Is This The Same Elsewhere In Forumland ?

[Evans Electric]

Went round the local pub last night ,just 14 people in there ...2 of them were us..............2 cars on the car park !!!! :huh:

Also :-

Bank's Bitter  @ £2.02 Guinness

Local Mild      @ £1.97  Guinness

 

[binky]

sounds about right, drinking 'out' is dying

 

[SLIPSHOD & SLAPDASH]

My local was bought by  Turks last year and made into half restaurant, half pub. The brewery said it had to stay as a pub, the old landlady almost had a sale with Sainsburys local. Anyhow no one goes in there, all pints £4.50 & a kebab meal at about £25. The  curry house opposite was also bought up, refurbished & their prices have doubled. We now walk a mile down the road to a nice busy pub with lager at £3 a pint & a good curry house opposite.

 

[misssweden]

Me and most of the other regulars have more or less abandoned my local since it was sold to the current landlord and landlady. The prices stayed the same but the quality went down. Their coke and lemonade comes out of 2 litre bottles and they are always out of something. At one point they went for 7 weeks without Strongbow.

Last time I went in there was on a Sunday night, just to be told the bar was closed - at 8.15pm!

 

[ProDave]

I rarely go to a pub now. The trouble is, I'm out in the sticks, 3 miles from a pub. Too tight to pay for a taxi, and it's downhill to the pub (so uphill back) so a pushbike is no good.

But I do enjoy a pint in a pub when someone else is driving, which usually means it's with a meal.

My last residence was right opposite the village pub.  That was a lesson in how NOT to run a pub.  In the time I was there it went through 4 landlords. the trouble was, it was a tied house. One set of tenants made a really good business out of it, doing good food, and they were always full. And there was a nice bar for the locals that just wanted a pint. But the brewery were not happy as they didn't sell enough beer, so they go the boot.

Nobody could make a go of it just selling beer.

After being shut for a year it was eventually sold and became a free house. The new Landlord and lady started off well, going down the decent food route, but then they split up. The Fella was left on his own and it went downhill, he couldn't even keep beer properly and more often than not the beer was off.

Last I heard it was for sale again.

 

[steptoe]

in my opinion this is the massive difference between english/welsh/scots/etc pubs that make them so different from pubs in Ireland [north or south] ,

most pubs in ireland are owned by the guy/lady behind the bar, its their life to have it run properly,

any/most pubs Im ever in [in Ireland obviously] are like that, with a few exceptions of a privately rented pub, where the landlord simply pays the owner a rent but has a free hand to make money how he sees fit,

not tied to a brewery,

now, comes the crux, a few years back Tennants [the beer brand] gave grants/interest free loans to a lot of publicans to upgrade the pub with the proviso that they stopped selling draught Harp [the best selling draught beer/lager in Ireland],

a lot of places went down this route, but still sold bottled Harp (mostly), a lot of pubs lost a lot of customers too,

myself, if they dont sell Harp, I wont drink in them.

I find in England that even normal keg lager tastes different in some places, obviously a lot of publicans have NO idea how to keep even keg'ed lager, gawd knows how they deal with real ales etc that some folks call 'beer' .

 

[Evans Electric]

The Irish way sounds the best to me .

The breweries control has weakened .   For a thousand years the pubs in Birmingham were all tied houses to two major breweries , M&B  (Mitchels & Butlers)  or Ansells .  With about three Davenports houses .

Only ever saw a Free house in the countyside or in Wales .  So it was much like the football , you were either Blues or Villa ...M&B or Ansells.

Incidentally , all those three breweries have gone now .

M&B became Bass Charrington  ..then closed , the site flattened.

Ansells had so much union problems they closed their site, sacked everyone and moved it all to Burton.

Davenports  (Beer at Home operation delivered like milk)   finished off by the supermarkets.

 

[binky]

I liked Irish pubs when i was over there a few years ago, a pint, a gallon of petrol and few groceries all in one place. Very civilised.

 

[ProDave]

+1 I loved the Irish pubs, in fact I loved the place. It was a close call but we did consider moving there, but chose Scotland instead (probably a lucky escape in retrospect)

Trouble is, I don't like Guinness or any stout. It was hard, but not impossible, to find a decent pint of bitter.

 

[Robin Spark]

Shame about the pubs, alot round here have either closed or converted to curry houses!

Best pubs round here are the Bathams ones and they are still fairly busy. My local has the older regular customers in the daytime and in the evening its a mixture of young and old. Not very often there is a spare table which is quite good for this current economy.

As for Ireland, unfortunately i have never been there but its in my black book to go there one day. Cant believe i have never gone!

 

[steptoe]

Anyone thinking of going to norn iron,

Make it May or August, I'll meet up with you, take you to some proper pubs, and some real bike racing, see a real non religious side of the country.