Beer-aeth

    I’ll never forget the first time I saw The Hope, but there were no external indications that the place might become one of my favourite pubs of all time. It’s found on quite a busy road on the outskirts of the delightful Carshalton village, with a narrow strip of pavement in front, meaning you never see the building from the frontal aspect. It’s mostly red brick, and perhaps even a little bit nondescript. There was one clue as to its general excellentness outside though: an enormous number of empty casks, stacked and ready for collection. It’s not a smoking gun of course. It could be that the clientele just really fucking like D**mb*r. Once inside I warmed to the hostelry, based purely at this stage on the ale selection. There were four keg taps for the more exotic pale ales (usually Verdant, Drop Project, DEYA etc.), four further keg taps that contained some very decent imported lager and some atrocious cider ( de rigueur ), followed by two more keg taps for sours. I ...

  Rule 97. Don't be a note-fold-cock I'm certain that you will be tumescent with excitement to hear that I have been to several more pubs. Further reviews are on their way, along with my much ruminate upon treatise on cider and a thorough critique on the ephemera that coalesce to create the perfect pub. In the meantime, these visits have given me even deeper insight into the rules of the pub. Waving a tenner at the bartender will not get you served any quicker. It's not the first time they've seen one. Other people have them. You just look like a tit. 11.  Don't underestimate the importance of the correct level and hue of lighting. Electric light should be used sparingly. People who are drinking together don't necessarily want to see each other clearly. 12. Never, ever, ever, ever, fucking ever, demand payment for a drink before you have begun pouring it. That's what Wetherspoons do. 13. None of those oversized stupid keg taps. Guinness tend to be the worst ...

I have always looked favourably upon pubs with glazed tiles affixed to the frontage. I assume that there was a time in the mid twentieth century that they were all ripped off and replaced with pebble-dash, and those few pubs that retained them were completely stubborn and wanted to retain a bit of their history and their culture and their truth.  In a lot of ways, I was wrong. The tiles were just popular with some breweries as a way of signifying their ownership. Not being remotely familiar with London I didn't realise that a pub plastered with beautiful glossy forest green tiles was not a signifier that the establishment was the last bastion against either gentrification and seven percent NEIPAs or soulless corporate PubCo hell holes serving microwave CTM. I've been informed subsequently that green tiles are a signifier of a Young's pub, though this may be incorrect. The gentleman informing me of this also maintained that a metal band around his wrist had cured his chronic...

I was quite overjoyed to be crossing the threshold of this particular hostelry for several reasons. For two, mine and mine companion's bus journey had been quite hellish, and upon alighting the omnibus a cloudburst immediately began to saturate our garb.  Besides the above, my limited research of The Golden Ark showed it to have a fine selection of cask ale and kegged beers, but I was also aware that our attendance coincided (not coincidentally) with a beer festival. For reasons unclear to me, a beer festival taking place in October must now be marketed as an Oktoberfest, even though the Munich Oktoberfest takes place in September. Some of these events are utterly dreadful, as anyone who has spent an afternoon ankle deep in mud queuing in the rain for mediocre overpriced beer surrounded by braying twats in plastic lederhosen can attest. As The Golden Ark's festival was taking place indoors within the confines of the premises, I was hopeful. The bar itself (I don't feel it...

Rule 96. Don't let the cat near your pork scratchings. I've lost count of the times I've been in a mediocre pub and behind the bar is a wooden sign reading something like: Rules of the Pub Rule No.1: The bartender is always right.  Rule No.2: If the bartender is wrong, see rule number one. It's the public house equivalent of a Live, Love, Laugh sign. I think we can do better. I've started the process of codifying a non-exhaustive list of what I think the rules are for a great pub. They are a mixture of aesthetic guidance, behavioural rules, and stock suggestions. They are all eminently achievable, so long as you can desist from selling spoiled beer and are capable of putting up a stud wall. The fist ten are: 1. You can't please everyone. Trying to please everyone can actually lead you to pleasing no-one. 2. Open plan is bad. A quiet, solitary, contemplative pint can take place in the next room to a riotous orgy, but not in the same room.  3. The customer is NOT ...

Progress is a comfortable disease - E E Cummings The headline is that I wish this place didn't exist, yet I really like it and will definitely visit again. I was beginning to believe that my animosity to the core concept was actually my problem. It seemed I was wrong and needed to change with the times. This it turned out was a very brief mistake on my part and i now know that my instincts were completely, absolutely 100% correct, as always. Those momentary doubts are now long behind me and I have something else to blame, which is odd really considering that I'm writing this article about a bar which is perfectly nice. We Brought Beer is in Tooting Market, which is in many ways fantastic. It's got a record stall, a traditional sweet shop (in the same unit), places to eat, a butchers... But very little else that is actually recognisable as a market that I would be familiar with. I spent a lot of time in markets as a child, growing up between several market towns that my dad ...

I knew there was a pub around here somewhere. Bit of a maze these backstreets, well off the main roads. Should have been the first seeds of doubt perhaps, who's sustaining this place when it's so well hidden? I'd looked on Streetview so I knew it was there. It looked perfectly pleasant. Few wooden benches scattered out the front. No clear brewery/Pubco signs, no Sky Sports banners. Couldn't tell much else about it except what it wasn't; a Spoons or Greene King sticky tabled shithole, a Hungry Horse. So all positives. We approached from the side, so it only dawned on me slowly. The St George's flag was enormous. It was pretty much the same size as the entire fucking pub. It's true that my our visit coincided with England playing football in the women's Euros, but something told me that the two were unrelated.  Each corner of the cross contained an extra message, as if the ten by five metre England flag wasn't conveying it's meaning clearly enough....