Would have been about 1977/78 aged around 16 in the North Star in Hook, Chessington. No idea what it was or what it did to me but I'm still perfecting the art to this day.
Would have been about 1977/78 aged around 16 in the North Star in Hook, Chessington. No idea what it was or what it did to me but I'm still perfecting the art to this day.
First pint was probably either at the Bay Hotel or The Albion around 1994/1995.
As to what is was...no idea! Probably Carling or John Smiths, before I moved onto Newcastle Brown Ale (a joyous discovery at the time) via Caffreys and Carling Premier (remember them?). I remember trying a cask Courage Best at the Albion as part of my 'try everything once to see what you like' approach (my folks aren't drinkers) and it was vile . Truly vile. No wonder only crazy old men with unkempt facial hair and bad clothes drink this, I thought.
I started on my dads home brew when i was around 13 which he knew about,after that me and a couple of mates were made members of a works club we were 15 and the stewards new this so we were aloud 3 pints in the week and no more than 6 at weekends,the beer was Mansfield keg bitter at 12p a pint.
The first two proper pubs i did when i was 16 and just started work were the Petersham Hotel in Long Eaton drinking Home bitter 20p a pint and the Man of Iron in Stapleford drinking Kimberley bittter at 18p a pint.
I started my pub crawling and recording what pubs i visited in 1982 at the grand old age of 20.
Not necessarily my first pint but certainly the first occasion I ventured forth... A pint of Hook Norton at The George one summer in 1989. Slipped out of school after the exams had finished and with a few mates walked the 3 or so miles to the next village as we knew we would probably not meet any teachers there.
Couple of pints later walking back into school we pass the Headteacher. Must have smelled of beer so said a cheery "Afternoon Sir" and breezed past him. I know its not a big act of rebellion on the grand scale of things but it certainly felt it at the time!
I found Hooky an excellent weaning beer, (only 3.5%) and I never looked back from drinking real ale.
About 3 weeks before my 16th birthday in the now demolished The Sawyers Arms
I had a pint of Thwaites Dark MILD. It cost about 17p.
A pub is for life not just for Christmas
I think that the first pint I ever paid for in a pub was a lager of some sort in the Six Bells in Brentford where I used to play darts. This was in 1992 when I was a ripe 16 years of age.
I seem to recall sitting outside a pub at dusk in Hounslow somewhere with some school friends when I was 14/15. The four of us had pooled our money together and bought 2 bottles of Newky Brown which we thought would get us all trollied. It didn’t and it was foul.
WE ARE THE BREADMEN - UP THE BEES
So many year ago, but I think it was a pint of Brickwood's bitter in the now gone The Albany in Portsmouth, late 1959 or early 1960
I was a green young matelot, barely 16 on his first run ashore with classmate oppos from HMS Collingwood
I can't remember the price, but scrumpy was 3d or thereabouts a pint [just over 1p], so reckon it was about 10d [4pish]
Last edited by Farway; 13-06-2012 at 13:29.
I drink to make others more interesting
1977, at the ripe old age of 15, in The Bridge Inn when Boddington's was a decent pint. The pub had two rooms then, and the beer was a halfpenny cheaper in the vault. Then landlord Derek (aka The Toucan due to his massive nose) would be livid if he caught anyone paying vault prices then sneaking through to the lounge.
A theme on here is how young many of us were when starting to visit pubs, they must have known in most cases, I assume if you behaved you were tolerated. It's a lot more tightly managed nowadays.
"Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer."
-W.C.Fields
I am a bit embarrassed to have to confess that the first time I went into a pub was at the age of 17, soon after I started work. My parents never went into a pub and thus I never got taken into one, or had to wait outside with crisps and/or fizzy drink. My first pint in a pub was in 1967 when I would have been either 19 or 20 - although I had drunk numerous bottles of brown ale, and halfs of lager and lime before then.
I remember my first pint very well - it was Worthington E and was drunk in the vaults beneath The Buckingham Arms in Villiers St (long gone). Cost was somewhere between 1/- and 2/-. It was something of an epiphany moment - I couldn't believe the scales hadn't fallen from my eyes before then! Eventually real ale made a comeback and the rest is history.