Pubs Galore - the UK pub guide

[QUOTE=Oggwyn Trench;103487]Weirdly i was in the Nags Head around 16.45 on Friday , trouble was i was working (dropping off a couple of barrels of TT Landlord if you must know) , gutted i could not make it .[/QUOTE] I checked the PUG crawl history today and apparently next year is the 10th anniversary of the PUG crawls so assuming the South, North and Midland pattern is maintained it should by rights be Brum next Autumn. My only problem with this is that it will bypass all the pointless PUG geography issues!

:cheers:

Top work BF,well done.

[QUOTE=oldboots;103466]Not exactly a news story but an interesting take on Spoons [url]http://benviveur.blogspot.com/2019/10/wetherspoons-life-just-beginning.html[/url][/QUOTE] He is right with many of the things he says. Certainly in the 1980s when they were just a small chain of London pubs you did find them run by beer enthusiasts. For me the biggest problem on the real ale front is that the national list (and the beer festival is just an alternative one) is dominated by dross. I haven't made a huge effort with the festival Bingo as I've been away but the choice in the Shrewsbury Hotel on Friday was dismal, in fact my second pint was Punk IPA. I think he's very harsh about the food. The vast majority of pubs with "home cooked" food make a huge batch of any given dish and then freeze it. This is also something I do myself at home. Is this really that different to the JDW operation where it's produced in a warehouse of some sort? With regard to chips the answer is yes as properly cooked fresh chips are excellent but are absent from virtually all the pubs and chippies I've been to. I remember when the "free" drink had to be Ruddles with the clubs but now I always go for the Punk IPA which does make them very good value as Punk is normally priced at £3.00-£3.50. I don't recognise his list of recent South London closures. Norwood?, Southfields?, Morden?, Sydenham?, Bellingham? and he also mentions Hook and Surbiton in the same breath where it was the Cap In Hand overlooking the Hook underpass on the A3 that they closed. Regarding closures, they closed a whole raft of outlets when they opted for a standardised food menu in the 1990s. More recent closures have generally been leasehold properties which they are trying to move away from or ones wher they have two very close in a town rather than city. I suspect that new openings have stalled as they are going all out to create new hotels from their outlets. It's dawned on them that running a hotel is money for old rope unless they get a total nightmare guest (moi?). JDWs can still spring good surprises, A few Glasgow JDWs seem to stock Oakham Green Devil IPA as a regular guest which is fine by me. I recently visited the Newtown (Powys) outlet which had a crap choice of beer but had a local cider at £2.45 that was 8.4% abv!!

The Roscoe Head was deserted last Saturday afternoon i was in too. I really hope it’s doing okay as it needs to.