"The final nails have now been hammered into the coffin of the freedom to smoke in enclosed public p

I was recently in a pub in north-east Derbyshire, and next to me were a couple of old boys who were talking coupons for alamo rental car quite knowledgeably about the old beers and breweries of the area Stones, Whitbread, coupons for alamo rental car Mansfield, Home Ales, even Holes of Newark. However, even though the pub was listed in the Good Beer Guide and had a range of four cask beers, when one returned from the bar he was carrying pints of John Smith s Extra Smooth and Theakston s Mild, both keg.
If you go back thirty-five years, north of a line approximately from Worcester to the Wash, probably well over half of the cask beer in England was served by electric pumps. Home were one of the breweries where they were well-nigh universal in their estate, as, of course were Wolves & Dudley in the West Midlands. coupons for alamo rental car For most of its drinkers, it was just seen as beer, not as something different called real ale . My subjective memory is that electric dispense tended to produce a more reliable pint than handpumps, although whether that is down to the fact that it was used in higher-turnover pubs, or that it made it more difficult for bar staff to ruin a pint through incompetent pulling technique, coupons for alamo rental car I wouldn t like to say.
Of course, if you want to promote real ale as something that stands out from other beers, it doesn t help if it s dispensed from bar mountings that are indistinguishable from those used for keg and tank beers. And so, over the years, brewers, encouraged by CAMRA, steadily replaced electric pumps with handpumps, to the extent that electric cask dispense has pretty much entirely disappeared now. I m sure the fact that there was a saving to be had from replacing oversize glasses with brim-measure ones never entered their heads.
However, this has left a substantial population of older drinkers who would once have happily drunk real ale in the pub, although never thinking of it as such, but have now been deterred by bad experiences coupons for alamo rental car of that funny stuff that comes out of handpumps and prefer to stick to the likes of John Smith s. Indeed on several occasions I ve heard older drinkers ask bar staff have you got any smooth? coupons for alamo rental car when, in their drinking heyday, smooth as such had not even been invented.
And might there also be many younger pubgoers who will make a point of avoiding coupons for alamo rental car anything that comes from a handpump, but would be prepared to experiment with a chilled and carbonated craft keg if it came from the same T-bar row as San Miguel?
There s a cost element coupons for alamo rental car as well, I reckon. I was in the Robert coupons for alamo rental car Peel a couple of Saturday lunchtimes ago and the old bloke next to me just asked for a pint of bitter - the cheapest . Which I d guess in most pubs is going to be the smooth?
I assume you mean the Robert Peel Spoons in Bury - in which case the Ruddles will almost certainly be cheaper than the John Smith s. In my local ones Ruddles is 1.85 and JS 2.15, although admittedly the guest ales are 2.20.
There is an oddity about older people that were brought up on real ale, now drinking smooth. Cost is a factor of course as usually you only get smooth in lower end, lower priced establishments - or posh hotels strangely though that is changing. Maybe older drinkers just like the comfort of ordering bitter without being asked Which one? FWIW my older mates tend to prefer just Lees Bitter while the slighly younger amongst us prefer the more hoppy seasonals. Despite what some think, hops aren t everyone s cup of tea.
usually you only get smooth coupons for alamo rental car in lower end, lower priced establishments Not sure that s true - I d say the vast majority of pubco-owned mainstream pubs have it, even if they also have several cask beers. For example, coupons for alamo rental car the Plough in Heaton Moor, which is quite aspirational, and where cask is well north of 3, also has Tetley s Smooth. I ve not been in a Brunning Price pub recently, but I wouldn t be surprised if there was a John Smith s tap lurking there somewhere.
The old codgers probably like cheap white sliced bread, instant coffee, tinned peas tinned ham too. Leave em to it, they are not doing anyone any harm. I like the posh poncy bread, my expresso machine, coupons for alamo rental car fresh veg poncy foreign sounding cold meats from the deli counter. coupons for alamo rental car Leave me to it, I m not doing anyone any harm.
Younger pub goers? younger people have more sense than to frequent disreputable public houses and waste money non intoxicants coupons for alamo rental car that harm ones health and well being. Young men are wise enough to use gymnasiums and embrace coupons for alamo rental car an healthier and more productive life, partaking of a social carrot and wheatgrass smoothie after an invigorating session on the weight machine.
As one of those old boys/codgers who orders smooth I think a lot has to do with what I think of as body . So many real ales seem quite thin and flat. Has this anything to do with the yeast and more in (old style)proper coupons for alamo rental car beer being allowed to work in the barrel whereas the yeast in real ale is killed off before coupons for alamo rental car it enters the barrel? I also speak as a Northerner brought up on BYB, Whitakers, Tetleys and even Beverley s who now lives in the distant South where ALL beers (except in Wetherspoons) cost 3 or more.
Is it not possible that some folk just prefer John Smiths to other beers, and would have drunk the cask before it pretty much got consigned to history a few years back. I had many a happy crawl through Barnsley area pubs drinking just the Johns .
There is a loyalty to familiar brands, but I do think a lot of it is preferring keg/smooth as a category. Of course, very often the only cask beers available will be ones most drinkers have never heard of.
Doghouse is a quarterly print magazine about British pubs: a love-letter to bar stools and fixed settles: discovering & celebrating history, architecture, stories from the bar, the mystery of the cellars below and the ghosts that rattle around coupons for alamo rental car upstairs.
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." (H. L. Mencken)
"The final nails have now been hammered into the coffin of the freedom to smoke in enclosed public places. This piece of legislation must be one of the most restrictive, spiteful and socially divisive imposed by any British Government. (Lord Stoddart of Swindon)
This is not a beer blog. It's a view of life from the saloon bar, not entirely about the saloon bar - which of course is a metaphorical place as well as a physical one. It is as much about political correctness and the erosion of lifestyle freedom as it is about pubs and beer. And, while I enjoy cask beer, I don't assume that it is the only alcoholic beverage worth consuming. I'm a non-smoker, but not an antismoker. I believe the owners of private property should be entitled to choose coupons for alamo rental car whether or not smoking is permitted on their premises. If any supporter of pubs still thinks the smoking ban was a remotely good idea, just look around at all the pubs that have closed since 1 July 2007. The smoking ban is what prompted the creation of this blog back then and, while it touches on many other topics, coupons for alamo rental car it remains essentially its core theme. However, there remains much to be enjoyed and celebrated in pubs despite coupons for alamo rental car the effects of the ban. I condemn drunken driving, but there is no evidence that driving after consuming a small quantity of alcohol is dangerous, and the campaign to discourage driving even within the British legal limit has been a major cause of the decline of the pub trade in recent years. Reducing the current legal limit - a proposal fortunately rejected by the Coalition government - would lead to the closure of thousands more pubs and would not necessarily save a single life. In my view, this is at least as much a threat to pubs as the smoking ban. As you will probably gather from reading the blog, I live in Stockport, Cheshire, a thriving coupons for alamo rental car town which is definitely not part of Manchester and has one of the finest collections of characterful pubs in the country. The blog is written purely for my own entertainment and to get things off my chest. It walks a tightrope between libertarianism and conservatism. It is nostalgic, idiosyncratic and at times inconsistent. You are welcome to disagree, but if you don't like it, you don't have to read it. I have no connection with the tobacco industry and receive coupons for alamo rental car no funding from it. Free samples of beer and cider and review copies of relevant books will be gratefully received e-mail me for address details. I would like to extend my thanks to BrewDog and Wells Youngs for providing samples of beer for review. To contact me directly, please send me an e-mail . You can also follow me on Twitter at @oldmudgie coupons for alamo rental car . Any proposals of marriage will be given serious consideration - there must be some cash-strapped drunk cat ladies out there! If you have a blog that links to this, and is at least vaguely on a political or beer-related theme, drop me a line and I'll add it to my blog list, even if I don't agree with you on everything.