Chatting in the Pub

 I've said, probably countless times, that we're not generally very willingly social.  But the work we do has changed, to a degree, the way we see other people: sometimes, it isn't all about us.

Last day in Bristol, Barley Mow just seemed the right way to go - super relaxing, guaranteed good beer - that's what we want.

It was busy - really quite busy.

The fire was lit and our corner was occupied so we sat on the opposite side of that room at the corner of the big tables where we could also see the fire.  Nice.

Because it was busy, it was reasonably noisy so we decided a simple game of Regicide would fit the bill.

A lad approached and asked whether he could sit in the space opposite - obviously he was welcomed.

About halfway through our first game he asked what we were playing (this is a common question) - and were inevitably pulled into a conversation about what brought us all to the pub, etc, etc.

Turns out the lad was a student at UoB and because it was half term (Uni's have HALF TERM now?????) all his friends had gone back home but he had labwork he had to do - so he was stuck at his accommodation and decided to have a wander to new pubs - and he found out about the Temple Meads brewery and pub concentration.

It definitely wasn't the evening we expected. Did we really welcome it?  I'm not sure.  We didn't need the conversation but it is good for us to exercise those muscles from time to time.  Also, it's never nice to contemplate what someone might be going through if they're feeling a little bit isolated and needing to have a bit of human connection.

It takes some oomph to make that first approach, especially if it's not your usual MO.

He was a really nice chap and it was nice to encourage him to try the other places (plus a few more he hadn't heard of) in the area.

 That the beer was good, largely goes without saying  but the Mega Mosaic was, again, absolutely fantastic.

We're now back in Sussex and I'm quite keen to have a quiet evening on the sofa. 

 

Heading back to Sussex

 This is our last day in Bristol.  We've decided to head back to Sussex tomorrow to get a day in work tinkering with laptops, or whatever.  Yes, we're sad old buggers.

We've been to Barley Mow and Martha's.  Immediately feeling home in both - both truly relaxing spaces for us in spite of both being really quite busy (on a Monday and a Tuesday respectively with no special events around).

New beer:  

Martha - porter on cask.  Really nice.  Full bodied without being sweet maybe a degree or two cooler would have benefitted it.

Barley Mow- Arbor Mega Mosaic.  On keg, superb last beer of the day.

 It's odd, but now the clocks have gone back to GMT and autumn has brought unsettled and chilly conditions, it now feels late if we arrive in the pub at 4.45pm - it's already dark and it feels like we may have missed something.

We'll reacclimatise.

I wonder if anyone in Eastbourne has any "Star of Eastbourne" left?   

Down South

 As is our want, we usually have a holiday in October.  This year we decided to return to Falmouth.

Work was still very busy so we nipped up to Bristol just a couple of days before we were due to go to Cornwall to decompress a little then we headed down (on the train, obvs).

 Once again, we bemoaned travelling on a Saturday (must try harder to find a holiday rental which starts midweek) - Our train was partially cancelled, meaning an unplanned change in Plymouth, but we were unphased.

Our Falmouth base promised much but didn't deliver everything we'd hoped, nevertheless it was in a decent spot meaning it was relatively easy to get around on foot, even on days when the weather wasn't at its best.

We wanted to seek out a few new places:  The Seaview, The Globe and the Jacobs Ladder and reprise old favourites:  Moth and the Moon, Beerwolf, The Front, Seafood Cafe.

 Front and Beerwolf really bring it for us:  good real ale, sometimes the bonus of an interesting keg.  A place we can play Regicide with impunity.

Seafood cafe was still good but the food less to our taste than the first time we went (and serving chips and salad long after the other dishes had been finished was a bit sub par)  but the beer was great and the service really engaging. 

Moth and the Moon is a more subdued kind of place than the others but it's cosy and atmospheric with beer that's certainly good enough to pass muster for a couple of pints.

So much for the old friends...

What about the new places?  Actually, we failed to get to Jacobs Ladder (we passed it a couple of times but it didn't beckon us in) and as an aside the Famouth Brewery place in a tiny lane near the harbour didn't seem to be open to the two or three times we passed it. Must do better!

The Globe which I wanted to try because they've taken a high street pub which Greene King were dumping and turned it into an independent venue and you have to love that.  Their cask offering was modest (two beers - one pale, one stout) from a brewery we didn't know (...bear something???) but the pint of the pale one we had was cool, well kept and very nice.  Their keg offering appeared to be all/mostly uber Brands so nothing to interest us there. The view out the back is great, the staff friendly.  I hope it does well.

We had a bonus new pub when we accidentally walked to Penryn -  The Seven Stars which has its own microbrewery.  It was around lunchtime and it was very quiet but the welcome was pleasant, the beer good (Hidden Brewery) and the bus back to Falmouth-proper oh so convenient (gotta love a pub very near bus stop).

Best new pub though was The Seaview. A punishingly steep walk from where we were staying but oh so worth it.  Verdant beers plus a guest on cask and loads of their own keg beers as you would expect.  The first time we went for the beer, the second for beer and food.  Had a bit of a Barley Mow feel about it with definite "shifts" of different people.  I'm not sure that "Desi" is really a description you can give the place but we tried the food offering.  I liked it a bit more than the BBB but we did eat well.

...and the one that got away?  A place we'd never even heard of - taproom for the Dynamite brewery but never quite found the time/occasion to visit.  Next time, maybe.

All in all we barely drank the same beer twice:  Treens, Verdant, Tintagel, Firebird (plus the odd guest) and 3 or 4 from each brewery available in the main venues we went.  We were able to major on cask, which we particularly liked and bonus points for Seaview's willingness to offer 2/3rds - even in cask.

Still - because we're old.  We're glad to be home.  Back in Bristol for a few days before we head back to Sussex.
 

  

Up the Kriek

 Sorry, that was an unnecessary pun.

My first try of a fruit beer was in the Brown Jug off license around the corner from my house in Bedminster.

We popped in on a Friday evening to get our usual 4-pint takeout (plastic) flagon of whatever beautiful cask Phil had on.  We were regulars so a catch up and a bit of beer-chat was usually involved.

"Try this", said Phil as he unwrapped a bottle from its blue paper wrapper.  It was a raspberry beer.

I tried it.

Bleargh!  I absolutely hated it - but I can't honestly remember precisely what made me hate it.

I seem to remember muttering something about "I like my beer to taste of beer..."

I didn't try a fruited beer again until 2010 when the BBB suggested we go to Brussels for the weekend.

À la Mort Subite is a bar which is widely known, and I guess something of a tourist trap.  Nevertheless, I totally adored the place.

We arrived and the place looked completely full.  We shuffled into the bar slightly nervously to see where we should sit.  We were brusquely waved over by a member of staff who pointed to a two-person table.  We sat close to the bar - I was facing the serving area.

There's a beer menu and we given a short time to peruse but a serving person arrived at the table very quickly so there's a bit of pressure not to hold up proceedings - this bar seems to thrive on efficiency.

Somehow or other, I ordered a draught Morte Subite Kriek - I could see the pump in the serving area in front of me.  I can't even remember why I chose it - probably the pressure.

I absolutely loved it.  To me it tasted strongly of cherry but with next to no sweetness to make it cloying.  I've never had the same reaction to a fruit beer since.  It's best we gloss over the kiwi flavoured Floris that came later in the trip.

At Cantillon, after your self-guided tour (or, at least it was then) with a paper pamphlet in the language of your choice where you are urged not to touch to the spider webs near the coolship, you get a few glass tasters of the various beers.  I must have had a kriek, but I found the gueze flavour rather overwhelmed the fruit character.

In À la Becasse  you bought your beer in a small jugs to share and a mixture was a legitimate choice - kriek forming a part of the mix - I remember really liking it.  

 So Brussels left me feeling a bit Goldilocks about kriek. 

The framboise I had in the Barley Mow has stuck with me, though.  So every now and again I've been dabbling to see if I can replicate that first Morte Subite Kriek.

Last week in Wolf on the Corner I had a 3.8% Lindemans Kriek which had lovely depth and body, with a fantastic cherry hit but was very, very sweet.

When I saw that our online grocer had Bacchus Kriek at a good price, I thought it was too good a chance to miss.  At something like 5.6% I expected it to have some heft, but it didn't really.  The cherry tasted like an artificial flavouring and I got a lingering unpleasant aftertaste resembling Aspartame (I don't believe anything artificial was actually in the beer, it just tasted that way) and I felt cheated like when San Pellegrino started putting artificial sweeteners in their grapefruit pop.

I do know we still have a can of Burning Sky Framboise et Cerise in the fridge and that was definitely the closest to my memory of the character of Morte Subite.

So my quest continues. 

It's not a full time quest.  To be honest it's more of a half-arsed vague notion...but quest sounds so much more noble... 

 

Saturday in the Crown

Part of the reason we felt our Eastbourne house would be suitable for us is that it's a 12 - 15minute walk from The Crown.

Other places we looked at didn't have pub-proximity and we rejected them, in part, because of that.

We already knew The Lamb (Harveys) which is about the same distance but we decided, the day we viewed the house on a miserable November and thought it would do (that's all we really wanted in a house at the time),  that we should at least check The Crown out to see what alternatives there were if we decided to move there.

It has to be said, it looked a little bit "locals pub" with smokers hanging around outside the door (they still do that a bit) and in the right hand room as you go in, the facilities felt a bit basic (the loos still are basic, though clean).

We can't remember what cask beers were on the bar but we remember we ordered Harveys and it was served on gravity from the "cellar" (cool room next to the bar).  This wowed us both, especially as it was super-fresh and cool, which is not always a given for Harveys in town.

There was quite a long delay until we actually bought the place (for...reasons)  but we revisited it only once we'd completed the purchase some 8 months later.  We went back to The Crown and were ecstatic to find that Dark Star Hophead was now a regular beer and was served on gravity (Harveys had been put on handpump).

We've been drinking there ever since - some 13 years.  Same landlord, we've seen his son and friends grow up from primary school kids to working behind the bar and the beer is still the best/most interesting cask offering anywhere in Eastbourne.

We've been back around 6 days and hadn't yet visited but had learned that they had Thornbridge Ravenna on. Once we'd completed a couple of strenuous garden tasks, we walked down.

Saying hi to a few regulars, catching up with the bar staff, watching sport on the TV - it's just as relaxed an experience as going to the Barley Mow.  Beer of the same high quality, though sadly not the same range.

We were home. 

 

Pub is a collaborative thing

 We were going to go to Unwins so that we could try a game they have (Arboretum).  Sadly, we arrived to find it closed.

 Because rain threatened, we went to the BM instead.  It was about 5pm when we arrived and, what appeared to be a bunch of teachers had taken up residence in the Best Corner.  No matter.

A slight misjudgement by the chap on the bar led to one of our pints very nearly hitting the deck, but for the reflexes of the BBB catching it (left-handed, he wanted to make clear) as it tipped off the bar.

It spilled about a quarter of the beer on the BBB's jumper and the floor. "Oh my god!  I'm so sorry" said the lad and, indeed, he did appear mortified.

I grabbed some roll wipe I could see on the bar to mop the BBB down and the lad returned with a full roll. He apologised another 12 or 13 times, and topped the beer up.  We assured him that no harm was done and that it could happen to anyone, etc, etc.

We genuinely felt it too.

We enjoyed our first pints and nattered about nothing much.

The group on the adjacent table were a bit noisy and the BBBs ears are playing up at the moment but he didn't let the noise bother him.

People came and went and the pub was still pretty busy at 6pm.

A slightly awkward looking couple came in and looked a bit horrified at the busyness of the place. They looked at the other half of the table we were sitting at...and tentatively started to ask if they could sit.  We waved them in.

After a while the teachers left and so the couple jumped ship to the corner.  He returned to reassure us it wasn't us that they were moving from - but rather the noisier other table.  We smiled, as you do.

When he went to get another drink he came over again - "is there an event or something?, it's really busy".  Turns out they'd just moved in locally and were sussing out the area.  I got the distinct feeling that he wasn't that comfortable and was, somehow, disappointed in the Barley Mow - it was the slightly non favourable comparison with the Old Fishmarket, I think.  He said that his wife really liked ESB so the BBB urged him to try the ESB-like beer on the bar.

We felt the need to go into bat to promote all the lovely local places, but when all's said and done, these folk will find places that suit their needs and, like as not, their needs won't be the same as ours.

I mused on the fact that the day we arrived for this trip I was totally a recipient of the BM's care and, for want of a better word, support.

Today, now I'm a little bit less stressed I hope what we did was gave a little bit back. 

 

Weakened

 The rain on Sunday continued to come and go.  We felt a bit sorry for the EBBT and wondered how it was going.

Temple Quay was generally very quiet.

I was writing a funding bid, we watched the text of BHAFC's match with Chelsea and didn't do much else, to be honest.

Around 4pm we mused about finding somewhere non-EBBT to grab a beer.  The forecast still indicated heavy showers so we didn't want to venture far.

In the end we decided we'd do a lap of the "block" - Glass Wharf, Avon Street, Oxford Street and maybe as far as the Barley Mow to see how busy things were.  It would allow us to stretch our legs a little, eavesdrop on proceedings and, at worst, return home.

There were a few people sitting in the middle of Oxford Street but it certainly didn't look rammed.  The under-arch areas for several of the places there were set up with tables and a few people were sitting outside there.  The pasty shop was open and seemed to be doing a bit of trade.  The area outside Marthas was very busy, but the bar looked manageable.  We ventured inside.

Seats appeared to be at a premium but the team at the bar greeted us warmly.  "Sorry, only pints and halves..." Laurie said, waving plastic glasses at us.  We had pints.

We managed to tuck ourselves into a table near the door and look at what was going on around.  There were groups of all types and ages, and a few lone drinkers.  There were conversations; there were young parents with younger kids; there were card games being played (including us).  What there wasn't much of is the dreaded "vertical drinking".  I mean, there were people standing in groups, and they were drinking but it was much the same as the people sitting and drinking.

Groups ebbed flowed: tables emptying and filling, Almost no one's voice raised above others, but the general sound level did increase.  There was exemplary use of tables and liminal spaces (can we just perch our drinks on the corner of your table, please?) and the atmosphere was inclusive and friendly.

The key for this event was that there were plenty of bar staff so there was seldom a queue at the bar.

We managed to grab a quick chat with Bryony when she was empty glass hunting.  It was a bit quieter than they'd hoped but they'd expected the August event to be quieter than May.  That makes sense - May is at the beginning of the "oooh the weather is improving" event season.  August bank holiday is right at the end and next week schools, colleges and Universities will be returning.  It's possible some people just needed a non-event weekend.

I do hope everyone who organised and ran it found it a success.  Judging by the number of people who were having to consult a map to find the next venue, at least some of the customers might have discovered somewhere they'll return to in quieter times:  let's hope so.

The beer?

Oh yeah, actually I had their core beers (felt slightly odd in pint measures) but the BBB did try the Good Chemistry/Martha colab lager brewed with NZ hops.  It went down very well indeed, depsite the hated (but totally understandable) plastic glasses.

We left quite pleased we'd gone but glad to get home to the quiet of our flat (dear lord, we're getting old).

Today is more funding bid writing, hopefully followed by a check-in with the chaps round at the BM.

Onwards!