Not What it Was

 I had to go to That London last week for an event which meant me getting up stupidly early to get to "The City" for a 9.30 start.

 There's something to be said for Thameslink which meant that I could get a train a 7.30am (inhuman), change at Haywards Heath and arrive at City Thameslink at 9.15am, just a 10minute walk from the venue.  Doing this meant swerving the Tube on what promised to be a very warm day.

Since I'd had to shell out stupid money to get myself there it seemed a bit of a waste not to make the most of being in London so I'd suggested to the Boy that if he fancied the trip at a slightly more civilised (ie cheaper) time of day, we could meet up.  Alternatively, I could head home.

 He took the former option and we said we'd meet at Blackfriars station and maybe wander to Tate Modern with a Lomo camera to do a bit of film photography, and take in what was on there.

When I emerged from the event which had been really hot and stuffy I did so into this square with loads of public seating entirely surrounded by ridiculously tall glass buildings.  It was gloriously cool so I perched and caught up with stuff whilst I recovered from standing for an hour in the event.

After that, I had an hour or so to kill so I thought I'd stroll down to the embankment via Temple Church for a bit of an architectural gawp.  I passed Samuel Johnson's house and down to Fleet Street whilst getting hotter.  I thought there'd be a chance of a bench under a tree near the church but several hundred (well, about a dozen) people also had that idea and no seating in the shade was available.  So I walked down to the river but building works prevented walking alongside and the cool gardens that appeared to be available were very much "Public Keep Out".  Oh, yeah I'd forgotten places like that!

So I plodded on remembering that there used to be a long row of public benches outside the Blackfriar pub...but no, building works have absorbed that space too.

There were chairs and table outside the pub but I assume they were for Patrons and, as much as I love the building I didn't really fancy beer (and definitely not Nicholsons Ordinary) at the time.  Nevermind, a bit of shady perching space opened up outside the station so I waited there.  It's right next to the road and sound of irritable driving was intense.

Turns out, it may have been better to cross the bridge since the station has two exits...anyhow, we met up and wandered across together.

The south side of the river was also largely subsumed by building work - it looked like it was around my old company's disaster recovery side in what had been old bank building from the 70's.

We fought through pedestrians winding their way and eventually landed at Tate Modern.  I needed to eat but there wasn't any shade so we perched on a beautiful black stone bench which had managed to absorb all the sun it wanted and was, as a result, a bit of a bum burner!

I absolutely love the space alongside this bit of London but we needed to get some shade so we went inside.  My favourite exhibition bits was a Cuban artist's invocation of their home countryin sound, picutre and sculpture.  His favourite was some small metal sculptures.  When I leave a gallery not having seen it all, I sometimes feel like I'm doing it wrong...but we'd enjoyed most of what we'd seen, we took some Lomo pictures and we wanted to move on.

We headed toward Borough Market.

The first place we came across was The Rake.  As ever it's a wonderful pub/place with good beer on offer and not all of it at really Londony prices.  We relaxed and had a couple and I recovered from the heat and the walking (and the standing).  

 We thought it would be wrong not to go somewhere else, so we decided the Market Porter would be just the place.  It was crowded outside but looked cool and welcoming inside.  Except, the beer...there were 4 or 5 casks on but all of it was mainstream.  It couldn't possibly match up to what we'd just been drinking so, knowing there were 2 or 3 other really good pubs nearby we struck out again revisit pubs we'd enjoyed in the past.  We landed at the Old King's Head - a GBG stalwart with u21 football on the TV.  All they had was Tribute and not in good condition, either...though it was cheap in happy hour.  We watched some of the football but could only get halfway through the beer.  We wanted to stay within striking distance of London Bridge station for the journey home so we thought either the Royal Oak in Tabbard Street or back to the Rake.

To be honest, if we didn't live in Sussex we would probably have opted for Harveys Pub...but I wasn't in the mood and it was a bit hot for their beers.  Back to the Rake then, for another brilliant beer (Circle who had a takeover) before getting back on the train.

We reflected on the way home how disappointed we were at the changes in pubs we used to know and love but also now Borough Market is a very different sort of destination.  Where once were little independent restaurants etc, there are now mainly chains and maybe that's influencing the availability of a variety of different beer.  We'd literally seen nowhere we fancied eating and so we'd got an earlier train than otherwise would have been case, and made some pasta back at home.

I did also look on "Real Ale Finder" to see what beer might be available and only The Harp had an entry and none of what was on the list would have been enough to take me back over that way.  Looking on the What Pub app just listed a plethora of Fullers (at best) and similar places.

 The shame of it is that a lot of the pubs would be lovely to be in but without matching beer, I'm not going in.

If we have to do this again, I'll probably be looking at taprooms and the like which is a shame because whilst the beer might be superb...they're not proper London pubs, are they? 

 

 

Sometimes only the 'mow will do

 Work is kind of odd at the moment - lots of apparent interest in what we do but all the time knowing that work we do to promote ourselves won't actually pay off for ages (if ever).  This puts an odd pressure on me because most of what I need to do is this sort of future planning and development whilst making sure that the young team of brilliant workers we have back down in Eastbourne are properly supported.

Switching off from all this at the end of the work day is particularly hard at the moment. 

Anyhow, a hot afternoon (entirely glass curtain wall in the flat), battling with InDesign in bright sunshine on a 13" laptop had me uncharacteristically flustered by about 3pm.

Where to go for "after work" beer, though?  Being Friday, busy and noisy pretty much comes with the pub territory and I really didn't think I could deal with too many people or too much noise.  Were we in Eastbourne, I would probably have demanded beer in our own garden.  

"How busy do you think the Barley Mow will be...?" I ventured.

We agreed it was worth a punt.

It was busy outside with all the tables and the pews on the pavement fully occupied.  However, on stepping inside to the cool darkish interior, it was an oasis of instant calm. Even better, "our" corner was entirely unoccupied.

We were greeted by cheery staff and we got a couple of pints.  The second we sat down I relaxed - before I'd even touched my beer.  It's not just the beer in the pub, it's the pub itself.  Bit by bit my flusteredness ebbed away and I started to look forward to tackling the InDesign document the following morning.

The pub itself did start to fill up and the table of accountants next to us were a tad noisy but by then I was able to handle and because we couldn't hear ourselves talk, we started playing a card game instead.

I love this pub.  

 Today, I'm back to a bit of InDesign and vowing that, in future, I'll do the bloody documents at my desk in Eastbourne and not leave it until the last minute! 

 

Is it beer, though?

 We landed in Bristol on Thursday having dealt with a few things down south (where Things = ears and a Trustee meeting).  I insisted on catching the bus because we'd decided we wanted to make sure the "Beast" lens, a decent camera and a tripod were conveyed to the flat - mostly for the purposes of getting a better picture of the peregrines that use the nearby ledges as their dining table.  

Anyhow, I digress.

Despite more than usually bulky luggage, the journey was pretty-much textbook though watching people using the Paddington ticket gates, there's definitely a PhD in there somewhere.

Naturally, upon landing at the flat, the usual offices were carried out and we got out to The Barley Mow.  It being Thursday, it was starting to get reasonably busy but we bagged a good table, and started to neck a couple of lovely BBF cask pints.  Relax.  The second was another cask beer each (Tileys for me, Stroud for him).  We were pretty restrained on our final drink - despite some lovely (and strong) beers on Keg, we decided to avoid the strong and go with Summacrush from NBB instead. 

Friday we tinkered about with the camera, did a bit of work - and then knocked off a little early.  Moor had Illumination on cask so it would have been very rude not to.  We took our drinks out into the garden, got annoyed by a particularly gobby magpie and by a couple of annoyingly loud cars (we are old, after all) and then as it cooled down, sought refuge inside and played some Regicide.

Saturday is always a tricky day in the spring/summer - we definitely don't want to go towards town (we'd seen all the hen and stage parties arrive...shudder) so I took a look at the real ale finder app and the Kings Head looked like it had some interesting stuff on - so we strolled round there.

Got chatting to the chap who appears to be a new landlord/manager living-in???  An Oakham beer was on offer and I expressed delight.  Turns out he's from the midlands and so knows the brewery well.  "It's dividing people", he said.  Turns out not everyone likes the lemon peel that was added (I liked it a lot).

Second cask beer was a 5% NEIPA which we shared a pint and a half of (they don't really do 2/3rds on casks here).  It was excellent - and we'd barely touched the cask offering, really.

However, what we'd both seen was three (count 'em) strong stouts.  Fyne on cask, Vault city and Holy Goat on keg.  I bought 2/3rds of the Fyne which was 9.5% (so they can do 2/3rds...) and attempted a 1/3 of the Vault City (it was 15%) which was, fortuitously generously poured.   Both stouts were lovely in their own way and we shared them before strolling home for dinner - definitely feeling the effects.

Today I'm musing on 15% keg stout.  Is it really beer?  It's stronger than most of the wines we drink.  I certainly would have it again - it's almost the perfect last-beer but even I'm thinking it may be a bit too much...maybe.

Ennui

Contemplating the "beer scene" in Eastbourne doesn't make me smile.

Our lovely cask-ale local is a bit of an oasis of quality - but not necessarily of  huge variety.  This not a criticism but a reflection of pragmatism in the landlord who knows what he can sell reliably both in terms of quantity and style.  This is how it needs to be, for sure.

Beerarama has variety but no cask.

The Tiger and Bohemian are pretty good on cask quality, a little bit of variety - but pricey.

The Lamb has good quality Harveys but that's all.

Ninkasi usually has great beer but can be oddly quiet at the times we want to go in - and excessively crowded at other times.

Belgian bar is...well, unique.

We haven't been to The Hurst, The Vic (both Harveys), The Eagle, the Dewdrop or the Dolphin (limited cask options) for ages.

There are a load of pubs we simply don't and wouldn't go to for a variety of reasons.

Then there are the little outliers...

"Bibendum" wanna be chic restaurant/bar, where a cosy corner to sit in is in short supply because the bar area feels like the waiting space for the restaurant.  

"Frontier" half record shop, half bar is definitely a compromise venue usually has decent beer. If you're with coffee-drinking pals then the coffee-beer crossover time threshold can be painlessly managed.

So, when I got off my train on Wednesday having been a little traumatised by a 'spoons at lunchtime (has to be said the beer was really well kept) I wanted to hunker down in my "depeopling" mode.  We stood there wondering where to go.  Himself said that Ninkasi would probably be too quiet, suggest Belgian Bar - but I said I wanted to go there after work on Thursday (with pizza in prospect afterwards).  Beerarama chaps were on holiday.  So we ummmed for a bit.

Eventually I tentatively suggested "Frontier" because we'd not been there for ages, it was close and, well - you know where else????

They had three good beers on (two from a Welsh brewery, one from Pollys), there were sufficient, mostly young, people in evidence to make it perfectly peopled.  It's true that it wasn't cosy but, on the other hand it was comfy enough for us to stay for all the beers before grabbing a bus home...and we agreed that we'd really enjoyed it.  

Then old school friend of Beer Buddy got in touch to ask for recommendations for meeting up in Eastbourne over the weekend.  Much agonising ensued and it's highly likely these two old men will spend a lot of time on Sunday grumbling over the "not as good as they used to be" pubs of their youth,

 

Down South

 We're back in Eastbourne.

It was a painless journey back on Tuesday and we were blessed by a bus arriving just outside the station as we emerged.   We were home in just a few minutes.

The house seemed to be in order and even the garden hadn't suffered too much in the heat.

On Wednesday I had to go to Hastings so when I got back and needed to chill with the Beer Buddy, we went to Beerarama, had a catch-up with Jamie and came down from the after-effects of the work I'd been doing.

Thursday, the Crown's Easter Beer festival started so we made haste to try the first beers.  It was lovely to be there but we've noticed that our absolute beer capacity continues to reduce.  We managed 5 pints between us.  Same on Saturday, too. 

Easter Sunday was dull and cool, contrasted with the beautiful gardening weather of Saturday so we did a few jobs around the house, and then played boardgames with fridge-beer.

Both of us are a bit discombobulated at the excess of weekend - even though we were tinkering at "work" on Friday.  Today we have to go to the Wish Tower to meet with a member/builder who is going to help with some renovations we have secured funding for.  Undoubtedly there will be beer after that - possibly the Bohemian which is now - if not a regular haunt - then certainly an acceptable place to go in this town with few venues for us, at least, to choose from.

Betwixt

 We've been in the Bristol residence for nearly 3 weeks, now and heading back in a couple of days.

It's Saturday morning and I'm going to try and take most of the day off work - like the BBB says, when the "work" is as much hobby/volunteering as it is Work it's not so bad to tinker a bit at the weekend.

We've not been anywhere new, particularly, but we did make the pilgrimage to Arbor Brewery Tap - I'm so glad it's now regularly open on Fridays and Saturdays.  The day we walked over there, there was even a cracking impy stout on offer.

 On Wednesday this week we thought it would be safe to head to King Street and sit in the sun, surely it wouldn't be that busy at 4.30pm.  Boy, were we wrong.  As much as we generally avoid crowds, we actually both enjoyed sharing space on the outside benches with about another 150 people.  We won't be doing it again any time soon - but as a once-in-a-while thing, it made us smile.  It was followed by a quieter drink in Small Bar and then Potato Tikki Chat in Dhamaka-  yeah, it was fun.

Yesterday, I wanted to sit outside drinking beer for a bit...but I also wanted it to be fairly quiet.  A tricky one on a Friday.  So we strolled around to the LHG Taproom with its multitude of tables on tarmac.  We had a cracking pale cask beer (not overly generous in the poured pint, but delicious) and a signature NEIPA (two different ones, actually, but very similar in character).

Today, it's record shop day and the BBB has suggested a nod to the day by popping up to Plastic Wax and seeing what pre-loved 45's might be available.  I predict a taproom on the walk home...

Small Changes

There's been a subtle change at The Crown.

Andy has always had really well-kept beer. The first time we went in, the BBB is sure we had a pint of Harveys Best on gravity.  It was the day we first viewed the house we now live in we thought we'd check out a local pub and chat about what we thought of the house.

It was several months later we actually bought it and moved in.

Naturally, we revisited very quickly (I can't remember if it was the day we moved in or the next day) and found to our delight that it was Dark Star Hophead on gravity, along with 6X, Harveys Best and something like Spitfire.  Bit by bit a different guest would appear at weekends, and Andy ran beer festivals 3 times a year (he still does).

At the time The Crown was an Enterprise Inns pub and we asked Andy how he managed to get different cask beers in.  "I get a bit of latitude" he said.

A couple of years ago, we noticed that 6X was no longer a regular on the bar - "...only two blokes drank it and they died..." 

More recently Timmy Taylor started to appear - first intermittently, now as a regular beer.  Always well kept (obviously) good in a pinch for us but not really what we want to drink.

We learned that EI had sold on some of their estate to Heineken.  The craft beers on offer changed from Shipyard IPA to Gamma Ray and new keg ciders are available.

Then a couple of months ago, we noticed that now there's nearly always a nice "new" 4% or so pale beer on - and they're often ones we've not seen before.  Typically they'll be fairly local - but not always.  At the weekends there are typically two or more interesting beers on.

I read quite a lot of beer news from various sources and I'm guessing that, with shift in uber brands, seems to come a culling of cask beers so I'm guessing that Heineken pub estates now care much less about what cask is on the bar but probably don't allow much flexibility in the keg offering.

This would definitely explain the subtle shift (with its attendant improvement) in the cask offering for landlords(/ladies) who have a genuine interest in cask.

 I hate that once significant brewers no longer brew but if it means a bit more interest on cask from places we might not always expect - then for me it might be a price worth playing.