Looking Back and Forward

If you've been following along recently, you'll know that several weeks ago I spent 9 days in the United Kingdom, split pretty evenly between getting home to Scotland and being at a conference in London. During those 9 days, I spent a decent amount of time in pubs, brewery tap rooms, and even the classic Highland hotel public bar. Since I got home to Virginia, I have spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about those spaces, the beers I drank, and the emotions that they inspired - and if you don't think pubs are emotional places then maybe I can change you mind by the end of this post.

The last few posts have not been a blow by blow account of my drinking whilst in the UK, as I mentioned in one of them, I haven't posted about drinking Tennents in the Station Hotel in Alness, or my afternoon pub crawl in Inverness. I've not discussed drinking London Pride and Guinness at Lords while the rain stopped play ad nauseum, meeting Phil Tufnell at the Danubius Hotel bar, or the Harvey's Sussex Best at The Washington in Hampstead. Not everything needs to be shared, and in some cases there are blanks in my memory...

As is probably evident, I was taken aback at how much I really enjoyed the kind of bitters that get roundly derided as being "boring" and "brown". I have mentioned several times that I am working on formulating a version of my best bitter that incorporates crystal malt, and indeed I have an ordinary bitter on keg right now that has some crystal 40 in it, but it is still rather paler than the beers I reveled in back in the UK, so I guess I need to buy some crystal 120, or maybe even some 260 if Murphy & Rude ever make that again. It is also a result of at least one bitter, in this case a strong bitter, that has me hunting for a supply of Admiral hops. I've played around with some of the newer British hops, especially Endeavour, and while Admiral isn't really all that modern, having been released in the 1990s, I feel like I need to explore beyond Goldings, Fuggles, and Challenger a bit more, especially given this autumn and winter could very easily become the season of Bitter.

The main thought that has pottered and re-pottered around my noggin is just what a fantastic place the British pub is, whether that incarnation is in Inverness or Westminster. Of course every serious beer drinking country has it's pubs, from Ireland to Czechia, and all stops in between, people love to drink in communal locations rather than just getting battered at home. Perhaps it's that there isn't an undercurrent of puritanical shame about going for a pint or two and just hanging out, there doesn't need to be a purpose or an excuse to go for a drink. Anyway, back to British pubs - and of course this is all just subjective - but being, still, even at nearly 51, a rather introverted person, I find it interesting that going into a British pub is the easiest thing in the world for me. Let me give you an example, a few years ago, back in the before times (you know when I mean), I went to Bamberg, and had several pints of magnificent beer at Schlenkerla. Before I could muster up the courage to enter those hallowed halls, I had walked past the door several times, scoping out the flow of patrons, the places to sit, and the general vibe. When I went to any pub in the UK, there was none of that, I would just go straight in the door, get my pint and worry about where to sit, or stand, when I got there.

I realise that actually says more about me not wanting to stand out as the obvious outsider with my rusty school boy German, which brings me back to the introvert within. I feel instantly at home in the British pub because I can so easily be anonymous, and I love being anonymous. Let me sit with my beer and just people watch, and when I am ready for another pint, I will address myself to the stout yeoman of the bar. I have got used to table service, you really have no other choice in the US, and most places in Europe to be honest, but I love going up to the bar to get my next pint. It's almost a diagnostic thing, it's easier to tell how tiddled you are if you have to walk to and from the bar, half way with a pint in your hand, hopefully one that you're not slopping all over the place. With table service you are insulated from that until it is time to leave and suddenly your head spins as you get to your feet.

It likewise struck me that for such a country so renowned for our reserve, the pub is the place we let our guard down and open up a little, and perhaps becomes a little more observant of, and for, our fellow human beings. For example, I was standing in the St James Tavern, tending a pint of London Pride, enjoying the buzz of an early Friday evening crowd. To my left a couple were standing at the bar, clearly wanting to find a table to sit at, being 6'4" (that's 1.93m in the modern world), I could see a table opening up on the other side of the bar, so I let the couple know and off they tottered to claim those seats. Again, I am not the kind of person to just point things out to people in the normal run of things, but put a pint in my hand in a pub, and that goes out the window a little - don't worry I don't turn into mister gregarious or anything crazy, and I am not sure the rumours of me smiling a little in the pub are true or not. So, yeah, I miss the pub.

The weird thing here is, I left the United Kingdom nearly three decades ago as a 23 year old, and since then I have probably been home fewer than a score times. I have drunk in hospody, bierhalle, brewery taprooms, and cafes far more regularly than I have a British pub, yet the sense of instant familiarity stays with me, like a well loved security blanket whenever I get back to the UK. I have been told in the dim and distant past that I am more "pub-centric" in my approach to beer than a craft beer fan, and there is a lot of truth to that. Pubs, regardless of where you find them, are special, almost liminal places and we fail to value them at our peril.

The Westminster Arms

I have something of a soft spot for Kent's Shepherd Neame. It was their Bishop's Finger that got me into better beer than the keg swill I would drink as a younger man after all, as well as a friend in Prague having been a barman in an SH pub. Whenever I get back to the UK, which is nowhere near as often as I would like, I will pick up a few bottles of Shepherd Neame beers, usually the aforementioned Bishop's Finger, but also their Double Stout and even <gasp> the India Pale Ale. However, and for obvious reasons, Shepherd Neame pubs are few and far between in the Highlands of Scotland, and I don't think I have ever seen a Shepherd Neame beer on a beer engine at any of the pubs I frequent when I go home. Having a few days then in London was the opportunity to find the nearest Shepherd Neame pub to my hotel and dive into their range a bit more.

Given that my hotel was just yards from Westminster Abbey, said nearest Shepherd Neame pub was The Westminster Arms. On arriving at my hotel, being given the key, and heading up to my room, I opened the door to discover that it was still in the throes of being cleaned. As such, I ditched my main case, slung the bag I use as a laptop bag over my shoulder and wandered off to locate the pub and catch up with work over a couple of pints.

Thankfully it was a mere 3 minute walk, and what a delightfully charming pub The Westminster Arms is (photo credit: the image is from the Westminster Arms website). Apparently the pub has recently undergone a refurbishment, and as I went through the door, I was presented with an archetypal British pub, as Tweedy Pubs would say, "a pubby pub". Everything was wooden, there were nooks and crannies with stools and ledges for drinking at, and on the bar a clutch of handpumps. I knew immediately what I was going to have, partly because there wasn't Bishop's Finger on the pumps, but also because I wanted to start with something a little more sessionable.

I took my pint, went downstairs to the basement bar, and found myself a perch at a table, set my laptop up, and took my first ever mouthful of Master Brew.

Master Brew is Shepherd Neame's ordinary bitter, with an ABV of 3.7%, and clearly it is in the tradition that naysayers often deride as "boring brown bitter". It is, though, anything but boring, at least in my opinion. It was moreish, deeply, deeply moreish in fact. I think that first pint was gone before I had even been able to hook into the wifi and log into my email. I had to head back upstairs to the main bar to get a second pint as Master Brew wasn't on the downstairs hand pumps. One of the many things that I loved about this, and to be fair most other bitters I had in and around London, was they were properly bitter, with dollops of hop bitterness to scrape away the crystal malt character - weirdly I was starting to become sure I needed to do some experimentation with my house bitter. What was going on? Had it been on the pumps downstairs I might never have ventured from it.

It was during my second pint that a group of Americans made their way down to the basement, and proceeded to make me almost despair that real ale will ever be anything other than a niche in the US, so embedded is the collective ignorance of cask ale in the popular consciousness. Yeah, sorry folks, we writers can blather on as much as we want about places doing real ale, but it's not getting outside of our bubble. One of the group approached the bar and ordered a Spitfire, but a lady sat in the booth they had plonked in yelled across the bar to "make sure you get the Spitfire lager, not the cask, the cask is warm". Now, I prefer Master Brew and Bishop's Finger to Spitfire, but this notion that unless your beer is as cold as penguin feet it is "warm" really needs to be put to bed. I may have started ranting via text message to my long time collaborator, Mark. I had at this point moved on to Whitstable Bay Pale Ale for a palate reset, when across the bar I heard the most ridiculous thing I have heard in many years, and here I quote:

"don't tell the pastor we are in a pub drinking beer".

Admittedly I have some sympathy with this, given that when I was studying theology with a view to a religious calling, I would often go to the pub to unwind and the thought of being spotted gnawed away at my guilt riddled soul. But, you know, I don't recall ever announcing to the entire bar that I really shouldn't have been there, and to not share this information with the leadership of my church. It reminded me of folks I know who when in Prague moved their beer to the other side of the table for pictures, so their religious friends wouldn't think they were drinking when it hit social media. Thankfully, though painfully slowly as the group worked its way through their one pint of Spitfire lager for about 45 minutes, they eventually toddled off steeped in English sin, so I had another Master Brew, beautifully cask conditioned, at perfect cellar temperature, and everything a English bitter is at its best, or most ordinary, if you get my reference.

Having caught up with work, had a fantastic rambling chat with the lads behind the bar - top fellows! - it was time to find some food, maybe another couple of beers, which we'll get to, and get myself prepared for the conference I was in town for. Clearly though, if I ever find myself staying in Westminster again, the Westminster Arms will be top of my list for pubs to get back to, it was just a perfect afternoon of great beer in a proper pub.

Windsor the Second

Having left behind the warm embrace of the Windsor & Eton Brewery, picking up a copy of the local branch of CAMRA's latest magazine on the way out, I walked back to Arthur Road, past the appropriately named, though not yet open, Duke of Connaught.

I had a short list in my mind of places to visit, an amalgam of places visited by Tweedy Pubs in this video, and a few suggestions from folks on Reddit. First up on that list was the Carpenter's Arms, just down a narrow lane from Windsor Castle itself. Now, I have to admit, being an abysmal beer tourist - nothing new there if you know me - I didn't take that many pictures of the outside of pubs, but for the Carpenter's I did take a picture of the building opposite as it was just so funky.

I had snagged a seat opposite the bar in a bay window that was just delightful, and just as thrilling was seeing the pump clip of heaven on the bar.

Ok, sure, it's not a local beer in the furthest western reaches of Berkshire, but when you see Landlord on a beer engine, you drink it. It really is that simple, and it was as simply wonderful as you would expect. At this point in the proceedings news started filtering through about the sacking of Arne Slot from his role as Liverpool manager (head coach, whatever). Also distinctly not local, but something I haven't seen on tap for many a year was Budvar, so naturally I had a pint, and I almost wish I hadn't bothered. It wasn't bad per se,  it just looked deeply sad with the merest schmeer of foam on top of the liquid. My final pint here was the Nicholson's Pale Ale, the Carpenter's Arms being a Nicholsons pub after all, and it turned out to be surprisingly nice, I wish I had taken a picture really. Apparently the beer has Galaxy hops as well as the traditional Fuggles and Goldings combination, and it works really well. As with Windsor & Eton, I'd have happily stayed until the bus came, but other places needed visiting, and next up was The Corner House, so off I toddled.

Again as I stepped in, I was the only person in the place, and thankfully I didn't have to struggle to make a decision as to what beer was next. The bright blue pump clip made that decision for me.

Harvey's Sussex Best is a beer that I had never seen in the wild before. I have never seen it in the US, and so it was high on my list of beers to hunt out. It really is a pretty looking beer.

Unfortunately that first pint was distinctly vinegary, and the barmaid told me that she hadn't got round to pulling the lines through yet, and so a fresh pint was duly poured and that vinegar thing was no longer there. Setting to one side for a moment the idea that the barmaid served me beer that had been sitting in the line overnight, once I had a fresher pint I could kind of see what the fuss is about. This is such a quintessentially Southern English bitter, with notes of toffee, dark fruits, and a subtle sweetness in the background, all balanced expertly by the hops. However, I felt a pang of almost guilt at not really enjoying it as readily as I had various other beers that day, though that may have been a touch of palate fatigue at this point. 

I had a second anyway, before heading off to the final stop of the day, all the while aware that I had to get through security at Heathrow in order to fly to Inverness. The last place on the visit list, and the only place from which I have literally no pictures, was The Two Brewers, back up the road towards the Castle from the Corner House. My main reason for choosing the Two Brewers was that they actually have a beer list on their website, shocking as that may seem. As I mentioned in a previous post, pubs in England seem adverse to listing what beers they have on. Wine? Sure. Cocktails? We have a page for that. Beer? Good god man are you trying to encourage ruffians to drink here or something? They also had Fuller's London Pride at a very reasonable price, and so I had a few pints of that, sat at one of their various bars, keeping an eye upon the clock...

Make it back to Heathrow I did, through security and baggage drop off with no drama, only to discover nowhere was showing the Champions League final, and then eventually on to Inverness I went...

My Local - Guest Blog

We're staying in the UK for this week's guest blog. Ten Inch Wheels chronicles life in London from the perspective of a Yorkshireman and goes beyond being a blog just about beer. It is always a good read, and his photos are excellent as well, so I heartily recommend reading more of his posts, once you have read the one below of course!


You're home. As you walk up the slope from the station platform, an inch of snow crunches underfoot. The Pennine air is fresh and frigid, biting your face. Snowflakes hang in the streetlights. You turn left onto East Parade, the pub windows glowing a hundred yards away. Through the doors and the heat from the coal fire wraps round you like a blanket. A nod from one of the regulars. 'Yes, love?' from the barmaid.

Locals aren't always local. Mine's about 230 miles, give or take, from where I live - but The Boltmakers Arms in my home town of Keighley is my 'local'. You'll have heard of Keighley because of Timothy Taylor. Taylor's is - but me no buts - the greatest brewery on earth, and the Bolts (as it is universally known) is their de-facto brewery tap. It's a tiny pub - really a converted cottage - and almost always busy. Some nights it can be so packed it's difficult to get your pint to your mouth. If you're lucky you can snag a seat by the open fire. It doesn't matter if you're on your own. This is Yorkshire. If you haven't got your nose in the paper, someone will want to chat.

I've known the Bolts a long time. When I first started going in, it had been run for years by Eric French. Kept a good pint, did Eric. His main punters came from the printworks over the road and the mill round the back. Both long gone. I think I was the only one who liked the decor as it was back then; a palimpsest of decades of Taylor's ad hoc makeovers - Red vinyl benches, formica tables and Bakelite lampshades. When Eric retired The Bolts had a couple of wilderness years and a refit before the current guv'nor Phil Booth took over. The Taylor's pumps are front and centre on the bar. You'll never find a better pint of Landord. No, really you won't. I've looked. Phil pours a pint of Taylor's flagship brew to such forensic perfection it can make a returning native weep.

The Bolts is one of about five Taylor pubs in the town centre. They're all good, but there's something very special about the Bolts. Something you can't quite define that makes it all just right. Maybe it's the easy bonhomie between the generations - the flat cap chatting with the baseball cap. That fire, or even the size of the place which helps you feel as comfortable as you would in your own living room. Ultimately at all comes down to it being a classic town pub that happens to serve extraordinarily good beer. And you can't ask for much more than that.