After a few busy, busy, busy weeks in Sussex and three incredibly packed and stressful days, I was absolutely gagging to slow down a bit.
I weakened and suggested delaying our departure by a day or so just to regroup but we agreed it was probably best just to get on with it. So, after a long, frustrating day starting to set up our new building we repaired to Wolf where we initially grumped that they didn't have precisely the line up of beers we would have liked.
Dear me - we need to have a word with ourselves. It had been a looooooonnnnnggggg week (on a Wednesday).
Thursday we did our usual schlep to station and the journey to Bristol was as simple as it can be - although we do still do a bit of "remember when the Victoria/Paddington journeys dovetailed?" nostalgia. None of the trains or stations were busy. We had about 25 minutes to wait at Paddington, but there were available seats on the concourse...unheard of.
Obviously we tootled around the corner to the Barley Mow (there is no other first stop for us), our corner seat was vacant although there was some debris on the table. As I slid into the seat, one of the blokes on the adjoining table shamefacedly removed the debris and apologized for leaving it there. It made me smile, and immediately the last few days stresses started to melt.
BBF beers on cask are very grounding and 10 minutes into the first pint I definitely knew that travelling on Thursday was the right decision. Highlight of this visit, though was a keg beer - collaboration between Hastings Project and Burning Sky (the irony, right?) to support Little Gate Farm in Sussex. I'm looking forward to going to Hastings Project's new pub in St Leonards when we go back down south - but that's for April and we were still in Bristol in February.
Friday saw us in Unwins and it's already starting to feel a bit less austere - and much more peopled. A strong ruby mild was the absolute start of this visit. The door being open was a bit of a buzzkill but as people started coming in from outside I asked Tom if it was OK for me to close the doors and then things cosied up a little bit.
Saturday I learned that Moor was back open when gigs were on, and there was a gig on. It seemed rude not to and it was lovely to see a fair few people there well before gig-time. The beer offering was solid enough (no cask reinstated yet) but we were delighted to see that proper "Hoppiness" was being offered - delicious. New staff took over the bar after the first drink and we had a bit of a struggle with the concept of 2/3rds (they only have pint glasses) but we got there in the end and all was well.
Sunday - obviously Martha for games. It was lovely to see Bryony and catch up with her. Again the place was a little busier than we expected - but we loved the fact that it was. Io, their cask beer is lovely and I think I then made the leap to a strong Black IPA and that was followed by a very strong guest beer. Nice!
Monday is "review this document" day so the external "office" (aka the Barley Mow) was invoked. There'd been a change of several beers so that went down well.
First "let's go somewhere different" venue was on Tuesday - we went The Bridge. QPA has become a solid beer I'm happy to drink, having previously been a bit of a Quantock "m'eh"ist. Only pints/halves here - so we only had two - my second was a keg IPA which had a definite smoked barley taste. Took a bit of getting used to but when it had warmed up a bit it definitely tasted better balanced - maybe a cask dispense might work better. Himself had a dark porter - tasted a bit thinner than I'd have liked for 5% or so but pleasant, nonetheless. We declared it a good visit with excellent use of the space by other punters (not always a given). I also particularly enjoyed an overheard conversation relating to "Hardingtons" brewery and its relationship to "The Swan with Two Necks" back in the day. If the conversation had been closer I may have chipped in with the TSWTN/Hardingtons/Bath Ales/St Austell connections - but I just reveled in the nostalgia a bit and realised how long I've been aware of the beer background scene in Bristol.
Wednesday it was sunny but quite cool. We had hopes that the Cornubia's garden might offer a sunny patch for a short while - but it didn't. So we grabbed a couple of pints and settled down at the corner of the biggest table in the place, sharing with a chap in the corner and then with another couple who came in later. The beer here was much more exciting than we expected - with two cracking pints.
Thursday we were meeting family in Bath and I'd suggested The Raven. It remains a lovely pub although I would liked to have been able to have a less substantial lunch. Just a couple of nice session pints although I believe there are indie craft beers - that wasn't the main aim of the visit. Catching up with brother and wife was - and that was great. They loved the pub (they'd not been before despite being regular Bath visitors). It was reasonably sunny when we left around 2.30pm and I'd promised the BBB that we could wander and test one of our old cameras which has been given some tlc around the light seal. We hacked up to the Circus, round and down to Pultney Bridge and weir - then taking in the Abbey. BBB was most impressed with the weir and we stood and just watched it for a bit.
After that we took the opportunity to seek out Electric Bear's little taproom in Shire's Yard. It has to be said, despite seeing entrances to the yard several times on our perambulations, we had a bugger of a job finding it again and when we got inside from the Milsom Street entrance - we had to do battle with the labyrinth to actually find the place. Having their beers on keg rather than from cans was a nice luxury and also allowed us to recover both from the perambulations and the socialising. On the way back, BBB was delighted to be able to track the incoming train from the platform's "staff information" board. Once a geek..
We were both absolutely knackered by Thursday's antics so today has been a little quieter and I predict we'll be seeking out a quiet corner in a nearby place to end the week.
