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. 

Work, work, work

 Yeah, really busy of late.  Loads to do and far too little time in which to do it.

Last Sunday we ventured out for a properly old stroll.  The nice thing about living within spitting distance of the South Downs is that it's quick and easy to get onto a nice grassy hill with a good view.  

From our house it's about a 20minute, quite robust walk up a steep hill to "the top" (of course on downland there isn't a single "top" but you know what I mean).  Now that spring is starting to poke it's head up, it's the perfect time to get out there but I admit with some shame that after over ten years of doing the immediate walks near to home, I've got a little bit bored with them.

So when the BBB said "could we get out for a proper walk?" I suggested we do the other way of getting out onto the Downs...the Sunday "Beachy Head" bus that goes from the end of our road and takes about 10 minutes to get there.  It can feel like a bit of a cheat since the first part of the slog of the hill is done by diesel.  But, like I say, there's more than one "Top".

We got the bus to the foot of "Belle Tout" which is an oval shaped steep sided hill betwixt main road (with attendant stupid motorbikers riding like lunatics) and cliff edge.  There's a lighthouse on the hill that's already been moved back from the cliff edge once and now there's less than 10m of ground now between the nearest point to the cliff edge.  Time was the South Downs way travelled between the Lighthouse and the cliff edge.  Not now - it's been diverted to the other side of the lighthouse, closer to the road. 

Anyhow - we enjoyed walking the length of Belle Tout to Birling Gap, and we had the option if I didn't feel able to walk onto East Dean to pick up the bus again there.  But it was a good 20 minutes until the next hourly bus was due and about 2 miles (mostly up a gentlish slope) to walk it.  So we walked.

 We arrived at the Tiger Inn in good spirits as the sun was going down and so the temperature was starting to plummet but there were no seats to be had inside.  So we sat outside for a while but we started to get chilly.  We ventured inside and skulked around to see if we could at least share a table but before we need to try, the bar manager who clearly always has his eye on what's going on showed us to a small table at the edge of a room we thought was only for the pub's B&B customers.  Maybe not a table anyone would really choose but, actually, it was warm and comfy and we got to order another couple of pints.

The beer was lovely, even though the cask offering was a bit dull so we'd gone for a local keg beer.   Mind you  at close to £15 for two pints, we were a little taken aback.  But we reminded ourselves that the industry is really struggling so it was hard to truly begrudge it - even in rural East Sussex.

What's lovely about this little area to walk in, is that after you've been to the pub there's a 5 minute walk to the main road where there's a bus to take us home approximately every 10 - 15 minutes...even on a Sunday.

I don't think there will be this sort of walking this weekend I've just written my to do list and it runs to a page and a half of my A5 notebook - much of it with really tight deadlines and two days out and about next week.  Hey ho, down to our local later to watch some rugby, probably (even there cask beer has gone up to £4.60 a pint but at least you can still get two pints for a tenner).

(Wo)man Down

 So we managed a couple of nice pints in the Crown last weekend.  Instantly when you taste beer from Sussex and Kent you get very regionally grounded.

Tuesday, I had to go to a meeting in Hastings and I knew that it might take a while and the BBB had some work to do in our workbase.  So, once I was on the train back - a little later than I had originally anticipated - I suggested we keep it simple and meet in Ninkasi.

It was really nice to step off the train, and stroll directly across the car park and into the bar.  Good beer available as always and then the boy joined me and we were both able to quietly de-people, together.

Wednesday I spent the day writing funding bids...as is my want.  But by the time I'd finished I was cold, tired and rapidly developing a temperature. Great - again.

No beer since then and, truth be told, I didn't even fancy any.

I think I'm on the mend now so I might risk one later - though I'm not quite ready to hike to the pub.  Perhaps some nice fridge-beer.

Back in the Beer Semi-desert

 OK - that's a little harsh.  Let's just say the beer garden is a little less fertile down here.

Nice ol' train journey, followed by a quick visit to work to say hi and pick up a laptop then we high-tailed it home to the house, and raided the fridge for beer, freezer for dinner.

Today, quite a lot of work needed to be done/caught up on and, of course, beer ordered...tomorrow I have to go to St Leonards.  There will probably be beer involved either there, or when I get back.

 Yep, definitely back in Sussex now.

A Bit of a Theme

 Once again we decided to make a little bit of an effort to go a bit further and go back to somewhere we'd not been for a while.

This time:  North Street.

My goodness, this place has changed so much in the last 25 years since I lived in "The Chessels".  The change has been incremental and, I would say, moving in chunks but I kinda miss living in the area.

We headed first to the Bristol Beer Factory taproom which is the pubbiest of all the taprooms, we reckon.

There were plenty of south-Bristol accents in evidence but also a lot of people who are more recent dwellers in the area.

Beer, as ever, was excellent and well worth the walk.  After two, we thought we'd amble down and try Lupe in the place that was the Old Bookshop.  We also thought we'd maybe try Eatchu - which is doing the food there.  On the way we passed several new restaurants which definitely bear a visit - next time, perhaps.

The space in Lupe is the same...and yet, somehow, not.  It feels a bit less crowded in and a little more welcoming. There were a couple of strong/ish beers we wanted to try so we bought a couple of the "West Coast" one and settled in.  The menu looked inviting so we decided we'd go for it.

Then a beeper went off.  A chap scuttled off round the corner and reappeared with a tray of food and sat to eat it.  Ah!  A Heist kind of thing - we can do that, I thought.

We duly ordered and fetched our food.

It was tasty and reasonably-priced (£20 for enough food for us both).  Maybe not as easy to eat as I'd hoped but, still, I'm really glad we tried it.

Then the walk home and I was done for the day.

It was nice to make the effort and I know the walk is good for us. Definitely worth a revisit!

Another Revisit

Being nerds (what sort of nerds?, I hear you ask...ALL THE NERDS is the honest answer), we have a range of slightly out there pastimes.

Yesterday was time for the "buying old film cameras and making photographs with them...no matter how obscure they are" one.

Boxes of cameras bought at auction to distract us from the tedium of the pandemic are very much a mixed bags. Some of them are beautiful, some are a delight to use (some are even both of those things) but some use films sizes that were short-lived and either are no longer available, or only available at significant cost.

As a result we had about 4 or 5 cameras using a film format called "127".  Larger than the more modern 35mm film that most people are aware of, smaller than the still-widely-available-and-used 120 film.

A while ago, we found we had cameras which used film that was exactly the same size as the 120 film, but the spools the film comes on were slightly smaller meaning you can't fit standard film into the camera.  I learned to re-roll 120 film onto 620 reels, and the boy designed and 3D printed spare 620 reels (I meantioned we were nerds, no?).  I did this for no other reason than I don't like being defeated by a small problem like a money-grabbing film company (I'm looking at you, Kodak) deliberately trying to make you buy only their film (a story repeated so often by them, it's really not funny).

Anyhow...we did manage to source some 127 film but it's really expensive so we only bought a couple of rolls just to see how it went.  The BBB then reasoned that it ought to be possible use 35mm film on the 127 rolls if he used a bit of ingenuity and was a little creative with either old 127 backing paper and/or cut down 120 backing paper.  The 35mm isn't as big so you have to be conservative with your composition, and it has sprocket holes at the edge so the result is likely to be "arty" but it definitely seems to work.

All of this is by of an explanation, were one needed, of why we did a walk to the harbour in almost nice light to take pictures with ridiculously old and impractical film cameras.  Of course once you've taken pictures of the electric cranes, and the Fairbairn crane...and then a bit of railway line action followed by a "use it up" shot of the SS Great Britain there's really only one place to go by way of recovery.  

Bristol City were at home but the quick-route bridge is closed, so a bit of calculation is needed to get there at the right time (lunchtime would have been hell, probably). It so happened that at the end of our film, and energy came at the pefect time.

We slipped inside and it was fairly busy, but there was a cosy little corner table to be had.  I grabbed the seat and the BBB went to the bar.  There was Arbor C Bomb, ON GRAVITY so that was a no-brainer for me.  He, however, was all about the cider.

The beer was so good, I nearly weakened and had a second but I also know the joy of really good cider so the second round was 3 shared halves - one perry and two ciders.

People came, people left.  There were all sorts of people in there - from the auld fellas in another corner (talking very much like my dad did) drinking Natch, to the very loud large mixed family group being a bit sprawly but not too obnoxious, to the middle-aged couple who had clearly cycled there...and all the others.

It was lively and convivial and we loved it. It had been a while since we'd been and we kicked ourselves we didn't do this more often.  But maybe not on a Saturday.

We had calculated that it would take about 30 mins for any Ashton Gate fans to return - and at 5.29 a group arrived.  They were young and jolly.  No one else seemed to arrive from the match.

We'd decided on a third - Janet's Jungle Juice for me and something else (very dry) for him.

I was knackered after the walk home but very content.

Today?  We've developed the film that we took yesterday but won't be able to scan it until we get back to Sussex.  One of the brilliant things about a modern flat is the sizeable bathroom which is entirely internal and, as a result, makes for a pretty good dark room.

There's a Lancashire hotpot in a low oven and shortly we'll be heading in the direction of Little Martha.  Ah, Sundays.

Order, order

 It's been a trying few days.  The boy picked up another bug last weekend which, whilst not awful, wiped him out for a day or so...and then made the leap to me and did the same.  Coupled with this were a couple of tight work deadlines and some frantic activity trying to price up tech kit for work where every penny counts, but longevity is even more important.

So, Tuesday I did want to get out of the house...but I really didn't have the energy to go far.  Before we came up to Bristol we did quite a lot of "we should really make the effort to go to <insert name of pub we haven't been to for a long time>", so I suggested we tried The Bridge which is so close, it's a crime that we haven't checked it out for years.

It had gone through a phase of having beers we weren't particularly interested in - and that's probably the main reason we hadn't been in.

So at 4.30ish we noodled along the floating harbour, under one bridge, over the other and found ourselves in this tiny place.

Initially it was just us, and we'd interrupted the landlord's meal (stew and mash, maybe?). He seemed unfazed and we had a jolly chat about the available beers (him:  QPA, me 4% pale something by a brewery I hadn't heard of...something metally, perhaps??).  I also clocked the nice array of keg beers which seem to be a new feature since we last came.

A couple of blokes came in behind us and then kind of cluttered up the area of the bar whilst one of them held forth about a brewery which was in the keg line up.  I rolled my eyes and gently pushed my way past him.

We settled into the best corner in the pub (I've been coming to this place on and off for over 20 years and it's definitely the BEST corner) and read the gig posters on the walls (possibly also long-term residents of the pub) and did a bit of sleuthing to find out the year that Corn Exchange welcomed John Lee Hooker.

Meanwhile, the chaps had settled in the other side and had, let's just say, spread out a bit.

More folk started to come in and within a moment or two, the landlord came round from behind the bar and asked the chaps - in a way that it would be impossible to take as a rebuke - to take up less space to allow some other people to sit down.  We saw this repeated a couple of times with other space-hoggers - we admired his style.  Obviously it's in his interest for people to feel they can come in...the pub is pretty much full if there are 20 people in it, no matter how well packed they are.  Nevertheless, it's not often you see this in action - we like it.

It was also nice to see a couple of young women in the pub - it's not necessarily the first sort of pub you may think of when looking for a young woman friendly destination.

After our first pint, we went for a pint of Deya Steady Rolling Man - which was lovely.  Then we strolled back but vowing to return.

It'll be a nice addition to our "not far away and a bit cosy" list of places.