Another experiment

 He said "I keep thinking about going back to the Golden Guinea..." so we did.  Since "World Famous Dive Bars" took over The Colloseum at the bottom of Redcliffe Hill - my mum's Friday lunchtime venue of choice when she worked in "Phoenix House" (now a Mercure Hotel) - I've been saying we should give it a try.

It was doubly relevant since the organisation took over Good Chemistry Brewing.

It's a pleasant enough walk to the pubs and we quite enjoyed it, despite the current detour because Valentine Bridge is out of action. 

The Colloseum looked bustling and jolly so we went in.  We were hit with the overwhelming aroma of fried food - then we went to the bar and there didn't appear to be any cask offering and the keg offering didn't inspire, sadly.

So we mosied around the corner, and down the hill to Golden Guinea.  What is it with Burton Bridge beers at the moment??  They were also in evidence here.  We plumped for the "Golden Ale", which was what we'd tried for the Swan.  It was hazy and tasted rather fruity - not sure if it was by design or something else.

We finished it and I switched to kegged Shangri la and he to St Austell "Maverick" - these were better choices. It was great to see the pub was busy - clearly several regulars. I wouldn't be against going in again but again, it was slightly chilly (door to the garden was open throughout) and the beers just didn't quite do it.

The continued desire of people to sit outside and drink long after the summer warmth has departed really does surprise us.  The garden of the Guinea, and the terrace outside the Colloseum had as many people as the inside.  Also, on our walk home along the Portwall there were people sitting outside a restaurant to eat.  It was bloody chilly!

 Today we'll doubtless be staying on this side of the floating harbour...

In the Feels

 Yesterday we decided to stroll a short way and revisit a pub we'd not been to for a while:  The Swan with Two necks.

On the way we passed The Crown which we've not been to since its refurb and reopening.  We knew it offered Bass (not our cuppa, thanks) but were hoping that they'd have something else too.

The only handpulls on the visible bar were Bass and Lilley's cider - so, sadly, it wasn't for us.  Maybe they have more obvious choice at other times of the week?  We didn't really want to walk in and then out so we walked on by.

We walked around the block to the Swan and went in.  It was empty save for the lady on the bar, and an older bloke sitting at the bar.  It was also quite chilly in there.

We looked at the cask offering and were a little disappointed that they only seemed to "older" beer styles - but we ordered two pints of Burton Bridge Gold.  She started to pour them but then said "sorry, it's gone".  She did offer the part poured pint on the house but the BBB tasted it and confirmed it was off.

We didn't fancy the other beers on - classic bitter types so we ordered a couple of pints of keg beers: LHG Sky Above for me, Deya Steady Rolling Man for him. Both were good - we know them well.

Music on vinyl (Bob Dylan) was good as a backdrop but the pub's quietness and it's temperature meant that it wasn't cosy experience so we decided not to stay for another.  To be honest, for a pub which has a sign saying "local beers" on the board outside, we were also a bit disappointed that Burton Bridge and The Kernel were very heavily represented. 

It may have been an off day, or the wrong time but we left a little sadly whilst not really being able to articulate why we didn't want to stay.

The walk back to the flat takes us past the Old Castle Green and a few times we've wondered about going in.  This time, we decided to give it a go.  We tentatively opened the door and were immediately cheered - it felt much warmer and the lighting gave the place a cosy feel that immediately made us want to sit down.

There was a range of a few cask beers on the bar but we wanted something a little stronger.  The signage on the keg pumps was lacking but the lady behind the bar obligingly gave us a run down and both settled on a NZ IPA by Fierce and Noble.  They only do pints and halves so we had pints.

We found a pleasant corner and settled in. The BBB reminded me of when he was new to Bristol and I could take him to a new pub every time he came down - he's now been a demi-resident for over 10 years now but it's nice to know we can still find a nice place that's new to us. It probably won't be a main destination but it'll definitely be added to the list.

Today, we're thinking about retrying the Golden Guinea and maybe venturing to The Collosseum.  Let's see what happens. 

 

T'other Side o'Pennines (or, North Yorkshire the final episode)

Wednesday afternoon we decided to look around the rest of the town.  The weather looked decent and we had old cameras with films in them which needed to be tested.

As ever,  the hike up the hill (although I was getting kinda used to it, it resembled Nine Tree Hill which I frequently had to walk up to get home when I lived in that bit of Bristol) was the prerequisite.

The grounds around the castle were busy with visitors, dog walkers, and people just admiring the view.  Because they were on autumn/winter opening, there was no visiting the Tower, nor the Sallyport. But this spot is an excellent viewpoint for the viaduct.  We wandered, and photographed things, then explored around the castle hill and found some absolutely gorgeous gardens to "ah" at the firework colours of the acers.

We arrived at Blind Jacks quite early.  Well, really early.  The market hadn't quite finished packing up (I don't think we missed anything, though) and some people were clearly in the pub post-lunch.

Still, the nice seat in the window was available so we soon settled in and started playing Regicide.  Again, the place nailed what we like about being in the pub.  Superb beer (cask and keg), a really nice atmosphere and friendly, knowledgeable bar staff.

I went to get the second pints (of cask) in and then looked at the keg fonts.  "See anything you like?" said the young guy on duty.  We chatted for a little while about what was on offer and he said, a bit ruefully, that no one makes nice juicy craft beers in "the north" - I came up with a couple of alternatives and he excitedly said he'd investigate. 

When we returned on Friday evening he was there, as was another member of staff also on the bar and as I congratulated them on the beer we'd just drunk.  "Yeah, it's really good, " he said, before adding "but they're from t'other side o'Pennines". I added "but those..." (pointing to Deya and Floc taps) are from down south - surely that's worse.  We shared a chuckle.

It would definitely be a regular haunt if we lived in Knaresborough. 

On Thursday we headed to York again to do the wall walk.  "I seem to remember it's quite flat...", he assured me.  Hmmm not exactly since the ramparts vary in height a lot so there was quite a lot of up and down.  All that said, it was really nice.  It was interesting to see that York's attitude to the wall appears to have been not to particularly revere the area around it.  As a result there are scrubby banks, social housing, recent office developments and everything in between.  I was really surprised, but it meant that you saw a lot of different stuff on the walk.  About 2pm we thought we should probably eat and there was an odd little bar/cafe/restaurant not far from where we were.  We ordered a couple of pints (which ended up being about 3 pints because the barman wasn't sure whether one was OK) and what we'd hoped would be a light lunch (in fact, a very substantial lunch and not precisely what we'd ordered...oh well).  It was a cute and quirky place with decent beer - and it was in the right place.  A win.

We resumed our walk (more up and down) and when we got to the last gate tower I definitely needed a sit down.  The closest place (literally under the wall) was another slightly strange kinda place (Fat Badger??) but seemed cosy and friendly.  The beer we had was excellent, but the place wouldn't have warranted another.  So we struck out to wander around the Shambles which is very touristy and yet architecturally fascinating.  York does a good job of embracing each subsequent architectural era (a bit like Hitchin) and, unlike Bristol seems to have dodged WWII bomb damage in some of the oldest streets.

When we (well, my knees) were ready for a pint we were close to "The Market Cat" which is a Thornbridge/Pivvovar co-production. It's more taproom than pub but clearly really popular.  We grabbed a pint Crackendale each and settled into a convenient table.  It gave us the opportunity to people-in-pub watch.  The beer was superb (unsurprisingly).  The loo was a hike up three flights of stairs past the glass-walled coolroom on the second but then we realised how much extra seating there was up there - and with brilliant views.  Definitely worth remembering should we return - but I reckon a dumb waiter for drinks and glasses might be a worthwhile addition to this vertical place.

We couldn't leave without having some Jaipur which was gorgeous.

We then just had time to head to the station and pick up some light dinner at the on-station Sainsburys before jumping on the train.

Our last day on Friday was a gentle affair - it was just warm enough to sit atop the house's turret for a cuppa and then we had a later amble up a different part of "the hill" to see the last remaining bits of the town we hadn't explored.  We bought a butcher-made ready meal for the evening and other provisions for the journey home in the morning.  Naturally, our final pub visit was Blind Jack's where we sat in the rear (cosy) room where Basketmakers' rules were well-evidenced and banter between tables was friendly and comfortable. 

 Our journey to Bristol was via Leeds and a stupid gantry where there were escalators up but not down (why???).  I dodged the huge queue for Starbucks coffee and got some from one of the other stands.  Then we were on the train and (relatively) relaxed.

Arrival at Temple Meads was just about on time.

As is our habit, we headed to the Barley Mow, of course.  Ahhhhh.  

North Yorkshire Part Deux

Sunday was my birthday (the year I officially become a pensioner for my main occupational pension - though not by the State's definition, yet).

We decided to keep it simple.  The river end of town is popular and very picturesque.  We eschewed "Mother Shipton's Cave" which felt a little bit Wookey Hole for our tastes and wandered along the river, through woods.

It was a really nice walk, gentle and not too peopled for the most part.  We carried on, past our cottage and under the railway viaduct and eventually reached the Half Moon which is at the far side of the town.

It was 2pm when we arrived.  There was a small, but nice, range of beers so we grabbed a couple of pints and found a corner to settle into.  Food in this pub was simple:  charcuterie and cheese boards at the weekend, adding pizza into the mix Tuesdays - Fridays.

We opted for the cheese sharing board for two.  Perfect! The service was friendly and attentive but also easy-going.  We agreed it was quite nice that we hadn't exhausted the "best" pubs in the first evening.  This was definitely our favourite...so far.

We needed to get up to the town (everywhere is a steep "up" from the riverside) so we hiked up a different hill to the market place.  Naturally, being Sunday it was pretty quiet but it's a charming part of the town.

On one side was the last "GBG" pub  - Blind Jacks.  It's a longstanding entry in the guide but that doesn't always mean it's the sort of place we can relax in.

However, pretty much the second we arrived it felt right.  Interesting cask beers of different styles and strengths and a respectable range of craft kegs.  We didn't dare ask for 2/3rds though - we suspected we'd be driven out of town.  We drank two and then headed to pick up provisions at the local Tesco before strolling down the hill and back to the house.

After a fair bit of walking on Sunday, we (well, I) quite fancied something a little less strenuous on Monday - so we headed to the National Railway Museum in York.  Now, I like to travel on trains and a little of my first boyfriend's (in 1978) enthusiasm has stuck with me in the form of mild interest - certainly from the "wow this is proper engineering" point of view.  The BBB was also a railway modeller in his youth - and probably would still be now, under the right circumstances.

The NRM is, as the crow flies about 250m from the mainline train station.  Unfortunately, that's not the pedestrian route at the moment (I really hope that changes when the rest of the masterplan unfolds) - so you end up walking a circuitous route of about a mile until you finally wind in towards the entrace.

Entry is free - which is amazing  - but you have to get a ticket (for managing numbers of visitors, they say) at which point you're encouraged to make a donation.  It's fair enough.  Frankly they really should charge for the most part.

To say the BBB was the target audience would be understating things by a considerable degree.  The whole place is a siren song to (mostly) men of a certain age.  It was all he could do to prevent himself from squealing and clapping like a seal.  Me?  I loved it too - but in a slightly different way.

When we do trips like this, we tend to wander around on our own (often with film cameras) and our paths will cross again periodically.  This is something I first experienced on photowalks with Flickr pals.  It's a much less stressful thing because, as a photographer, you're not always apologising to your companion for taking ages over a shot.

The main shed is amazing, loads of beautifully restored engines of various vintages - some with carriages arranged around a turntable (this in itself was greeted with enthusiasm).  We wandered, took photos, ready the interpretation and, from time to time, met up and cooed at some nerdy thing or other.  My favourite in this shed was probably the engine they had bought and then created sections of almost every part by sawing the components in half, in situ.  The result is a living schemative of how a steam train works.

Lunch was picked up in one of the cafes and allowed us to sit and look at exhibits whilst drinking tea and eating.

Then there's the "northern" shed - which is more archive than exhibit.  It is packed to the gunwhales with...well, EVERYTHING, from clocks and chairs, to models and signalling training kit.  To be honest, I found it quite overwhelming.  Mostly, I sat (on a GWR bench, natch) and took in the general atmosphere.

Just as I thought we'd seen everything - he said "we haven't even done the station shed yet...".  This part of the exhibition is another HUGE shed set up as a station with visitors able to see trains both from ground level (like in the main shed) and from platform level.   To get there, you have to walk across the site on another circuitous route.

To be honest, if I could have spent the whole visit in this shed with an array of cameras and lenses, I'd have been super happy I wouldn't have needed to go elsewhere.

By the time we'd finished the station shed, they were giving the 30min to close warning.  We headed for the station and the York Tap. the area around the museum and the station seem to be subject to some regeneration work.  This made walking around less pleasant than it might be - but, hopefully, it's improving for the longer term.  We found the Tap, ordered a beer and slumped into seats.

The beer range in the Tap, with its circular bar, was great: mostly, but not exclusively, Yorkshire breweries but a load of familiar faces, too.  BBF, NBB and Electric Bear were all represented.  The venue itself felt a little bit impersonal - like a 'spoons from the early days.  Nice building, really good beer but the people behind the bar didn't appear particularly invested.  Still, it was a good recovery place and allowed us a convenient "which train shall we get" spot.

Tuesday, we headed to Harrogate.  It's another well-to-do kind of place so we went to the Pump House museum and had a bit of a stroll around a lovely park but it didn't really have all that much for us.  We made an early visit to the Harrogate Brewery Tap in the Montpellier.  What a lovely place.  Staff were super-friendly and engaging.  The beer was great and, even though it was quiet, it was comfortable and nice to sit in.  Would definitely recommend.

We walked another route back through the town and arrived at the station - so we popped into the Harrogate Tap (same stable as the York one) on the station.  This one felt more personal and welcoming.  There was a fire in the fireplace and the gentle smell of woodsmoke and it was smaller than the York site.  Also, the staff felt more engaged, somehow.  Definitely more our sort of place.

Back in Knaresborough we decided to revist the Half Moon - it was a good choice.  We already felt at home, the second we walked through the door and we knew we wanted to try their pizzas - definitely worth it.

The stroll back to the cottage was along the riverside road, in the dark, accompanied by hooting owls 

North Yorkshire

 In a bit of a change from our usual "let's go to Cornwall for a week" autumn holiday, we decided, instead, to head north - I fancied York but he suggested a scenic place with excursions.

As a result, we ended up In Knaresborough.  10 mins from Harrogate, 20 mins from York, 40 from Leeds.

We needed to fit in a Bristol trip around work-type schedules as well, so we decided that triangular trip made sense.

Our train travel north was without incident, although, the busyness of the train reminded us that we prefer to travel during the week.

Nevertheless, we had a pleasant journey, landing at around 3.30pm - a 5 minute walk from our cottage.  There's a slight "but" to this walk...it's down a 1 in 4 hill from the station.  

As is normal for us, we dumped bags - had a mooch around our quirky digs for the week which is an old house with almost every room on a different level - and set out to try one of 4 GBG pubs.  Pretty much everywhere is "up" from the cottage and it also necessitates crossing the railway line - so you do feel like you've earned your beer.

We went to The Cross Keys which is an Osset Brewery pub.   Very traditional with a mix of locals and visitors and it was pretty busy.  We chose a couple of beers and I had to conceal a smirk - they were expertly poured, of course, with a "proper" Yorkshire head on.  We settled and ventured another.  Osset are a brewery that I consider to be "new" (obviously, it's not actually new - any more than BBF is) and we occasionally see it around in Bristol but their beers are definitely "traditional" in style.  It was a good way to get used to beer in the "Yorkshire Way"

Because it takes us so long to drink a pint, we'd been in the pub for the best part of 2 hours and we realised we should really eat something so we walked around the corner to a quirky place called "Six Poor Folk".  It had been full when we passed it on our way to the Cross Keys but it looked like there may be a bit more room when we returned.

We were greeted in jolly fashion, so we ordered a couple of pints (can't remember what of) and sat down.  It's a difficult to describe place - one part cafe, one part bar, one part bistro.  Definitely not pub but warm and friendly.

The food (small plates) were pretty good (not amazing, but good enough), the beer was lovely - even if the choice wasn't enormous.  We were happy.

Travelling (let alone all the stairs and hills) had made us a bit weary so after we'd eaten we thought that heading back "home" would be wise - but we did slide into the bar on the station platform.

It's effectively a micropub of which, we've observed, there are broadly 2 types:  type 1 is just a small version of a pub: everyone welcomed and with a wide variety of punters (Drapers Arms, Wight Bear, Steamworks).  Type 2 is more of a insular thing - a few (usually) blokes or a bloke sets it up because he fancies running a pub and it's a manageable version of a full pub. It tends to be mostly populated by hyper-locals and/or the owner's mates.  Walking in here as an out of towner can feel quite intimidating (The old blockbusters near Hitchin, the more distant micropub in Ramsgate and the one we went to  in Wells, The Farmers in Bexhill) - often the beer isn't particularly interesting.

I would have to say that the Knaresborough bar was more type 2 than 1 although the folk were very, very friendly it was pretty clear most other people in the place seemed to know each other.  The beer was really well kept but lowish strength, and not that interesting. We can hardly complain, and people seemed to be having a good time and it was rammed - but we were a tiny bit disappointed.

Heigh ho - there were clearly more places to try...and there were other towns...of which more, later 

 

Vehement Disagreement

 Whilst I drink my coffee on a Saturday morning, I invariably scroll through Blue Sky and pick up the link for Boak and Bailey's weekly summary of beer things.

I also subscribe to their newsletter so if, by chance, I should miss it on the scroll, then I definitely won't forget.

I love the round up with a wide selection of extracts and links - some which I follow and enjoy, some I don't follow but very rarely, I follow the link and find that I completely disagree with the writer of the article being highlighted.

One thing I've learned is that the "good"ness of beer is very much in the eye of the beholder beyond the basics of "does it taste or smell off". 

It so happens that I'm a lot less eager to drink traditional "bitter" or "best bitter" or even the thing oft referred to as "pale ale".  I do drink it from time to time since I live, most of the time, in Harveys Country and I like it as a grounding beer (you're back in Sussex, now, girl).

All this means I don't get ludicrously excited, any more, about seeing Timmy Taylor on the bar.  I mean, it's fine, and a well-kept pint of it will be welcomed where there's no/few other beers on offer (unlike GK IPA which, no matter how well kept, I won't drink -  glass o' red for me, please).

Anyhow, leaving aside style of beer I was very sad to see someone in the round up completely (even if maybe a little tongue in cheek?) dismissing gravity dispense completely.

I'm used to the "tight head sparkler is the only way" vs "tight head sparklers are evil" debate but I really didn't think that gravity dispense was so controversial - though, thinking about it - for people who think tight heads are the optimum serving suggestion, then it's two steps lower on the ladder, I guess.

Having been to many a beer festival (only one, GBBF, with handpumps) I have a real fondness for gravity.

One of the reasons we love our Sussex local so much is that whilst the mainstay cask beers (Harveys, obvs and usually Timmy) are dispensed via handpumps, most of the guest beers come from the "cellar" (cold room behind the bar) from casks on tippers, and gravity dispensed.  We both adore it.

Actually, quite a lot of pubs we  like don't use pumps (Cricketers in Berwick, Orchard in Bristol, The weekly cask in Beerarama, maybe the Square and Compass?) and for years my "Christmas Beer at Home" was a polypin from a local brewery.

Why do I like my cask beer on gravity?  The simplicity is attractive (I'm a simple woman),  but especially when it's really fresh I think there's a mouthfeel (BBB hates that word) that makes the first slurp especially wonderful - with the condition alone providing the gentle refreshing prickle on my tongue.

This from someone who has migrated from the "keg beers are rubbish" school in the last 10 years or so, definitely towards the f*cking hipster beer thing.  (We have friends the same age as us who really don't quite understand, but that's their prerogative).

I'm not going to challenge the author - they're almost certainly more knowledgeable than me - but I'd encourage people to at least not be put off by it.  Even for modern, hop forward beers.

This weekend, the new guest at our local was Verdant Lightbulb (on gravity) and even 24 hours after it went on it was absolutely stunning.

Next weekend we're heading up to Yorkshire - I'll probably have to keep my opinions on sparklers to myself... 

 

 

It's not the beer

 We went to the Belgian Bar twice this week.

Wednesday it was just he and I after a fairly sedate afternoon at work.

Friday had been frantic - a last minute plan to pick up a huge number of council "pre-loved" laptops for work and I was doing tours of the Wish Tower for Heritage Open Days.  We had arranged to meet sisters for beer and the BB is convenient for everyone.

By the time we got to the bar we were knackered from a combination of hauling, logging and stowing laptops, a fair bit of stomping around,  and peopling (in my case, a lot of peopling). 

The beer in the BB isn't very consistent from a flavour point of view  (he favours the Saison, I favour the IPA) but it has definitely improved over the years.  Wednesday's IPA was a bit "new" and not cool enough - by Friday it was considerably better.

Given, for us, "the beer is everything" - you'd think we wouldn't go to the BB as often as we do.

 It's not cosy - it's a large space with tables and benches, together with a slightly raised dining area.  If the door is left open in winter there's often a howling, freezing gale blowing (due to the proximity to the sea).  There are no dark corners in which to lurk.

But there's something else.  It has an ambiance which is unique.  The staff are unfailingly lovely and it's a genuine pleasure to be in their company. The sheer range of people who go there is fantastic and we really enjoy just sitting with beer and seeing who comes in.  It changes over the seasons - after all, Eastbourne is a resort - and include anyone and everyone.

I find it really relaxing and even though we'll chat about work (since it's literally just around the corner) it's an excellent way to wind down.  It feels very much like the Victoria felt when we worked close to that - not the the absolute best pub ever, by a long way but somewhere comforting and familiar and somewhere we seek out regualarly (pretty much weekly when we're around)

There are few pubs/bars where, for me, the atmosphere trumps the beer - but this does it in style.  And it seems effortless, even though I'm absolutely sure it takes a lot of effort.

I'll miss the "nip around the corner" aspect of it when we move business premises over the 12months but I know we'll also make the effort to get there.  

 

 

Revival APA

 The weather was pretty yukky - not rainy but the wind howling off the South Downs was quite the thing.  The BBB said "did you want to go to The Crown?".

I was honest and admitted I was ambivalent about going out - rotten weather and all - but I said if he was keen I was happy with that.  He was, so we did.

We took games and strolled down.

The pub was quiet (initially, at least), there was no sport on but in the end we just nattered.

The Revival APA was still on and was absolutely lovely.  It really tasted pretty much how I remembered Mark Tranter's version tasted.  The BBB said, "it's like being back in the Evening Star" - and so it was.

The walk back - uphill and into the teeth of the wind - was slightly harder than the walk out.  Then again, we wouldn't have it any other way because this way we get the view of the hill from the front of the house and it's largely unobstructed because of the park opposite.

As we came into the garden we mused that we were hoping for a couple more chances to sit drinking beer in the front garden before the end of the month - but that's very much in a lap of the weathers.

I don't love summer - I adore spring and autumn - already my head is looking forward a couple of weeks to fires in pubs again and not feeling guilty about not doing any gardening.  I'm also looking forward to putting on my enormously thick fleece-lined hoody and thick socks.    

 

Season Change

 Autumn really hit Sussex with a thud!

Bang on 1st September, the rain started, the temperatures plummeted and - being sat under the South Downs the mist started gathering in the park (aka The Rec) opposite.

 It was like someone hit a switch. 

Almost immediately the tomatoes in the garden slowed ripening almost to a halt. 

 I mean, it's still not actually cold but long-sleeve tees are now the most appropriate clothing, along with a baselayer.

A stupidly short deadline for several related funding bids for me have proved all-consuming, and tiresome for a number of reasons but it feels like the worst of that is over for now.  By the end of October I'm anticipating either huge disappointment (along with annoyance) or the usual "Oh, fuck!  Now we have to deliver it" feeling (actually, my brilliant team of folk have never failed to deliver in nearly 10 years of "oh fuck" moments).  Funding bids now have to be carefully marshalled to not generate too much overlapping project work and yet make sure we have sufficient funding going forward whatever the results.  Such is the nature of charitable work.  No wonder I spend so much free time in the pub - and often write bids there!

Work stuff, trips to the shire and a holiday booking in Yorkshire have mapped out our whereabouts for the rest of this year.  For a project manager this is joy because it means I shouldn't have last-minute angst of when we're going where. 

Beerwise, The Crown is still shifting quite a lot of cask and it allows for some crackers.  At the moment there's the splendid Downlands APA Revival - which is more than a nod to the original Dark Star APA.  We may get down later for that (or it may be tomorrow, when it's quieter - who knows).

Beerarama are still doing cask at the weekend - it now usually goes in on Thursdays (though I suspect it'll be Friday this week as the guys are squeezing in a short trip) - and it's always good.

An overheard conversation at Beerarama on Friday indicates that the new place (Wolf on the Corner - opening in October?) in town will be doing cask on gravity from the get-go (deep joy!) and the same overheard conversation seems to indicate that the change of landlord at what was the best place to get Harveys beers (The Hurst) has not been very positive from a beer choice (?quality, too??) point of view so we'll not be making the journey up there any time soon, sadly.

We're finding it hard to get back to Ninkaci because it's a little way away from work and it can be tricky to find times when it's not too quiet and not too busy (yes, we are Goldilocks).  We will undoubtedly return to the Gun Taproom at the Cricket ground before too long 

News from the GBG has put one of the other Harveys pubs (The Vic) back on our places to go list and whilst we're working where we are currently, this is a pleasant after-work stroll. 

Yesterday I had to smile when I saw a picture of New Bristol Brewery's (not BBF as I'd initially written) branding for their bitter.  Maybe it's always been this design and, not really taking that much notice of traditional bitter styles, I've never noticed but it did immediately, and with no other reference picture to hand, conjure Timmy Taylor Landlord in my head. I guess this was not an accident!

The best pint ever?

 ...we all know there's no such thing.

 No single perfect pub, no beer which will be our single desert island beer for any length of time nothing is perfect and yet a moment can be.

So it was yesterday.

Frantic deadline chasing and cat herding had me at my desk pretty much solidly all day from 8am.

By 4.45 I was done (and, apparently, so was the day's work - more or less).

"Andy's got ZZ Hop at the Crown" quoth the BBB

So we hightailed it down there.  The Crown tends to be pretty quiet on a Monday so it was also a peaceful refuge (unlike Saturday in Beerama which was lovely, but LOUD).

I took games, but in the end we didn't play them.  We nattered. About work, about the garden, about nonsense, etc and the concept of "It takes a village" referring to our roles at work mentoring young people and coaxing them into work competence.

The ZZ Hop flowed (looking a little odd in Timmy Taylor branded glasses) and it was in perfect condition, cool and soothing.

We so seldom see Arbor beer in any draught form - let alone gravity poured cask - it was a special treat after a bit of a wearing day.

On the way home we picked up take out food and the rest of the evening was perfectly relaxed.

I may have to revisit my opinion on Martin Parr, too - but that's for another time. 

 

Target achieved - levelling up

 We really enjoyed going back to the Crown beer festival again on Bank Holiday Monday.  We met family there at lunchtime and supped in halves and spent ages catching up.

Highlight was definitely a half of Thornbridge Union.

I'd spotted it on the list the first time we went in and it's been on my general list to try ever since I heard about the Burton sets that were at risk because of the uber-brand deciding all those decades of brewing history and heritage meant nothing to them - but the "brand" was what they wanted.

I hadn't realised that Thormbridge first brewed some Jaipur on the set - so that was a thing too.

The beer absolutely did not disappoint.

For someone who generally opts for very modern beers I expected to find the beer interesting and well-made (of course) - but more of a curiosity than something I'd want to revisit.  I didn't really expect it to be as awesome as it was.

How it manages to be both traditional and modern in feel and taste, I really don't know.  At 6% it obviously had some heft which always helps, but even so, the balance of malt and hops was perfection.

I'm definitely on the further look out for it now. 

Yumsk 

 

The Perfect Beer Fesitval?

 There's been a lot of talk about beer festivals around the GBBF new venue and stuff.

After all these years of attending (and organising) festivals and, in my advanced age where I'm done after 3 drinks I'm pretty sure I know the best sort for me...

 ...beer festival in the pub.  Our local does three a year on significant dates.

This weekend is the August BH one.  It started on Thursday and will run to Monday. We missed the first two days (I was working in Hastings on Thursday, we worked in Town on Friday) but we dutifully strolled down yesterday.

About 12 beers on a cooled stillage at the back of the pub. Ranging from 3.8% pales and bitters to 5%+ darks, IPAs and Westies.

Nothing fancy in keg-land (this is part of the Heineken estate).

When we first came to this festival, there was a greater predominance of  local, traditional, brown beers - but there's much more variety now.  Arbor ZZ Hop is anticipated and Thormbridge beers are making their presence felt.

When we arrived, we simply paid for our beer and the staff were happy for us to pour our own, with glasses on a table next to the stillage.  This makes us very happy because it becomes more than just buying a pint.

Sometimes we'll go three times but probably not this time (I quite fancy sitting in my garden today - I'm out a lot with work next week).  We are, however meeting a couple of family members tomorrow lunchtime (we don't usually drink during the day but, we know we need to compromise with other people's way of doing things from time to time).

I've got my eye on ZZ Hop as well as Thornbridge Union.  And that's really all I need in a "festival".  It comes back to loving a pub that's got a big selection of cask ales available, all in different styles and strengths.  Our local can't do that on a daily basis - it just wouldn't work but the festival does and it's something to celebrate and revel in.

This weekend saw the usual "East Bristol Brewery Trail" - were we in Bristol, we probably wouldn't have gone because it would have been loud and crowded but it doesn't mean we don't feel delighted that it's an event that works so well for them.  Bravo!

I'll stick with our local with its increase in number of punters around whilst retaining its pubbiness for us.  the other benefit was watching sport on the TV, and playing board games without feeling too weird. 

Refusenik

On Friday when the flat became stupidly hot we decided to leave a little early.  It wasn't quite as hot out as the the day we went to the Cornubia carefully scutting between patches of shade so this fooled us a bit.

We set out, sensibly enough, maybe with the possibility of going to Martha's.  But, instead we headed towards the Cider Box to check out the work that was happening around the new University buildings.  "Wanna turn around?" he asked as we passed the Cider Box.  "I'm fine,", I said after he had confirmed he wasn't in the mood for cider.

So we walked.

Past the Rhubarb with its sad facade and the chances of it being a pub diminishing by the minute.

It got hotter and the amount of shade disappeared to nothing.

We crossed the railway (coincidentally I saw an old picture of the area just the next day) and decided to head onto the cyclepath "because it'll be shadier".

It wasn't.

We arrived at the Barley Mow knackered, hot and absolutely gagging for a pint.

Our pints of Notorious disappeared considerably quicker than usual. Even the BBB who almost never goes anywhere without a jumper admitted that it had been too hot and that he was knackered after walking a mere 2 miles.

So yesterday I definitely wasn't going far. We took games to Marthas instead - it was a good move.

We're heading south tomorrow and coastal Sussex promises to be a good few degrees cooler than here.  I can't say I'm sorry.  

Our neighbour messaged today to say she'd done as we'd asked and picked some tomatoes from our front garden.  This means there will be some in the back garden that also need our attention.

It's possible, also, that I've already ordered beer to be delivered...let's hope the aircon on the trains home is working... 

 

Jus' Checking

 Wiper and True taproom is not a place we go to often, despite being only a shortish walk away.

It's not that we don't like their beers, exactly, and it's not that we don't think they've done an excellent job on making a wonderfully inclusive-feeling space it's just that, well...it doesn't quite work for us, for some reason, and then there's the prices of the beers.

There's just something about all of it added together that doesn't make it somewhere we rush to.

I guess if it were as close as LHG, we might go more often on the way to or from some form of errand. But I like LHG a little better than W&T.

Nevertheless, yesterday with a slight reduction in the weather temperature I'd suggested we stroll over there and take a couple of urban grunge photos on the way (I've got the rest of a 24exp film to use, develop and scan before we head back on Monday).  He was happy with the suggestion.

We enjoyed the stroll which wasn't too warm and we took a slightly backstreet route so that was fun.  When we arrived, there was one cask on - fine.  It was called "Summer Ale" (3.8%) with no further description on the pump clip, so without any more ado we ordered two pints of it. (It's possible there was a fuller description on the big board behind the bar, but there's a lot to take in and we were served the second we arrived at the bar.)

Here's a problem with a bar that's a bit tall (it's about the height of my chest) - you can't always see what glass your drink is being poured into so you can't leap in and beg for straights over jugs.  Also, you don't really see your beer until it's lifted onto the bar (especially at my height).  

The beer was BROWN!  So that was a bit of a shock for a beer with "Summer" in the name.

The prices haven't shifted hugely (unlike some places) but at £5.60 for a pint of your own 3.8% beer, it still feels a little on the nose.  £1 or so more expensive than BBF in the BM, and about the same for all the beers in the Cornubia.

Nevertheless, we grabbed our beers and took them out into the garden, grabbed a seat and settled in.  Actually, I was really glad we did order it.  If it had been described as "bitter" or "brown" I wouldn't have ordered it and although I wouldn't want a second, it was really well done, and very enjoyable.  

The place started to fill up with a wide range of people (I love that - mostly) including a couple of families with ankle-biters. They weren't badly behaved but there was a lot of running around between all the tables and squealing with excitement.  It was less than relaxing, it has to be said.

We carried on chatting about the usual shite, I imagine. Then it was time for a second.  We generally like to try different beers to each other, but it wasn't feasible.  From the seemingly large and long list, actually there weren't many second-beers (loads of low and no, 3 different 7%+ IPAs, 2 or 3 lagers, one stout.,,etc) so we had Sundance a really solid 5.6% IPA which was lovely. (2/3rds - obvs).

We took in the variety of plants in the beer garden (vine, apple and fig trees, etc) and mused over food in pubs (he increasingly not wanting to eat in pubs, me still thinking there's a right sort of food at the right time).  We definitely want to go to both a Desi pub and to Bundobust - and we'll sort that out at some point.

Time for one more before leaving to start making dinner, using up the fridge contents.  Half of an 8% DIPA and 2/3rds of a 7.2% IPA.  Again, really well brewed beers which we enjoyed drinking.

And yet, I doubt we'll be going back there for a while - unless it's someone else's venue of choice.

Maybe the size is the issue:  weird when empty and overwhelming when full.  Yesterday everyone was outside and as it got noisier (and hotter) it might have been quite nice to retreat inside, except that we'd then have been outnumbered by the bar staff which always feels weird.

Yeah, I dunno.  I'd recommend it to people without hesitation and yet, it's not quite me. 

 

 

 

 

 

The Cornubia

 This is a pub I've been going to on and off for ...eeep, about 25 years???

The first manager/landlady I remember was no nonsense and a little bit scary.  I once took my beer back because it was off, I was quite nervous but she caught my eye and immediately said "oh, sorry, has it gone?" What else would you like?  Before I'd uttered a word.

I vaguely remember that Smiles had taken it on at some point to give them a bit more of a pub "estate" - but I don't think that lasted long. 

Then I remember Luke Daniels (of Bag of Cats fame) being there - I think I also knew him from the Hare on the Hill (same time, different time?  Who knows?) 

I don't really have much recollection of the change to Phil and Jackie - but that's probably because I wasn't working nearby any more but, anyway, it was about the time I first took the BBB to a pub in Bristol.  I'd hoped to take him to the Kings Head but it wasn't open (this is long before Good Chemistry's intervention) so, instead, we popped around the corner.

He was amazed loved it immediately.

This was a long time before our taste-drift towards the "fecking hipster".  But the Cornubia has stayed true to its traditional roots and doesn't seem to have made any radical changes since they sadly lost Phil.

What this means, of course, is that we don't always find ourselves in the mood for their beer - no matter how excellently kept it is (and it always is).

Yesterday it was a tad cooler but the temperature was still rising when we want to go out and so we thought going too far might not be a brilliant idea.  So we went and sat in the garden of the Cornubia.

It's brilliant to see it bustling and lively with maybe 50 or more punters in the garden.

Our first two beers (cask, natch) - straddled the modern-traditional  boundary deftly.  Mine 3.8 "golden" and his 4.2 "Electric...something" (sorry, can't remember the brewery).  We could have moved somewhere else but we were happy enough. He then had Twisted Oak "Quad Hop or something" and I switched to the Citra.  We were very happy.

 Long live the Cornubia (let's hope the "developments" nearby don't seriously affect its character)!

 

Beaking a Habit

 In the end we managed to stay in the flat yesterday longer than we thought.  When we ventured out it was about 34-deg.

Temple churchyard was soothing and tolerable but the church itself had already closed.

After pictures were taken we sought sanctuary in the Kings Head.  I normally wouldn't even look at keg for a first drink if there's cask on the bar but I was really hot and felt the need for cooling keg.

Abbeydale 3.8% was perfect for the job.

I followed this with Good Chemistry NEIPA at 5% and then had a repeat whilst his last one was a De La Senne Saison.

All was good.

We came home via Tesco where cold things were bought for dinner (bread, charcuterie, salad, hummus) which we had a little later than usual, accompanied by decent Italian Red we'd been keeping in the fridge.  The aim of keeping the wine in the fridge is for storage rather than drinking from...but we made an exception and it worked admirably.

Not quite so hot today but we'll still need to escape... 

First World Problems

 When we bought our Bristol flat, within sight of Temple Meads - it solved an immediate problem: a non-driver needing to travel between Sussex, Hertfordshire and Bristol.  When a parent moved into a carehome, it meant trips to Bristol were stressfree and visits could be met pretty easily even without a car (Train from Eastbourne, tube to Paddington, Train to Bath, Bus to Saltford, Parental visit, Bus to Bristol).

What I particularly fell in love with the first time I came to see the showflat was the glass curtain walls which give an all-round view.  Even better when the flat we had to buy as there were few left, was on the 10th Floor.  The view is superb.  When the BBB came to view it, he was similarly minded and wasn't sure why I'd waited for him to see it before making an offer.  

It's really energy effcient - rarely needs the heating on until November and it's usually off again by March and we can leave it alone for a few weeks and, generally speaking, it's unchanged when we return.

There is one downside - sunny summers.  

Today another heatwave is about to peak and, without any form of aircon, in an hour or so it'll become unbearable as the sun swings around.

We have a plan, though, we wandered to Temple Churchyard a few days ago and had a brief visit inside the church.  The gardens there are beautifully shaded and there's seating.  We need to take a few more film photographs so in a bit we'll amble around there making the most of the shade from street trees and try and keep sane for a bit.

What's that you say?  Is there beer near there?  What do you think? 

 

Don't be a Dick

Been reading a few things about whether beer festivals are fit for purpose in terms of making sure attendees feel safe and welcome.

This post from Boak and Bailey pretty much brought all the threads together for me.  It led me into a breakfast rabbit-hole following all the links.

I'm an introvert but no longer overly shy, as such.  I'm a part-time pensioner, still part-time working - I'm of Hobbit-like proportions and, not unlike one of the writers down that rabbit-hole, scruffy (jeans, t-shirt, slightly unkempt hair, you get the idea). However, I did also inherit my mother's withering "I beg your pardon?" look.  Let's face it, I was never someone who men would have looked at as a "first choice pull". I'm also (now, at least) immensely glad of all of this.

I'm mostly disappointed that sexism when it comes to drinking establishments is still a thing.

A good few years back, when I still lived in Bristol full time, I was coaxed into being the Bristol Beer Festival set-up manager for a few years. My pal from work was the treasurer, and said 

"look, you're a good project manager and that's what set-up needs".  

What he meant was 

"no one else likes doing that job because you have to tell people what to do, and they don't like it much"

It meant going to regular planning meetings with the rest of the committee.  Thankfully, the Bristol and District group were, on the whole, a good bunch and there were some brilliant women in the group - some alongside their partners, others on their own.  I was single at the time I started doing the role and, to be honest, it was a manageable way to at least pretend to be sort of sociable.

I mean, obviously it was still a bit of a boys' club - but I never really felt anything other than part of the team.  I also had my pal looking out for me to an extent.

Also, for context, I should say I worked in insurance in a niche area and project-managed with the IT dept.  Sufficient to say I had to deal with all sorts of men A LOT - some in positions of power, others in sales, others in roles junior to me - also straddling that "project manager" can mean something very specific an with a slightly grudging "you're not my line-manager, you can't tell me what to do" stuff.

Insurance was (I've been out of it for 15 years so who knows, now) a very patriarchal, hierarchical industry so women do have to learn techniques for dealing with stuff.

Anyhow - my first day on-site for a 3-day set-up was hard. I had a checklist and my pal had given me a list of "here are the documents you HAVE to make sure you get".  

All that said,  I really didn't know what it took to set up a medium to large festival and the timing that was needed to get everything on site in the right order - with getting the beer ready being the highest possible priority. 

In retrospect, I would have done better if I'd volunteered without a specific role before taking that on - but hey, I didn't and I'd agreed to do the job - so I just had to get on and do it.

 I think I was pushing 50, at the time.  Even so, a little younger than the mean age, I would guess.

Several of the folk who were actually doing the set up tasks had been doing the role for a few years and that made some of it a bit easier but there were far more "general helpers" who are there to do whatever is needed and it was my job to point them to an appropriate team to help, whilst fielding the "when is the xxxx arriving" questions and chasing suppliers, etc.  

The vast majority of the folk in the room were really fun to work with, it was impressive they were willing to give up so much free time to put the festival on.  Most were also gracious when asked to explain a particular thing when we were trying to work out how to overcome problems.  They also liked my willingness to get my hands dirty and help move the casks in when they were late arriving.

There were a few, however, who seemed to mostly be there for the "free staff beer" and staff t-shirt -  they were less than ideal, I remember general irritation (on both sides).

Only one incident really sticks in my mind: a bloke a few years older than me and an almost CAMRA cliche, when I'd had to ask him more than once to finish a particular job in a particular way because he was holding other people up,  did a bit of a "what do you know about any of this, anyway - you're a woman".

I can't actually remember what I said but I definitely channelled my mother in my "I beg your pardon?" look and he got on with it.  No one stepped in (in either direction) and it left me shaking.

There was no one in the room that I knew well - my pal wasn't on duty that day, so there wasn't anyone I could go and let off steam with, or ask whether that particular person was always a bit of a dick. 

I found out after, via my pal and one of the blokes who witnessed it that the other guys were impressed how I'd dealt with it and that he got on and did it, since no one else had managed to get him to do so.  And, yeah, everyone knew he was always a bit of a dick.

Younger me probably wouldn't have gone back.  I might even have left there and then - being single at the time, with only a recently empty home to go back so no one to talk it over with, might well have put me off doing anything similar ever again.

This is the thing.  An incident like this can stop someone ever participating again - in whatever it is.  You probably won't know, as an event-organiser or pub landlord, that it ever happened.  

Whether it's someone in your personal space (an insurance colleague - much taller than me - sniffing the top of my head and asking what shampoo I used - oh, do fuck off!); or a bloke in a pub trying to start a conversation with you by saying "what you reading there, girl?" (an ebook on microcontrollers for electronics and , no, I'm not explaining what a microcontroller is); or someone not getting out of your way when you're carrying three pints through a crowded pub because they think it's amusing (it isn't).  It's tiresome.

I'm lucky, I've never felt threatened or in danger and I think my age now gives me a weird form of protection but were I still younger and shyer I'd just stay away from your venue/event and I'd take my economic power, my project management skills, and volunteering effort with me.

Single-gender dominated spaces are always difficult - you ask any bloke whose first job in a large company back in the 70's/80's was to take stuff to the typing pool (yeah, I told you I was old).

This means if that space is under your control, or your livelihood depends on people using that space - then it's in your interest, as well as your responsibility, to make it fit for purpose.  Why would you choose to do otherwise? 

I'm probably repeating myself when i say I work with young people - mostly young men, most of whom are socially somewhat awkward and at risk of missing social cues.  We have an extensive "Code of Conduct" which everyone has to read and understand.  

"So what you're saying is - don't be a dick - in essence"?  Said one lad.  

Yeah, that's it - and everyone knows really what it means - they don't really need a list.  I don't believe any poor behaviour is because they don't understand the rules.  They understand, but they choose - for whatever reason - to ignore or flout them.

So, is that the reason I don't go to beer festivals any more?

Nah, it's much more mundane - I prefer pubs and there is more than enough really good beer available to me in Bristol (and to a lesser extent in Sussex) to try whenever I want.  I no longer need the festival to serve that to me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Talking Shite in the Pub

 Couple of little errands yesterday afternoon and a passably sunny day (for one of the errands was using up film in a vintage camera) meant we tootled out through Temple Church and found, to our joy, it's now open for public access.

Pictures duly taken, and architectural details noted, we headed to an Amazon locker to pick up a couple of little parcels.  From here, whilst there are in theory several possible pub destinations...in practice we usually go to LHG.

We grabbed a couple of pints of cask beer (theirs) and settled in.  The number of punters was perfect, as was the beer (pale, hazy, modern hops, 4% ish).

We were also delighted to see XII by Tiley's on the bar.  At 6.2%, definitely not a cask beer to start.

Often, when we go to the pub we don't have a huge amount to talk about since we often are in the same space for the day so we already know what's happened. However, for some reason we were pretty talkative (for us, that is) and, looking back, we covered a lot of range...

 - how the monthly monitoring of work targets was going and where some clarification ws needed (I think we nailed it and the monitoring is well underway today)

• Whether a particular track was Lou Reed solo or Velvs (no firm decision)
  
  
• How Nico (solo, not on teh Velvs album) had an interesting but strangely monotone delivery style.
  
  
• How, now we know some B&W film qualities better, might specify how we use particular brands also, how some cameras really can't hack 36 exposures but that 24exp often isn't avaialble.

• How the selotape roll I'd picked up from the Amazon locker was the perfect size for the project the engineer had in mind and how he was looking forward to putting it to use
  
  
• Also noting that when we arrived, the bar staff were chilled and at 5.25 when the rush started we watched them step it up a notch.

Then it was time for another pint.   He asked me what beer I wanted.  I just gave him a specification (measure, abv, characteristics) and he joined the queue.

He came back with a spec-meeting beer for me and he had the Tiley's.  The conversation continued:

• How the staff member charged with opening the bi-fold doors (like others before them) seem to struggle a bit with it.
   
• How the Tiley's beer was very traditional and perfectly pitched.  So good that he wanted to contact his "old man" friends and tell them to come immediately to try it (one lives in London, the other in Surrey so it wasn't very practical).
  
  
• How we were put in mind of the Moor project to replicate a traditional Fullers ESB recipe (great on cask, less so in a can)
   
• How Steeley Dan's name came about (something about a Naked Lunch reference but that might be apocryphal)
   
• Whether I'd make a better job than him of getting my 35mm film onto the developing reel whilst maintaining a tail of film which would allow reuse of the cartridge.
   
• How much we were keen to develop the two films we have (we haven't done them yet, but I'm going to get onto it in a moment).
   
• The fact that we needed to make pesto when we got back and how nice it would be to have some small frozen blobs of it stowed in the freezer.
   
• How "Cabin Pressure"'s episodes are named alphabetically (Abu Dhabi, Boston, Cremona, Douz, Edinburgh, Fitton...you get the gist)
   
• How "Herc" in Cabin Pressure is Mr Gently Benevolent (and Mr Giles, and the Gold Blend Bloke and Murray "one night in Bangkok" Head's brother

...and it went on. 

In all this nonsense, people came and went at the other end of "our" table.  Each smiled at and waved in in a jolly fashion.  After the third, it was time to leave but, in truth, I could have sat and nattered nonsense for longer.

Today it's all been a bit full-on compiling monitoring stats so I think a game might well be in order to take minds off it.

But first - I need to spool up some 35mm film ready to be developed. 

 

 

Small Pleasures

 At weekends (which include Friday afternoon, natch) we choose our venues carefully.

The great thing about Bristol, especially in the summer, is how it becomes a very specific sort of visitor city (I don't think it was like this at all when I was growning up).  

They're here for all sorts of reasons:  the music scene (yesterday and today Idles doing a couple of outdoor gigs to kick off an international tour), the Wallace and Grommit trail (whatever the latest iteration of that is), beer festivals, cider festivals, harbour festivals...

...there are also, of course, the hen and stag parties:  so many pubs, so little time.

Throughout the year there are sporting events (EFL season started yesterday) - football, rugby, basketball...

Obviously, then the breweries and distilleries, and taprooms and tasting rooms and pubs.  There really is more than enough to make it a city worth visiting for a day, or more.

As a result, then, some areas of the city are HEAVING.

So - as I say, we try and choose carefully.  This generally means staying on this side of town.

It goes to explain why we tend to go Moor on Friday or Saturday and yesterday it was particularly quiet there (there are reasons, but I hope that doesn't carry on for too long) and less beer on tap than usual.

Nevertheless we sat outside for one and tried to find photographs for one of our new silly cameras:  a 1930's tiny (127 film size) box camera, since you ask.  When we decamped inside we played a couple of games of Regicide and then got chatting with James which is always a fine way to spend a bit of time.

When we headed home we thought we might get one or two more pictures (there are only 8 to be taken, for goodness' sake) and a chap said "is that actually a camera?"...and that sparked a conversation about film photography and silly cameras, completely at random.  It was a delightful 10 mins.

 This morning I went out to try and take the picture on it and to try a "new" old camera:  a Zenith 11 with a Carl Zeiss lens, so I strolled over the bridge and was greeted with countless people in "band" t-shirts arriving by train, and crowds at the 'spoons.  I headed towards Martha's, assuming it would be quiet so I could take some urban pictures.  I was staggered to see the arches next door have been turned into a pop-up plant shop with huge queues of people waiting (to pay???) and Martha's, the Pasty Shop and the Forest Bakery with loads of people in attendance.  How brilliant!

I queued for some bread to take home for lunch and then was really relieved to remove myself from the crowds and look down on them from our flat.

When we bought this flat there were literally no people wandering around at the weekend but it's gone on to be a bustling little corner of the city.  It's got its good and bad sides but it's lovely to see these businesses making the most of it. 

 

 

 

Ahhhhhhhh

 It's been a bit busy and there's an awful lot of plate-spinning happening.

When we came to head up to Bristol the trip felt a little bit daunting - and we were also taking more luggage than usual (including a negative scanner...because, you know...).

As it was, it was as smooth a trip - we jumped on a bus at the end of the road, our train was already waiting for us at the station, the tube across London was painless and we only had 10 minutes or so to wait at Paddington.  Once we walk through the door of the flat and ascertain that there had been no obvious disasters in our absence, we can start to relax.

The utter delight of settling into the Barley Mow was unparallelled.  We observed that we don't really like pubs which are devoid of customers but the BM is a bit of an outlier in that, even if the pub interior is  largely empty, you know that there will be loads of people sitting outside so people are always coming and going.  We sit in peace inside, whilst knowing we're not actually alone in the place.

There wasn't an enormous range of cask we wanted to drink but it was Monday (we don't normally travel up on a Monday - it was a bit disorienting) we had lovely beer, and we relaxed.

Lots of work to do this week, but the knowledge of local beer availability makes it all a bit better.  Funding bid, anyone? 

Never Say Never

 It was the BBB's birthday yesterday.  Sadly, I had to dash into work for a meeting but I was back around lunchtime.  We'd toyed with the idea of a walk but rain threatened so we chickened out and wandered down to The Crown to watch some cricket, play a birthday-present game and make the most of the beer.

There was a Burning Sky APA and that was supplemented by Long Man Mosaic.

The APA was lovely but it seemed a crime not to even try the Mosaic...we're not Long Man fans but we needed to take one for the team.

Actually it was really, really nice.  So much so, we shared a final of it.

 I hope the birthday boy enjoyed the trip as much as I did. 

Regulars

 Saturday saw us both in work again as we were co-producing a new session for young people at TechResort (that is to say, we've a vague idea how it should work but we wanted to test it on some willing victims before we go further).

It was quite a lot of peopling for us both followed by developing 5 rolls of film in a non-dedicated darkroom...in other words, tanking up in the light-proof bathroom, and developing in the kitchen.

After the deluges of Friday night, the temperature crept up in the afternoon so by the time we left, we were hot and tired.  Beerarama seemed the best place to go.  Obviously, the prospect of Route 21 Cask beer was persuasive: we really enjoyed it but thought it might be more of a keg beer, YMMV.

On keg was a first (probably only) for Eastbourne:  an IPA from Brausyndikat Microbrewery in Zurich.  With the brewer also onsite.  Very nice it was too - definitely continental in style.

Beerarama is unlike any venue we go to in Bristol - it has a really good wine list and a decent keg offering at all times.  There's usually bag-in-box cider/perry too.

Their expansion into cask is very welcome but even if there's nothing on tap you fancy at that moment, it has a huge range of cans in fridges, together with an enviable no/low selection.

Speaking of Bristol, we're heading there soon (in a week or so) and I'm back to yearning for my home city and its variety of places.  As the BBB put it yesterday, it's also got more B&W photo-opportunities than Eastbourne.

We'll miss the garden but a couple of weeks watching balloons and peregrines whilst working will be the perfect reset from the amount travelling to venues and stuff I've been doing recently 

Reprise

 Friday we were working at base again so it seemed rude not to pop to Beerarama for some cask afterwards.

 This weekend's offering was by Almasty and was a lovely, hazy 4-and-a-bit percenter.

It had only just gone on and it was glorious. So much so that, despite some interesting looking kegs, we stuck with 2 more pints for our seconds.  Yum.

 Yesterday we had to go to the Wish Tower to meet the builder about some impending work so afterwards, we could have gone to the Bohemian, which is our usual after-tower venue but we wanted more of that lovely Almasty beer again before it went.  We almost never go to the same place two days in a row but this exception was definitely worth it.

Still fantastic but this time we moved to other beers after.  I asked Jamie how it was going and he was pleased to report they were making money out of it which is just lovely to hear.

 Today, I'm hoping for a bit of gentle garden-fettling followed by enjoying said garden with some Arbor beer.  I've another "out and about" week coming and next weekend also likely to be quite busy...some quiet time definitely called for. 

 

Eastbourne Developments

 D'you know, the beer thing might actually be looking in up in Eastbourne.

Granted, the starting place is pretty low but there are actual glimmers...

First, The Crown, our stalwart local that has a proper set of "regulars".  I'm starting to feel like one of them - cheerily greeted and bade farewell by other regulars.  A couple of the bar staff who have been around the pub as kids with their families (regulars, of course) and who started doing glass collecting at the weekends are now fully-fledged bar staff and we've seen them grow, and grow until now they're about 90-feet tall.  Landlord, Andy, tells us cask sales have increased some and now he's turning around more interesting cask beers pretty quickly - recently we've blinked and missed a new one!  When we tootled in on Monday afternoon there were two really nice ones on (Mallinsons Nectaron, Kent Prohibition) and that had followed NBB and Three Acres beers a few days before.  This cheers us enormously!

Then, if that weren't good enough, John and Jamie of Beerarama have starting doing one 9 gallon cask each weekend with a chiller jacket and a cask-tipper at the back of the bar.  Falling into the place after a stressful (but brilliant) work session with some volunteers, I asked for two-pints and John gave me a double-take.  "You don't drink pints!" he chuckled.  Frankly, it was just as well that we did because the bloody things didn't touch the sides...and lovely beer, too.

This week, I've seen on social media that a local micro-brewery (Route 21) and a local but well-known cider  producer are planning to open a new taproom in town (not far from the Eagle, it happens) and that's definitely cause for celebration. Even if we don't end up going in there all the time (like Ninkasi because it's not always convenient, or whatever) then it's nice to know that we can ring the changes.  Rest assured, we certainly will be.

Hopefully this will buoy up other similar places and maybe even convince others it worth opening. 

  

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. 

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!