That Elusive Something

 There are lots of reasons the Barley Mow is our absolutely favourite pub, anywhere (the beer, the staff, the atmosphere, the consistency and our history with the place).

No week in Bristol is really complete without at least one visit there.  It's the first place we go when we arrive, and we always make sure we've done "one last visit" before we leave.

On Friday when we wanted somewhere more relaxing than our hectic day in Bath on Thursday it would have been the natural choice but...Friday.  If there's any day in the BM potentially a little overwhelming, it would be Friday.  In the summer it's not too bad since everyone mostly uses the outside space but when it's cool and damp, seats inside can be at a premium and table-hogging can feel more irking than normal.

No - I'm not complaining about a pub being too busy, I absolutely love how successful any pub can be.

Anyhow, when we were heading out for beer on Friday the BBB said "nearby" and I said "relaxing".

We agreed that on a Friday Martha > BM in terms of relaxation.

We were greeted enthusiastically - although with a bit of "but it's Friday!" When I said that we'd wanted somewhere we found relaxing, she said "that's the nicest thing anyone can say".

We took a couple of small games and made sure we didn't take up too much space - it was already pretty busy with after-workers. 

We were so comfortable nattering about nothing much, chatting to the staff and watching the technical gubbins of running a bar unfold that we didn't feel the need to play a game to take minds of other things - or stop us just talking about work.  

So what makes it relaxing?  It's difficult to tell, to be honest - there's lots about a taproom in a railway arch which doesn't lend itself to cosy and intimate...

It's not a pub, it's a little bit cavernous and echoey and there isn't a choice of cask beer - for me this means all the other things clearly work harder:

- the seating is great:   two lovely snug booths (the BEST pub anywhere to play boardgames);  the high seats on shallow tables near the bar are well designed so the hobbits like me can comfortably rest my feet and allow me to sit opposite someone and not be too far away for conversation;  good areas of seating for larger groups but still flexible; a modest outside area which catches the sun if you want to do "beer garden". 

- beer range is solid.   Quite often there's a guest (cask or keg) and sometimes there's something stupidly strong as good last beer. The brewery beers are definitely getting more consistent and confident. (Black IPA is a cracker).

- The staff are engaging and fun - even the person who is clearly much more reserved and shy gives it a good go. They all run the bar with a level of professionalism and efficiency which is reminiscent of The Basket Makers (this truly is a god-tier compliment). 

- It's close to the flat.  When you're ready to head home, it's a lovely feeling knowing that the journey is a short one.

But even with these things all listed out - it doesn't really cover it.

Bravo, Team Martha and thank you for making my Friday evening a proper "wind down at the end of the week".

We'll be heading there again today - games. Natch. 

Not with a bang...

So, after circling the reputational drain for a while, they've gone.

I guess no one is really that surprised: pretty much as soon as they sold a stake in their business to a venture capital (or whatever they are now) company it was pretty clear what the founders wanted from the brewery.  It wasn't about staying "independent".

I have two very good memories of their flagship beer: 

Punk IPA on cask at least once (maybe more, can't remember) at the Bristol and District Beer Festival where its punch, style and strength really opened my eyes to a different sort of beer.

Being able to buy 8 cans of Punk in a supermarket in Poole when we were staying on Brownsea Island where there's no pub (or shop) and where the last boat of the day leaves around 5pm leaving you with your own company, and that of the red squirrels.  Having decent beer, lighter to carry than bottles, and sitting drinking it outside our cottage looking out at the sea, watching terns and turnstones was the very definition of contentment.

When the first bar opened in Bristol I was keen to try it.  It was underwhelming - not bad, just not really worth returning to.

As time went on the marketing came across as more and more smug and it was grating.  I completely lost interest in them but I really didn't expect the revelations of their corporate MO.

For the last several years I've noticed the effort that breweries and beer places in Bristol and Sussex appear to go to to feel welcoming and inclusive - they might be lying, but it feels genuine.  As a woman who loves beer, I assume I'll be welcomed and treated with respect by those running the place- and I haven't been disappointed for many years.  

Is that effort specifically aimed as a "we're not them" backlash?  I dunno.

Turns out they were all mouth and trousers after all and, to be honest the new owners don't appear to be any better, based on the way the closure of sites and redundancies seems to have been handled.  

The individual investors and the staff have been royally screwed.

There is an extent to which the "don't gamble/invest with money you can't afford to lose" is applied to everyone who puts money into things - but it is easy to be pulled along by the excitement and I can understand why you'd do it.

Ultimately, though, it's low-paid bar staff and lower-level jobholders at the brewery who I reserve my sympathies for.  It's a tough world out there - hopefully in some places there will be other hospitality opportunities, it appears many staff were well trained and most should benefit any other bar.

Running a company is a serious business and needs to be taken seriously by all those in charge - and that must extend to their staff to whom they had a duty of care. It turns out they didn't deserve all the accolades they got for their beer because of their total disregard for their responsibilities...it can't start and end with the product.

The new owners will undoubtedly asset-strip what they've bought, cut the range, brew cheaper but continue to sell through pub companies and supermarkets -  who knows, maybe some cross-pollination of the organisations other business interests will mean that Mary Jane might have a new flavouring.  Many people will still buy it not knowing the backstory or not caring.

It doesn't feel like the end of an era to me - just the inevitable whimper of an organisation who lost the plot. 

 

 

 

 

Return to the Shire

 After a few busy, busy, busy weeks in Sussex and three incredibly packed and stressful days,  I was absolutely gagging to slow down a bit.

I weakened and suggested delaying our departure by a day or so just to regroup but we agreed it was probably best just to get on with it.  So, after a long, frustrating day starting to set up our new building we repaired to Wolf where we initially grumped that they didn't have precisely the line up of beers we would have liked.

Dear me -  we need to have a word with ourselves.  It had been a looooooonnnnnggggg week (on a Wednesday).

Thursday we did our usual schlep to station and the journey to Bristol was as simple as it can be - although we do still do a bit of "remember when the Victoria/Paddington journeys dovetailed?" nostalgia.  None of the trains or stations were busy.  We had about 25 minutes to wait at Paddington, but there were available seats on the concourse...unheard of.

 Obviously we tootled around the corner to the Barley Mow (there is no other first stop for us), our corner seat was vacant although there was some debris on the table.  As I slid into the seat, one of the blokes on the adjoining table shamefacedly removed the debris and apologized for leaving it there.  It made me smile, and immediately the last few days stresses started to melt.

BBF beers on cask are very grounding and 10 minutes into the first pint I definitely knew that travelling on Thursday was the right decision.  Highlight of this visit, though was a keg beer - collaboration between Hastings Project and Burning Sky (the irony, right?) to support Little Gate Farm in Sussex.  I'm looking forward to going to Hastings Project's new pub in St Leonards when we go back down south -  but that's for April and we were still in Bristol in February.

Friday saw us in Unwins and it's already starting to feel a bit less austere - and much more peopled.  A strong ruby mild was the absolute star of this visit.  The door being open was a bit of a buzzkill but as people started coming in from outside I asked Tom if it was OK for me to close the doors and then things cosied up a little bit.

Saturday I learned that Moor was back open when gigs were on, and there was a gig on.  It seemed rude not to and it was lovely to see a fair few people there well before gig-time.  The beer offering was solid enough (no cask reinstated yet) but we were delighted to see that proper "Hoppiness" was being offered - delicious.  New staff took over the bar after the first drink and we had a bit of a struggle with the concept of 2/3rds (they only have pint glasses) but we got there in the end and all was well.

Sunday - obviously Martha for games.  It was lovely to see Bryony and catch up with her.  Again the place was a little busier than we expected - but we loved the fact that it was.  Io, their cask beer is lovely and I think I then made the leap to a strong Black IPA and that was followed by a very strong guest beer.  Nice!

Monday is "review this document" day so the external "office" (aka the Barley Mow) was invoked.  There'd been a change of several beers so that went down well.

First "let's go somewhere different" venue was on Tuesday - we went The Bridge. QPA has become a solid beer I'm happy to drink, having previously been a bit of a Quantock "m'eh"ist.  Only pints/halves here - so we only had two - my second was a keg IPA which had a definite smoked barley taste.  Took a bit of getting used to but when it had warmed up a bit it definitely tasted better balanced - maybe a cask dispense might work better.  Himself had a dark porter - tasted a bit thinner than I'd have liked for 5% or so but pleasant, nonetheless.  We declared it a good visit with excellent use of the space by other punters (not always a given).  I also particularly enjoyed an overheard conversation relating to "Hardingtons" brewery and its relationship to "The Swan with Two Necks" back in the day.  If the conversation had been closer I may have chipped in with the TSWTN/Hardingtons/Bath Ales/St Austell connections - but I just reveled in the nostalgia a bit and realised how long I've been aware of the beer background scene in Bristol.

Wednesday it was sunny but quite cool.  We had hopes that the Cornubia's garden might offer a sunny patch for a short while - but it didn't.  So we grabbed a couple of pints and settled down at the corner of the biggest table in the place, sharing with a chap in the corner and then with another couple who came in later.  The beer here was much more exciting than we expected - with two cracking pints.

Thursday we were meeting family in Bath and I'd suggested The Raven. It remains a lovely pub although I would liked to have been able to have a less substantial lunch.  Just a couple of nice session pints although I believe there are indie craft beers - that wasn't the main aim of the visit.  Catching up with brother and wife was - and that was great.  They loved the pub (they'd not been before despite being regular Bath visitors). It was reasonably sunny when we left around 2.30pm and I'd promised the BBB that we could wander and test one of our old cameras which has been given some tlc around the light seal.  We hacked up to the Circus, round and down to Pultney Bridge and weir - then taking in the Abbey.  BBB was most impressed with the weir and we stood and just watched it for a bit.  

After that we took the opportunity to seek out Electric Bear's little taproom in Shire's Yard.  It has to be said, despite seeing entrances to the yard several times on our perambulations, we had a bugger of a job finding it again and when we got inside from the Milsom Street entrance - we had to do battle with the labyrinth to actually find the place.  Having their beers on keg rather than from cans was a nice luxury and also allowed us to recover both from the perambulations and the socialising.  On the way back, BBB was delighted to be able to track the incoming train from the platform's "staff information" board.  Once a geek..

We were both absolutely knackered by Thursday's antics so today has been a little quieter and I predict we'll be seeking out a quiet corner in a nearby place to end the week. 

 

Mild for the Time of Year

 Actually, it isn't really.

 Today and yesterday bright and clear...and fecking cold!  Even the frogs who have been doing a lot of practice nocturnal cavorting in the pond for a week or more seem to have taken refuge at the bottom for the time being.  Probably wise, frozen spawn doesn't have a good time of it.

After work on Friday we ambled, in the biting cold wind, towards Wolf without really discussing where we wanted to go...a pattern emerging, it seems.

We arrived maybe 20 minutes after opening time to find it pleasantly peopled.

The cask was Abyss Mild -  it's not style I drink much of these days and at 3.4% maybe not a first choice if there had been another style/strength of cask on offer.  All that said - it was absolutely gorgeous and we were both so pleased to have it.  The two pints disappeared quickly.

There's not always a vast range of things we want to try but there's always enough.  Second up decided that Lindemans Kriek (on keg) had to be tried but that we probably didn't want too much, so we shared 2/3rds of it along with a Downlands 4% pale.

Neither of us can ever remember which of the various krieks are very sweet and which have a more pronounced guezeness. Lindemans is very much the former, 3.8% (I think) but loads of body which probably comes from the sweetness.  It was like drinking very nice cherry pop, properly fruity and with a really nice acidic tang. 
 

The 4% Downlands beer, though really nice, balanced and well-made felt a tad thin when contrasting with the kriek.

To finish I had a stronger Downlands (Fire up the lasers...?) pale and himself went with Ascension Cider (Mothership) which he greatly likes.

 This place continues to bring it for us.  Friendly staff, other punters not too annoying, a little bit chilly perhaps but a solid addition to the beer scene in Eastbourne (thank goodness).  When we work closer to this part of town, we'll probably start going on other days of the week. 

 

  

So it's not just me...

 ...I was reading a preview blog post from the splendid Boak and Bailey (it'll arrive on their main blog later in the week).

It's really great to see that they, like us, are not seeing the usual January lull.

OK, maybe it will just defer, but even so - in a very seasonal place, like Eastbourne, deferring of a "locals" lull a bit, will help until visitors help pick up some slack.

This week we've had 

Beak, Track and Pomona Island at Beerarama

Beerme IPA at the Belgian Cafe with a little taste of a silly-strong chestnut ale

Something from Burnt Mill, in Wolf, which I thought was glorious but incredibly grapefruity and I think would probably divide the crowd (BBB didn't love it) - loved it enough that I had two.

Yesterday, we decided to watch the rugby in the Crown where they had three guest beers on (in addition to Harveys Best and Landlord) - certainly enough to make decisions really hard. Three Acre single hop, Burning Sky stout and Kent Prohibition.

It was incredibly busy (OK, Six Nations, Saturday...) and a really enjoyable few hours - supported by lovely gravity-served (I know, I know, but I like it on gravity) fresh cask ale: perfect! 

When I went to get our second beers, I was served by the boss, Andy - "planning for the rugby, then?" - "yeah", he said "thought there might be a fair bit drunk.  He wasn't wrong.  We have a couple of weeks ahead of weekend rugby - I wonder what he'll have next?

The Excitement of Anticipation

 I've noticed a definite uptick in pubs and bars I like (more in Bristol than Eastbourne, but still a couple of our local faves) doing Insta posts showing what beer they have on.

Not sure whether this is just a new person on their socials, whether it's around concerns that in January people might not remember to go there for beer or something else entirely.

But I love it. 

I downloaded and use the absolutely dire "Real Ale Finder" app which almost no one is on (but two of our local haunts and the local 'spoons are)  - it crashes more than it runs but, crucially did drive a last minute change of venue last Friday when The Crown had two (count 'em) guest casks on.  Still - a pseudo useful resource to ensure we're not too disappointed...

In craft places the cadence of keg changes is quite slow so if they don't have loads on we want to try, it's useful to know that.

Knowing what beers a place has on is definitely a way to make me go there, even if my plans have to change.  But does it lose the element of surprise?

Well, maybe but then there's also the hour or so before when I already know what my first drink will be when the anticipation itself is a good feeling.

After 40 years of drinking beer - it still has the ability to excite (and disappoint) but it's never "just a beer". 

The First Pint

 Yesterday was overcast but still.  Today was forecast to be horribly wet all day (a forecast proving to be accurate at the moment).

We were working from home (more bloody charitable funding bids, since you didn't ask), the same today.

It seemed sensible to get out of the house before we'd need an ark so we strolled down to the oldest bit of Old Town.

We'd been to the Crown on Friday and had excellent Bessemer Blonde (Blue Bee) and  Independence (BBF) but, according to Real Ale Finder nothing new on.  So, instead we went to The Lamb, undoubtedly the oldest pub/inn in Eastbourne - and currently the most reliable Harveys house in the town.

I've said before that, despite it's near legendary status, Harveys isn't my favourite brewery but I completely understand the appeal (much Cantillon).  Anyhow, when in The Lamb, you drink Harveys.

We tend to avoid Best these days, even though the BBB's early drinking was dominated by it so we had Armada.  We settled into a cosy seat and caught up on the day.

Within 35mins his first pint had all but disappeared and even mine had a hefty dent in it: given our usual drinking rate this it quite unusual - and especially so with Harveys.  Clearly it was VERY good.

Actually, this morning, I can't remember what it was about the Armada that was so good - maybe it was just so perfectly balanced that it slipped down - much like a really good cup of tea (Darjeeling, black, hot).

The follow up print of Old was more memorably glorious, as it happens but that first pint...