Bloody Breweries

[boatmike]

Used to be lots of pubs in Lee-on-Solent. In the last year the Swordfish has been closed to build flats, the Belle View has been knocked down to build flats, the Osborne view at Hill Head down the road is boarded up prior to building flats, The Bun Penny has been turned into a yuppy wine bar and restaurant. The Ship and the Inn by the sea are selling terrible plastic food. Absolutely nowhere to go to get a pint and a packet of crisps any more. Went to Lymington recently and the town quay pub there has been turned into a garish plastic and chromium monster. Yellow, pink, and orange walls I ask you. And the beer was awful....
What has happened to that great British institution the pub?
I don't beleeeve it!

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[DJE]

Simple solution:

Join Hill Head Sailing Club. We're not expensive and we're open every evening. Nice bracing walk along the beach from Lee.

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[boatmike]

Thanks for the invite. Already a member of 2 clubs though and will be off to the Med next spring. Enjoy sailing clubs of course but I really crave a good old fashioned pub with proper beer. Taken to going to Tichfield for a pint recently but it's 4 miles away and I have to drive so can't drink . How far do other forumites need to travel to find a proper pub with decent beer?

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[StugeronSteve]

We live near one of the few largish, family owned breweries left in existence. Doing very nicely as well. Trouble is they are turning most of their traditional pubs into family eateries, coz they make more dosh that way, and selling zillians of gallons of ale as guest beers. They still have one cracking pub though, strange that this "good local pub" is the one that they choose to take their visitors to.

<hr width=100% size=1>Think I'll draw some little rabbits on my head, from a distance they might be mistaken for hairs.

 

[Sans Bateau]

Its happening all over the place, I cannot understand who wants these pubs that are all cloned on a similar mould. It may be a reflection on the way retail has developed in this country, go to any town, to any supermarket or 'shopping mall' and they all look the same.

On the subject of pubs though, we moved earlier this year from a village in
Mid Sussex that has a real pub, you know 2 or 3 hand drawn beers, flagstone floor, true they do food, but real food. The village we moved to has had their pub highjacked by a chain, as you describe. Ho! Not so bad I thought, they have hand drawn beer. Order a pint, it arrives, its been chilled and put through a device to put a head on it! Hell, by the time its drinkable, its my round!

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[AJW]

Betcha that its one of the "real pub group" or somesuch chain that has funny pub signs and has turned pubs into informal resturaunts rather than drinking places. Food is mediocre and whilst the pupport to sell Bass and some other real ale as you say they chill it and artificially induce a head. All because its too complicated these days for pub managers to actually manage to keep their beer well. Either that or the care and attention needed to do so takes too much of the profits! I now avoid this chain like the plague unless I happen to be driving in which case it don't matter!

My other pet peeve is beer served through what I think is called a sparkler tap that forces it through small holes to give a big head. Perfectly acceptable for 'northern beers that should have a head but ruins Adnams!

Rant over...

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[halcyon]

200 yds, down hill going, up hill coming back, but by then who cares. Still has hand pulled bear, no head and not chilled, infact we still got two in the village.
Spent years getting real ale into our yacht club, what happens, the committee get taken over by incoming uppies. Next thing we are a wine bar, with those big mutli-head larger things, and then worse still be got nibbles including stuffed olives. Within a year they had halfed bar sales, and no one goes in now except for social.

We now live in a world of image, as portrade by marketing and tv, taste does not come inti the equation anymore, it's how fast you can get drunk, how much music and chrome.

Brian

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[Sans Bateau]

Spot on! You know exactly what I mean! Yes, Northern pubs do, they put perfectly good beer through a sparkler, whenever I (have) to go up there I always ask if they can take it off before they draw my beer. Why the hell do we have to suffer down here? We can manage without the plastic food (101 things to do with a deep fat fryer) but the beer should be served just how God intended.

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[boatmike]

Bloody hell a hand pulled BEAR. In a pub? Isn't that taking things a bit far?
And with no head totally Grotesque!!!!<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by boatmike on 08/10/2004 18:07 (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[Shakey]

In one of my past lifes I used to work in the licensed trade, so I've done my stint behind bars.

Northern beers, Yorkshire bitters etc., are meant to have a head on, thick and creamy, and people complain if they don't get it.

However, I can understand why people could get upset if there was a head on a Southern beer like Adnams or Ruddles.

Horses for courses in't it.

I agree with the comments about pubs becoming more like restaurants. I worked in a 'local' pub that had been taken over by a chain, they didn't change the decor but they introduced more food that we were under pressure to sell.

As one local said to me, "They've turned it into a f***ing McDonalds."

Don't worry, there'll be a backlash and in twenty years time we'll be seeing chains of authentic traditional local pubs that just do sandwiches for food and will all have authentic plastic horse brasses around traditional gas powered open log fires.

PS. I know you don't spell f*** with asterixes. I'm just being polite.

<hr width=100% size=1>At the end of the day - Sunset.

 

[FullCircle]

Sparkler Heads................

Me Roland and Our Wednesday Mates all insist that they unscrew that 'orrible sprinkler thingy. Then you get just one large bubble, which bursts on first gulp. They will look at you askance at first, but we found they soon get used to you. We first came across this practice in Liverpool and others Oop Norf venues.

<hr width=100% size=1>Our engine will never wear out - it only runs for 5 mins before packing it in again.

 

[pragmatist]

Well that's what you get if you venture north of Watford ...

<hr width=100% size=1>a pragmatist is an optimist with a boat in the UK - but serious about not being in the UK !

 

[steve_cronin]

Then move a little to the west....

...into Hall & Woodhouse country.

family owned houses and superb beer.

David Woodhouse is himself a sailor and an RNLI Governor. The sales manager moved (indirectly) from Marstons and has been assimilated into the community of Milton Abbas nr Blandford Forum.

Really nice brewery with really nice people owning it and working for it. We're staying at their hotel in Blandford in a couple of weeks time.

Like Stugeron Steve I live near to an East Midlands family owned brewery (Everards) that tries to blend the best of both worlds but I have never liked their beer, which is sad as our local is one of their houses. However a regular supply of guest beers (Adnams, Pedigree and Greene King etc) keeps me going.

Steev Cronin

(Unusually in the office on a saturday morning)



<hr width=100% size=1>The above is, like any other post here, only a personal opinion

 

[walker]

Many years ago used to have friends at uni in Leeds and mandatory stop for the first pint or three was a pub called The Junction (near Beeston IIRC). Used to pull about four pints through a sparkler done up really tight to serve one pint (must have recycled the overflow I suppose) and produced a pint of the smoothest, creamiest, most wonderful Tetley's I've ever tasted. Been in London now for close on 20 years and equally love the great southern beers as THEY should be served. Both are wonderful and both part of the local variety that makes life interesting and which is becoming harder and harder to find. What really gets my goat is when aforementioned friends who have all put down their roots moan about the way beer is served down here as though only their northern way is the right way. Which leads to the question 'what's my point' and I have to say I don't really know but having typed all that lot I'll be damned if I am just going to trash it. Must be time for another bottle of Speckled Hen.

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[Cornishman]

Re: Then move a little to the west....

I heartily agree with your sentiments, and suggest that a Grand Tour of the SW Peninsula will reveal a host of local breweries as well as many free houses with guest beers. I love a pint of Sharp's Doom Bar from Padstein (oops, did I mean Padstow?), but there are so many I could write all night. Had a lovely pint of Tamar Bitter in the Club last night - went down a treat with a curry supper. Then of course there is Three Sheets if you like something a little stronger.
Gawd, it must be hell living the other side of Salisbury Plain.

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[halcyon]

Re: Then move a little to the west....

Don't forget Skinners down Truro, took 3 years to get Knockers into our club. Then there was Springo, brewed at the Blue Anchor in Helston, they used to brew one side of the ally, and serve the other. If they did not know you, they would only allow you half pints.


Brian

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[waverider]

Do you still get Brickwoods or Gales ales down south Mike?.....been a long time since I lived in Gosport.

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[Mirelle]

Or a long way to the East.

We have our share of mickey mouse "pubs" that are actually restaurants serving people who come by car (the M****** at W************ and, alas, the B*** and O***** at P** M*** do rather come to mind) but fortunately we also have Adnams.

And their chain of tied houses. Such as the Cherry Tree, at the end of my road, cask marque, good pub guide, etc. etc. and good food with regular bitter at 2.10 a pint (less for a jug) two other Adnams beers and one decent foreign beer from outside the county. And a proper fire. And games on the tables. Who could ask for more?

<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?

 

[FullCircle]

Re: Or a long way to the East.

Mirelle
I winn the prize as I worked it out because Second Chance was perched in the Boat Park above the M****** at W**********

Both those pubs are owned by the same people......

Still not a bad pint though in either pub, just a little expectant on the prices.

<hr width=100% size=1>Our engine will never wear out - it only runs for 5 mins before packing it in again.

 

[Mirelle]

Re: Or a long way to the East.

Bang to rights! The M****** actually has two photos of Mirelle hanging in the bar, so perhaps I should not be too hard on them.

Alternatives - the Ramsholt Arms is brilliant off season (make that "in the shooting season" perhaps?) the Bristol Arms is OK and the Jolly Sailor at Orford is Adnams.

Our engine is 37 years old - must have taken lessons from yours!

<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?