As was the stronger Summer Lightning. Arguably the brewery paved the way for pale hoppy beers which has been extended by the use of New World hops.
I'll try anything but it does annoy me when a pub has a load of beers on that are all around 4% abv. Maybe they can't sell stronger beers like some pubs can't sell dark beers.
Some good points there. I'm not certain about this but I would say that gastropub may have arrived in the 1990s. That was the decade when Spoons turned their attention to food and sold off outlets that couldn't sustain a kitchen and most of these were in North London.
The office drinking culture has definitely gone as seems to have happened with younger folk.
I'm with you on the real ale aspect and it has to be quality stuff not rubbish from the Global Abominations, Marston or Greene King.
You don't mention price. In London this is becoming increasingly important. The two E11 JDWs I go to all charge £2.09 a pint for all guest casks which is less than a half of what most "proper" London suburban pubs charge. This seems to have created a climate where occasional drinkers (and myself) just won't go to "proper" London pubs. It's the pubcos that are inflating London prices, not business rates or duty levels and they should be held to account.
Last edited by Aqualung; 04-07-2019 at 22:43.
"Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer."
-W.C.Fields
Surely you mean regular drinkers won't go to "proper" pubs. If (like me) you seldom drink more than five or six pints a week in pubs you are not going to get too excited if you spend a tenner more one week than another, it's below the noise level. If you drink twenty pints a week the cost becomes an important consideration on most incomes.
I guess the thing with a Wetherspoon pub is that it is a safe bet. You know the formula, you know what you are going to get and that it's not going to be expensive. I'm a charitable person myself, and I do like to split my trade between establishments and I enjoy trying new pubs. Sometimes one visit is enough and there is nothing to go back for, but at least I tried it.
And I suppose this opens up another debate as to what constitutes a gastro pub? For me, a pub that serves food is not automatically a gastro pub, there has to be the impression of it being reasonably high end, often with a separate seating area where the tables are already laid and have proper napkins and wine glasses on the tables. At a minimum there would be table service, and the menu would be slightly "fancy". But that's just my take, I think you sometimes just get that "gastro pub" impression when you walk in to some places.
Quite, unless I am being dragged along for some reason, these are not normally pubs I would choose to go to. Often the real ale in these places is a "token offering" rather than proving the pub is actually interested in real ale, and that leads me to question how committed they are to looking after it properly.
The way I see it, on a pub crawl you can stomach the occasional pub that is a bit pricey, because at the end of the night you don't really notice being a couple of quid down on the last time you went out. Of course, it is completely different if you are going to one pub for a session, where the effect would be more noticeable.
Yes you're absolutely right but it's getting worse in London. All guest casks in the two E11 JDWs charge £2.09 a pint , a figure that has gone down over the last few years. The abv range is 3.5% up to occasionally 6.5% but usually 6.0%. I've been to 2 East London proper pubs in the last year that charge £4.50 for unexceptional beers. That makes a difference of £12.55 for your 5 pints which is a significant amount. It's nowhere near that much difference in most parts of the UK. Batham's have yet to break the £3.00 barrier and their Mild is £2.45, Holden's Special in the Great Western only this year broke the £3.00 barrier.
There are only three possible reasons for this inflated rents by the pubcos, inflated wholesale beer prices by the pubcos or greedy landlords. I suspect the fist two are far more to blame.
I was chatting to a couple a few weeks ago who don't go to certain pubs because they are so expensive.
I would not like to live in a world where all pubs offer cheaper beer by adopting 'Our Tim's' marketing policies, any more than one where they are all dominated by a 'Mr Humphrey'. I will happily pay a little more to enjoy a differing variety of pubs, even Greene King and Marstons ones, and yes there are extremes and some have serious delusions on what people are prepared to pay. But don't underestimate the costs of running a pub, quite apart from rapacious Pubco charges.
On leaving the bar, I felt a strong blow to the back of my head. Turning round, I discovered it was the pavement