We still are; throw in Gloom, the ubiquitous Landlord (one minor crumb of comfort) and this pretty much sums up the London drinking scene. :(
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Yep craft keg is now the dominant beer style in London.I embrace it but try to stick to the cheaper end of the market.Still plenty of new beers around but you have to search them out.Was in twickenham ,Hampton and Brentford last night.Saw about 45 cask beers 15 new to me and about 50 craft keg beers.Central London has definitely become less interesting on the cask front but if you are changing £5+ you need to stick to beers most people recognise and will pay the.price.Hence landlord and doom on a lot of pumps.
...which allows pubs to flog the stuff for nearly £7.00 a pint when cask at quality outlets, Wenlock, Express, Cock, Southampton etc. can easily cost £2.50 less. London doesn't seem to have any true micros apart from the Little Green Dragon. All the hipster railway arch, nuclear bunker conversions and the like are all keg...Even the House of Hammerton, despite being the tap for the nearby brewery seems to have pumps just for decoration; their fantastic Penton oatmeal stout is knackered on their keg, yet far superior on cask at pubs, if you can find it.
Depends I suppose on what you call London, yet another list here. But whatever along with the Green Dragon the Dodo is well up there.
Was in Barnet last week and intended to go to the Little Green Dragon but ran out of time.shame as there are few pubs worth visiting in that area.
:D
Sad news. I see that *someone* has already marked the pub as closed, though the pub's operator is quoted in the piece as saying they'll be selling the remaining beer at silly prices on Friday, 12th August (that's tomorrow, if you're reading this today), to make sure that any administrators are unable to get their hands on it.
‘Energy bills have overtaken wages’: 280-year-old pub at risk of closure
https://www.theguardian.com/business...inn-bath-costs
The Faulkland Inn
I think there will be a lot of pubs closing this winter.Iwas drinking in Central London on Wed and most of the pubs were quiet.The pub prices were all north of £5 a pint which I am sure is having an effect.The prices will have to go up again to take in the energy price rise soon.The future looks bleak.
I don't know how they can put up prices to cover costs without also reducing contribution to overheads.
Working in energy I've been aware of imminent price hikes for some time, but the ones on the way are going to truly shock some businesses.
On the wholesale market, we were used to around 50p/therm for gas. £1 was panic level - we'd contact big users to see if they wanted to profit by turning off for a few days
Winter'22 gas last traded on Friday close at £6.22/therm.
Check your bills and your unit cost - this translates to 21p/kWh. Just for wholesale. Add on green levies & taxes etc.
The situation is so bleak that without massive demand destruction of industry there won't be enough for domestic use.
The time has come to say our sanctions are only sanctioning ourselves, Putin takes east Ukraine and turn on the taps - of cask of course :)
It's certainly going to a torrid 24 months - the price of fuel is only the half of it. Inflation has been coming because of the money that's been pumped into the economy for years alongside the out-of-control housing market. The Ukraine war has simply shoved the day of reckoning closer and turbo-charged it, especially since we've been cocking about not securing the generation of energy supplies within our own shores.
Interest rate hikes mean that people who could afford the cheapest fixed rate mortgages two years ago may well find they can't afford whatever the equivalent is when they come down off their current one in the next 18 months - hence why the BoE are terrified of pushing rates up quickly to where they really should be. This recession will have a long tail, I'm fully expecting several thousand pubs will go under and out of those less than several hundred will re-appear.
Decide which local pubs are the ones you can't live without and funnel your beer money towards them, cross your fingers and hope.
Time for a silly season story..
https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/ne...takes-24823146
Queen & Castle
Described by Look North reporter Luke Casey as the "last bastion of male independence",
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-eng...mbria-62648662
https://www.timeout.com/london/news/...ource=Twitter&
New drinking destination apparently.
I would be surprised if one in ten pints in London is guinness.
"The boss of BrewDog has said the craft brewer will "
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknew...ls/ar-AA11k5yX
I think this is just part of Brewdogs normal pattern.They open pubs ,see if they work and if not close them.They had a pub in Islington and one in Homerton that they closed and the one in Old St tried to be a low alcohol bar without much success.Wetherspoons have done the same.
I agree that this is the chickens coming home to roost of building an economy out of selling overpriced houses (and coffee) to each other.
We're both of the generation where some years house prices have gone up by more than our net salary earnt.
A lot of businesses have fixed price energy contracts running out in four weeks. They'll be needing to make decisions on rent and redundancies yesterday.
The owner of the Fuggles beer cafe and bottle shop has written to his MP to see if the government can help the hospitality sector.HIs energy bill is 25k a year but his supplier has quoted 100k when he renews in April.He can't continue with those prices.He surveyed local hospitality businesses locally and
All had increase their prices this year and 60%are going to increase again this year.50% have noticed a dip in trade already and all say their businesses are unvaible if the energy price increases by 4x.Sad to read but this is the reality of what's going to happen.If a micro pub and bottleshop can get a bill for 100k what will Wetherspoons be paying .
“ Beavertown has become the latest craft beer brewer to be”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62806301.amp
Neck oil is a lovely pint and it's everywhere so that suits me.Best beer that I drank last week in Weymouth but maybe that speaks volumes about Weymouth.Lets see if the bean counters from Heiniken ruin it with cheaper or less malt and hops.
Retired Martin completed the Camra Good beer guide.Amazingly difficult feat .As pub tickers we probably more than most can understand his achievement.Well done Martin