The Hope, Carshalton: Volume Two

Since my first visit to The Hope I have now visited in the region of roughly a million times. I’ve struggled to pick up a pen and add to my missive because I do bore of writing something so wholly positive. It’s a great strain. Such is the lot of the beer writer. I now feel restored enough to write some more complimentary paragraphs and have even had time to think up a handful of negatives which can be firmly labelled and placed within a category marked ‘pedantic nitpicking by a tedious arsehole with too much time on her hands.’ I will suffer for my art.

Volume One left off around the back of the L-shaped bar. Continuing around we arrive at the newer half of the pub, which is sadly open plan and therefore fills up as a last resort, once the older front half is at capacity. What’s missing up here is some banquettes, and instead we find tables with individual chairs which gives it a feeling more like a gastropub. Yes, The Hope does hearty well-priced food, but the gastropub aesthetic is one to avoid at all costs.

Any slight negative is immediately cancelled out at The Hope of course, and there is a large conservatory with an enormous banqueting table which can be reserved for groups of drinkers, and also a large selection of pub/board games, a piano, a couple of guitars which I believe are used at the weekly folk night. The conservatory seems to be popular with Morris dancers, which does rather take the gloss off. 

(I have subsequently learned that the folk in outlandish garb covered in bells clutching bits of wood and hopping around each other in a manner which any reasonable person would assume to be Morris dancing, are not Morris dancers. They are Molly dancers. Apparently there's a difference, but I absolutely insist on remaining ignorant of this until the day I die. There's only so much space in my brain, I refuse to have any of it taken up by this subject.)

The conservatory leads to the beer garden, which is massive. It has plenty of open seating and covered seating in private booths, with the best of the uncovered seating being at the very rear of the garden which is planted with fruit trees, wild hops, and other lush vegetation. It does lose the sun quickly, but that can be filed alongside my complaint about banquettes.

The main feature of the beer garden is an enormous marquee, which it pains me to say contains several faux-aged metal signs proclaiming such wisdom as

“Beer: It’s not just for breakfast any more!”

And

“Everyone needs something to believe in… I believe I’ll have another beer!”

What slightly counteracts the utterly fucking stupid signage is that thankfully they haven’t included one reading

“Beer: Helping ugly people have sex since 1862!”

Which I have seen at several other establishments. It’s problematic for several reasons, but why 1862? Beer has been made in various forms for thousands of years. I wish I could remember exactly how many thousand, but I’ve had a few. Ask Pete Brown. He’ll know.

The marquee is occasionally used for events too. I've attended what I thought was going to be a meet-the-brewer event with Drop Project that turned out to be a sales pitch for new shareholders (there wasn't even any beer, if they'd got me good and pissed they might have got some money out of me), and the summer solstice celebration, which was all very Wickerman. It involved incense, blessings, chanting, tying bits of string around your finger, people with facial tattoos and bone necklaces, and a bloke stood in front of me that kept trumping. Which may or may not have been part of the ceremony. I'm leaning towards yes, based purely on the regularity. And it also explained the incense.

Oh, and the other thing that counteracts the signs is the main purpose of the marquee. The monthly Hope beer festival.

Monthly.

Let that sink in. It’s a big deal.

And, they have as many beers on as most pubs would have at their annual beer festival. In the marquee there will typically be sixteen cask ales and eight keg beers – alongside the beers on the main bar which do not diminish when the festival is on! A lot of thought goes into the beer selection, they are from across the UK and usually include limited run or scarce beers that are difficult to find an source or might be one-offs (as I’ve already said – Kernel on cask). They will also age beers in the cellar for years before putting them on. The true art of the publican, and sadly one that has all but died out since the late twentieth century domination of running beer.

The beer festival is so great because it is only about beer. There’s no live music, there’s no food stands selling massively overpriced bratwurst or tiny trays of mediocre curry, the female bartenders are not forced to wear dirndls, beer is served in proper glasses instead of plastic cups. The only difference between ‘fest weekend and a normal day is that there is even more excellent beer, and people come in their fucking droves. So much so that the beer festival, unconventionally, begins on a Thursday, and some casks will be dry before the evening is out. By Saturday opening only the dregs of the least popular beers remain. But even then, I and my partner have spent a Saturday evening quaffing several pints of perfectly nice dark mild, probably left because it wasn’t exciting enough for some punters.

There is one glaring omission from this festival however, which can go unaddressed no longer: Cider. And by cider I mean actual fucking cider, which should be fucking implied except it seems that in 99% of pubs in the UK it definitely fucking isn’t. How can it possibly be the case that a pub that puts so much effort and thought into its choice of ales, only serving the best available, nothing from multinationals that’s just been rebranded to look independent, putting careful consideration into selection to ensure quality of the product and guarantee a fresh tasty pint, and then when it comes to cider selection they just say “FUCK IT!”

Any old shit. It’s all the same isn’t it?

Who cares? Just any old horse piss, ideally with fucking ludicrous flavour combinations from synthetic syrups and a literal fuck-tonne of sugar. Then water it down to 4% abv, job done, stick that on the bar, flog it to the shit munchers.

Of course, The Hope is not the only pub doing this, far from it. They are in the 99%, selling utter piss in place of real cider. I expect it from the lesser establishments. The same places that have D**mb*r as their ale aren’t going to put much effort into their cider selection, but that’s the rub – why is The Hope doing the same as those corporate hell-holes? They’ve set the bar so high for beer. For cider they should easily – and could easily – be doing better.

And as is my want, I leave you on a negative. Such is the lot of the critic. As I sit at the very back of the beer garden with ripe hops draped around me, enjoying the last rays of the evening sunshine I rejoice that such a place exists. And that it’s near where I live.

I look forward to the day when shares to this community owned haven become available again, because I will be snapping them up. And putting some decent fucking cider on.