PDA

View Full Version : Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog - QUICK Q&A: Which Was the First Wetherspoon Pub in the G



Blog Tracker
03-05-2017, 18:05
Visit the Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog site (http://boakandbailey.com/2017/05/quick-qa-first-wetherspoon-pub-good-beer-guide/)

https://i1.wp.com/boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/questions_and_answers_1906_672.jpg?resize=672%2C38 6A week or so ago David Martin asked (https://twitter.com/rdgmartin/status/857213135094259712):*‘Rumour has it that Wetherspoons Milton Keynes was the first JDW pub to get in the GBG. Any idea if this is fact?’We pretty quickly established that this couldn’t be true — beer and pub people are terrible*for inventing and embellishing this kind of lore, unfortunately. But we couldn’t rest until we’d answered the implied supplementary question: which was the first Wetherspoon’s pub to make it into CAMRA’s*annual*Good Beer Guide?
There was no way to answer this other than ploughing through old copies with a list of early Wetherspoon pub names at hand. That, in itself, is harder to come by than you might think: there’s no official master-list with dates and many are no longer owned by JDW.
But we think we’ve got there, thanks in part, once again, to the wonderful pubology.co.uk (http://www.pubology.co.uk/pubs/6257.html). The first Wetherspoon pub in the GBG was, we can say with some certainty, Dick’s Bar at 61 Tottenham Lane, London N8, which made the edition for 1983.
We can be sure because in 1982 when this volume of the GBG was compiled there were only three Wetherspoon pubs: the original Marler’s/Martin’s/Wetherspoon in Crouch End (1979); this one, Dick’s Bar (1981); and J.J. Moons on Landseer Road, Holloway*(1982). This is from November 1982, about when the GBG for 1983 would have been wrapping up to go to print ready for a launch in February:
https://i0.wp.com/boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/spoons_ad_1982.jpg?resize=500%2C715SOURCE: The London Drinker, November 1982 (http://westmiddx-camra.org.uk/LD/1982/LDvol4_10.pdf), via West Middlesex CAMRA.So, that was a lot of work for a whole heap of Who Cares? but at least that itch is scratched. It’s interesting, we suppose, that it happened this early.
Obligatory pre-emptive plug: there’s a chapter given over to the history of the J.D. Wetherspoon chain and the rise of the superpub in our forthcoming book*20th Century pub: from beerhouse to booze bunker. Watch this space and all that.
QUICK Q&A: Which Was the First Wetherspoon Pub in the Good Beer Guide? (http://boakandbailey.com/2017/05/quick-qa-first-wetherspoon-pub-good-beer-guide/) originally posted at Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog (http://boakandbailey.com)


More... (http://boakandbailey.com/2017/05/quick-qa-first-wetherspoon-pub-good-beer-guide/)