Pubs then

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Central London pubs post covid seem to all charge at least £5 a pint, even for ale. Distressing times.

Hard to get that worked up about, though I suppose if you were out there a lot it would begin to add up. Certainly regularly that price for good keg stuff in the North. Cask in Leeds is around £3.80-4.20 for fairly standard stuff like Leeds Pale and Landlord. Seems similar in Manchester, Newcastle, York.

From several recent visits there are plenty of pints available in Central London in the £4.40-£4.80 region.

Obviously you have Craft union pubs and Spoons if it's all about cutting costs. A Spoons in the Midlands I sadly had to drag myself into to kill an hour was selling Kirkstall Dissolution for £1.80. It's an utter joke and further evidence of a divided society living totally different existences.

Difficult to have this conversation in Ireland where the cheapest pint all week has been €4.40 even in County Kerry.

[Johnny Foreigner]

Surprised you didn't mention the Free Trade Inn, that looks a real good borders boozer. Not everyone's taste, I dare say.

Oh, that. I must confess the hole in the ceiling above the billiards table, the wallpaper coming down and the mouldy carpets were a bit much for me. It is not the kind of place I most enjoy whiling away an evening. Music was somewhat insufferable too.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

the wallpaper coming down and the mouldy carpets were a bit much for me

Sounds pretty good. As I say, reviews are really good with a small % downvotes who absolutely hate it so not going to be everyone's thing. Better a pub that serves its audience really well than a middling one that gives everyone a 6/10 experience. The fact the landlady has been there for so long is a very good sign in my books.

[Johnny Foreigner]

Better a pub that serves its audience really well than a middling one that gives everyone a 6/10 experience.

The thing is, in Berwick city centre, all the pubs are at some fifty yards from one another. There's the Free Trade, Brewer's Arms, the White Horse and the Red Lion, all of which can easily be visited in an hour's time. And that is also what at least some locals seem to do of an evening, rather than faithfully sticking to just one. If the Free Trade gets better reviews than the Brewer's Arms, fair enough, but I cannot possibly explain it, since comparing the two is the easiest thing in the world.

Whether or not the men's loo has a working lock on the door is also an important pub judging criterion for me. There is a pub in Hillsborough (The Malin Bridge, I think) where the door in the gents' toilet is effectively half a door, so that anyone can see you having a poo. That merits a downvote from me, regardless of how excellent the ales on offer might be.

[amateur]

I'm in a pub right now and it's brilliant. No fucker about, Five Points Pale on tap, half hour to myself. Dreamland.

[king_tubby]

Yeah, this is the ideal weather to be sat in a cosy pub, decent pint in front of you, after work but before dinner.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Very good pubs I've found out in Kerry:

Dick Mack's, Dingle
Foxy John & Currans, Dingle (quite sharp craic in both though so watch yourself)
O'Flaherty's, Dingle
O'Connors, Killarney
Tig Bhric, West Kerry Brewery Co, nr. Ballyferriter
Paddy Macs, Tralee
Baily's Corner, Tralee
Tigh Ui Chathain, Ballyferriter

One thing that has been a constant is people happy starting conversations but also leaving you alone if you want to be left alone. I like a mixture so suits me.

I think I came at a good time as it is not too touristy at the moment but clearly normally is.

[Johnny Foreigner]

Been to Killarney once, many a yonk ago. It is a picture-postcard place; Ross Castle is well worth a visit an' all. The only drinking hole I recall was a would-be trendy place called The 99 or something, which had loads of cocktails. Then again, this was in the late nineties, when I only drank sweet things; I have come a long way since then. Despite its being in the middle of the Gaeltacht, I do not remember anyone actually speaking Irish there.

My favourite pubs in the Isle of Man:

- The Creek Inn, Peel
- The Mines Tavern, Laxey
- The Trafalgar Hotel, Ramsey
- The Prospect, Douglas
- The Castle Arms, Castletown

[George Oscar Bluth II]

Whether or not the men's loo has a working lock on the door is also an important pub judging criterion for me. There is a pub in Hillsborough (The Malin Bridge, I think) where the door in the gents' toilet is effectively half a door, so that anyone can see you having a poo. That merits a downvote from me, regardless of how excellent the ales on offer might be.

One of the reasons to be pro-Wetherspoons is that the toilet provision there is always magnificent. So much so that I use them as de-facto public toilets.

Always distressing to go into a really nice pub and the toilet turns out to be a two person trough or a single shitter with a broken lock on the door.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

To help put that aspect in order of priority, there are many good pubs which will remain that way almost regardless of the quality of the toilet facilities, and some that could have the most space age nails shitters in the universe installed and still be wretched.

However I have always maintained that whatever other aspect of the building is preserved, I don't especially care if the toilets are replaced and kept modern. There are those Grade I listed toilets in the Philharmonic Dining Rooms in Liverpool that have a sign saying basically "yes it smells of stale piss because the toilets are so old".

[Johnny Foreigner]

Fair point.

Wetherspoons do pride themselves on consistently winning the Loo of the Year awards. I might still be a regular Wetherspoon customer if their menu weren't exactly the same everywhere (apart from haggis in Scotland). The information panels on their walls can be quite interesting. I must have been to hundreds of Spoons over the years. I remember when they even had salmon fillets on the menu and did Sunday roasts.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Apparently The Cobblestone in Dublin is being subsumed into a hotel. They want to keep the pub (a clear gambit to ensure the deal goes through) but it's almost inevitable that will lead to it being a sterilised mess with the heart ripped out of it.

In fact I went to such a place last week, Paddy Carthy's, now part of a drab Could Be Anywhere corporate shithole Ivy House.

Dublin pub folk going bezerk, petition here

https://twitter.com/dublinbypub/status/1445797552721379328?t=CUQ3tOIVyqImHFzb_qhUdg&s=19

https://my.uplift.ie/petitions/save-the-cobblestone

[buttgammon]

The people that run this city are vandals whose vision of Dublin is one where people will stay purely to visit other hotels, because there will be nothing else to see or do once they're done. There are a lot of problems with the governance of the city, meaning the public interest barely registers against the seismic weight of corporate money.

Wetherspoons have got their paws on the place too and they've even opened a hotel, so it's a difficult time for pubs here.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Yeah and because Dublin by English standards has a lot of pubs there's a tendency to be all 'no loss here' but if you reduce the city to the Victorian pub trail and Temple Bar you only protect a third of the boozers in the centre at the very most.

Not really what O'Connell dreamt of, the socialist paradise where the working mans lounge is stripped from underneath him by some parasitic cunts

[shiftwork2]

Wetherspoons have got their paws on the place too

Many years ago now but I went to a Dún Laoghaire 'spoons which I believe was the first in Ireland, and which also in dispute with some major suppliers who wouldn't play ball including Guinness.  There was a lot of interest in it tbh.

[buttgammon]

Many years ago now but I went to a Dún Laoghaire 'spoons which I believe was the first in Ireland, and which also in dispute with some major suppliers who wouldn't play ball including Guinness.  There was a lot of interest in it tbh.

Despite my feelings about the company, I've actually been to the Dún Laoghaire one, because some friends insisted on meeting me there a few years ago. It seemed a bit less downmarket than a lot of the British ones, though what I hear about the Abbey Street one suggests that's not the case with all of them.

[v00n]

Rock Pubs: Tap and Tumbler, Nottingham.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Some new ones I went for the 1st time over the last week and can recommend.

Kraków : Trelkovsky Café, Tawerna Winne Gronno
Bielsko-Biała : Browar Miejski
Ostrava : Kurnik Sopa Hospoda, U Zrzave Mary, Hobbit Club
Brno: U Blahovky, Zastávka, U Vodicku, Pivnice Na Srebaku

[Pink Gregory]

Hardly a pub but a tiny specialist beer place, if you find yourself in Stratford Upon Avon, have a look for Ya Bard

https://www.ya-bard.com/

Had the most incredible coffee bean, tonka bean and vanilla porter; granted it was expensive (about the price of a normal pint for a third of it) but you wouldn't have wanted more.  Very, very special.  Also if they've only got something in cask/keg, they'll can it for you.

[Rich Uncle Skeleton]

Apparently The Cobblestone in Dublin is being subsumed into a hotel. They want to keep the pub (a clear gambit to ensure the deal goes through) but it's almost inevitable that will lead to it being a sterilised mess with the heart ripped out of it.

In fact I went to such a place last week, Paddy Carthy's, now part of a drab Could Be Anywhere corporate shithole Ivy House.

Dublin pub folk going bezerk, petition here

https://twitter.com/dublinbypub/status/1445797552721379328?t=CUQ3tOIVyqImHFzb_qhUdg&s=19

https://my.uplift.ie/petitions/save-the-cobblestone

Fucking hell

[A Hat Like That]

Hardly a pub but a tiny specialist beer place, if you find yourself in Stratford Upon Avon, have a look for Ya Bard

https://www.ya-bard.com/

Had the most incredible coffee bean, tonka bean and vanilla porter; granted it was expensive (about the price of a normal pint for a third of it) but you wouldn't have wanted more.  Very, very special.  Also if they've only got something in cask/keg, they'll can it for you.

I went there after the FA cup a fortnight or so ago. Felt like it was a converted lawyer's office or solicitors. Anyway, great beer on tap. Nice glassware.

[poodlefaker]

A lot of the specialist places in central London have gone down to one or two cask beers only. I was in the Craft Beer Co on Leather Lane last week, which has about 12 handpumps - just one was in use: a non-descript pale ale around the five quid mark. The Queen's (mentioned upthread) nr King's Cross seems to be sticking with Redemption Trinity, which is always in great condition and less than £4.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Cask is all about volume so good on them for not getting too many in. Although sucks if your business model is about offering massive choice on the basis that your pub will be almost permanently full.

[George Oscar Bluth II]

Central London boozers at the moment feel like an industry waiting to see where the chips land with a whole load of post-covid factors, like home working and the like. Pubs in the parts of London where people actually live seem to be doing great, in my experience anyway.

[flotemysost]

Central London boozers at the moment feel like an industry waiting to see where the chips land

Generally in central London pubs the chips land as a separate menu item to the burger, for an extra five quid

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

https://the-modernist.org/products/2022-calendar-estate-pubs

[prelektric]

Hello. New member here.

Been registered, but lurking for aaaages. Got to know a few of you by proxy now.

Feeling frisky and wanted to break my post cherry. So here I am!

Couldn't find a "welcome" type thread, so why not do it here, where I'm comfy. Pubs.

FYI - the last pub I was in was here this evening: https://www.instagram.com/p/BrFz5X-Fc9Y/

Was almost raped by a very, very friendly border collie named Jess. It was a good night. A decent selection of ales, and the potential to be raped by a dog. What more do you want? If you're in the Newcastle area, recommended.

Thank you all.

(puts jeans covered in dog jizz in washing machine)

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I suggested to pancreas one time that The Carriage may be serviceable

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

https://boakandbailey.com/2021/11/the-universally-recommended-timeless-institution-pub/

[prelektric]

I suggested to pancreas one time that The Carriage may be serviceable

It's a bit out of the way from the city centre, a few metro stops. You are in student twatsville there though in Jesmond, but it's nice for a few afternoon/early evening beverages.

There's an even better one about 5 mins walk up the road from there, The Punch Bowl. Again, pretty trad and well kept. Great quiz night there too.

(As I'm new here posting - a few things:

I am not bald, but give it a few years
I do not have phimosis. Doubt that will change in a few years
I am very much middle aged though. 43. That will change in a few years)

Danke