies.

Fallback Plan

 Yesterday, we had an idea to go for a walk in Arnos Vale to finish off a couple of films in our old cameras so that we could process the film before going back down south.

This would have, naturally, meant we ended up in Totterdown for a couple of beers.

However, the day was overcast and the light completely flat and featureless - a day when B&W photography would likely have been very unrewarding.

So we did some chores, listened to the radio and decided it was probably better to put it off until Sunday morning instead.

That did leave a "where shall we go for a pint" dilemma since we absolutely knew that Sunday afternoons are now firmly in the diary as Martha's and boardgames.

Ciderbox?

It was a tentative suggestion because it's a bit of an odd place and not always as relaxing as it could be.  But we decided to give it a go, noticing on the way that Martha's has space to take us if we decided against cider.

We were greeted very enthusiastically, did our usual of selecting 3 halves to share and sat on their slightly rickety folding benches and tables.

We were alone in sitting inside but there were a fair few people sitting on pub-garden-type tables outside.

Shortly after we sat down people started arriving to set up some sort of DJing event.  Clearly in their very early 20's, not terribly organised, the lads were quite entertaining.  One arrived with a bag of 12" vinyl which, obviously piqued a certain beer(cider) buddy's interest.  So we started chatting to them.  

At one point the owner of the vinyl said with a smirk "if you stay you can hear some of our ...'house'...music" - with the italicising of "house" very obvious.  Rather like when you're trying to explain how to pronounce a word to someone who is likely never to have heard of the concept.

I remember, very distinctly raising an eyebrow, fixing him with a stare over the top of my glasses (which I'm told by the lads who work for me is terrifying) and just saying..."house?"..."before you were born, lads...".  This was met by a bit of a shame-faced chuckle and a warm smile.

The BBB got chatting about vinyl and how he'd never got rid of his.  

Just before we left we noticed that one of them had a film camera - so we had a bit of a chat about that.

We ended up staying a little longer than we anticipated simply because it was fun watching what was going on (and taking the piss out of the youngsters, obvs).  I took the glasses back to the bar as we left and the owner said "thanks so much for supporting us" which I thought was a sweet thing to say.

We said goodbye to all the youngsters as we left and we all shared a nice moment (dear god, they'd call that intergenerational engagement, these days...sigh), leaving with a big smile.

It's never going to be one of those venues we long to go to but we were reminded, again, that sometimes you just need to embrace the moment and go with the flow.