Tag: Pubs

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2010: What the blazes was all THAT about? (Part three)

A day late thanks to laptop crashes. Here are my final reflections…

Source of cautious optimism of the year: The rebirth of the (good) pub

Is the worst over?  The number of pubs per week that are closing their doors for good fell from 49 in mid-2009 to 29 in 2010.  That’s still too many – but it’s an improvement.
That’s actually a net figure – more pubs are closing than that, but some of them reopen as pubs.  In fact Christie & Co, a big pub estate agent, claim 60% of the closed pubs that pass through their books reopen as pubs.
And everywhere I’ve gone in 2010, I’ve seen great new pubs opening, and flourishing.  In every one, the story is the same: here was a pub that, before the end, had chased the lowest common denominator in search of shoring up its income, with brighter lights, louder TV screens and music, karaoke and promotions on lurid drinks.  In every one, the new landlord said to me something along the lines of “Before this placed closed, there was more money changing hands in the toilet cubicles than was being passed over the bar.”  Pubs signal the kind of place they are as soon as you walk in, and attract custom – or not – accordingly.
And whether we’re talking craft beer pubs like the Jolly Butcher’s on my doorstep, the Cask and Kitchen in Pimlico or the newly opened Thornbridge pub the Greystones in Sheffield, or revived community pubs like the Chesterfield Arms in Chesterfield or the Morgan in Malvern, these boarded up shells have been taken over by people who get that a good pub should be about good beer and good conversation.  They’re reclaiming their roles as community hubs.  People who haven’t sat together and spoken for years come together once more. 
It’s not foolproof, but decent beer pubs offering good beer in the right location are thriving.

Buried hatchet of the year: The Great British Beer Festival

Regular readers may have noticed that I slag off CAMRA with some regularity.  I don’t enjoy it, but it has to be done. 
The first slagging I gave our consumer campaigning body was in my first book, Man Walks into a Pub, and the main focus of my ire was the Great British Beer Festival.  I used to be drawn to it every year, and I used to hate it every year.  I hated its unfriendly staff, its singular lack of atmosphere, and the fact that every single aspect of it seemed to actively alienate anyone who was not already a fully paid-up CAMRA member.
In 2009, I grudgingly admitted that much had changed, and despite reservations, it was getting pretty good.  In 2010, I enjoyed it unreservedly. 
We could still point to the appalling acoustics, the ludicrous situation whereby Meantime, a brewer of incredibly authentic traditional London beer styles, is not allowed to exhibit those beers in a London beer festival thanks to an irrelevant technicality, or the apparently growing hostility to the large regional brewers who kept real ale alive until the micro boom came along.  It’ll never be perfect. 
But there’s been a lot of thought given to layout and navigation, the foreign beers now get the space and respect they deserve, and the staff of volunteers have undergone a massive charm offensive, and are, on balance, as unfailingly polite and helpful as they were rude and hostile a few years ago.  More than that, festivals are made by the people who attend them.  The craft beer revolution and CAMRA’s more open body language have attracted a much broader spectrum of people, and GBBF now actually feels like a festival.  It feels like a celebration of great beer on a grand scale – which is what it ought to be.
Congratulations, CAMRA.

Big night out of the year: Kelly Ryan’s Euston Tap Farewell

Most sadly missed, Britain’s loss is New Zealand’s gain etc. 
At the end of the year Kelly Ryan, Thornbridge brewer, brilliant public face for the brewery and perfect foil for the gifted but shy genius that is head brewer Stefano Cossi, decided to return home down under. He announced that he’d be having a few drinks in the newly opened Euston Tap on 1st December, if anyone wanted to come along and say goodbye.
Earlier that evening I’d already been to a Beer Genie Christmas beer tasting with my oldest friend, Chris.  This was also a leaving drink of sorts, with Chris leaving London after 16 years to return oop north.  Kelly’s party was in full swing when we arrived, with many familiar faces.  Thornbridge Alliance, one of only two casks in existence of a beer brewed three years ago in collaboration with Garret Oliver, was on the bar, alongside several other Thornbridge solo and collaborative brews.  I was asked for my autograph when I walked in, which was weird – I’ve signed lots of books and stuff, but never actually been asked for my autograph before, and certainly not on the basis of my appearances on a long-lost food TV programme four years ago.  
There was already a certain giddiness in the air.  With heady beers of 10% or 11% on the cards, I planned my night’s drinking carefully – three or four different halves, building in flavour and intensity, until finishing on the Alliance at about 10pm then heading home. 
This would have worked if I was buying my own drinks, but on nights like this in the Tap that’s not always easy.  Various indeterminate pints and halves began appearing in front of us.  And then in burst Jamie, proprietor of both Sheffield and Euston Taps, bearing a heavy plaque that had been awarded him by a bunch of railway enthusiasts for the restoration of the Sheffield Tap, presented by none other than celebrity trainspotter Pete Waterman.  More drinks all round.
And then it started snowing, heavily, and then pizzas arrived, and then it was snowing inside, because a bunch of polystyrene appeared from somewhere and Chris was tearing it into smaller pieces and throwing it in the air.  Jamie was challenging people to arm wrestling contests at the bar, goading them with slaps around the face if they proved hesitant.  I don’t think the stoic bar manager, Yan, ever actually called time or declared a lock-in.  It just reached a point deep in the night where anyone who came to the door took one look inside and hurried away again.  Kelly and his girlfriend Kat looked delighted, accepting endless drinks and occasionally even trying to buy one.   The snow continued to fall and barley wine followed Imperial Stout followed Double IPA, and we stayed there, drinking irresponsibly, until about 2am.
One of those nights you’ll remember for years to come – the sheer joy of drinking great beer with great people.  In the snow.

Local triumph of the year: London finally catches up with Microbrew revolution

In 2006, Ben McFarland and I spent a day touring Boulder, Colorado, while visiting the Great American beer festival.  At that time Boulder (population, 85,000) had 15 breweries.  London (population 7 million) had two that people knew about, and maybe two more that were known to real aficionados.  It seemed bizarre that, in the midst of the UK microbrewing revolution, the nation’s capital, home to legendary historical breweries like Whitbread, Courage, Watney’s, Truman’s and Barclay Perkins, had fewer breweries than places like Sheffield and Derby.
In 2009-2010, that all changed.  When the explosion came, it was all the more forceful for having been kept waiting so long.  Sambrooks opened at the end of 2008, Brodies in 2009, and in 2010 we gained Redemption, The Kernel, Saints and Sinners/Brew Wharf, Camden Town and, a little further out, Windsor and Eton.  With Fuller’s breaking new ground, Meantime moving to a new level, Battersea Brewing somewhere below the radar, Zero Degrees in Blackheath and the Twickenham brewery, London finally has a vibrant brewing scene once more.  Not only that, across the board there’s a level of variety, experimentation and cooperation that gladdens the heart as it excites the palate.
So, lots of moans about 2010, but lots to be very happy about too.  I think the trend towards interesting beer has proved not to be a fad.  Now, when I tell people what I do for a living, about half of them say, “Oh yeah, beer’s pretty cool at the moment isn’t it?  I was trying something new and interesting the other day.”  I don’t know if we’ll ever get the sudden explosion of interest that cider got with Magner’s.  But compared to when I started writing about beer, the variety and enthusiasm surrounding it now is phenomenal.
Here’s to more of the same in 2011.

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Pub closures: is the worst over?

I was at a presentation the other day by CGA strategy, the company who does all the market stats for the UK on-trade market.  Over the past couple of years, when you’ve seen grim headlines about the number of pubs closing every week, it’s been based on their figures.

Enough already.

Well, perhaps I’ve been too busy, or maybe it’s because good news never tends to get as much coverage as bad news, I seem to have missed their latest figures, whenever they came out.  But while pubs are still closing at a depressing rate, it does seem as the the worst might be over – and the closure rate is falling faster than CGA had forecast.

They calculate the figure every six months, and the trend is as follows:

June 08 to December 08 – 39 net pub closures every week
December 08 to June 09 – 52 pub closures a week – the figure that really hit the headlines
June 09 to December 09 – 39 closures a week
December 09 to June 10 – 29 closures a week

As I said, 29 pubs every week is still a shocking rate of decline.  We’re losing about five per cent of Britain’s pubs in less than a decade.  But it has fallen by almost half in a year.

CGA reckon that the pubs that are closing are those that didn’t adapt to suit changing needs in the recession.  That may be too much of a generalisation, but they’re probably right when they say the pubs left behind may be smaller in number, but will be stronger.  They reckon proper recovery in the pub market will begin in 2013.

Another interesting stat is what happens to those closed down pubs?  Property company Christies says that 60% of the boarded-up pubs they sell on eventually reopen as pubs.  That will be included in CGA’s net figure.  But it does show that there is still some dynamism in the pub market.  Both the Jolly Butchers and Cask and Kitchen were failed pubs before they were taken over and relaunched as craft beer pubs.

So – hardly joyous tidings to shout from the rooftops.  But as I’ve always maintained, reports of ‘the death of the pub’ are greatly exaggerated.

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‘The Brewery Tap’ – the next generation?

Imagine you’re a microbrewer.  You’ve established a few successful beers and have won the odd award here and there at SIBA competitions and CAMRA festivals.  Sales are showing healthy growth and you’ve got some local recognition.  In a few years time, you might have to expand.  But there’s one thing now obsessing you.

Your own pub.  You want a brewery tap.

But you can’t get one.

Buying a freehold pub is a financial step too far – you just haven’t got that kind of money to hand.  You could of course get a lease or tenancy from one of the big PubCos but what would be the point of that?  The tie means you’d have to take beers from their limited range, and your not on it – you want a pub that showcases YOUR beers, as you want them to be seen.

This is a scenario facing many micros at the moment.  To some, it’s a symbol of what they’re fighting against – an outdated model in the British beer and pub industry.

But now, things are changing.  And it’s my old mates at Thornbridge who are leading the way, with the first pub on an interesting new deal with Enterprise Inns.

Well, not quite leading the way.

Three years ago, Midlands brewer Everards started a scheme called Project William.  They took over defunct, failed pubs – the ones that we read about that are closing every week – and went into partnership with local brewers around the Midlands and the north of England.  Everards invested in refurbishing the pub – in partnership with the local brewer – and took a traditional tie on lager, soft drinks and spirits – meaning the publican had to buy all these from Everards at their rates.  This is usual enough for PubCos and regional brewers.  But they made cask ales free of tie, simply asking that one Everards beer be stocked on the range.

Now, if you were a bog standard pub that relied mainly on industrial lager (as most of these pubs were before they failed), it doesn’t make much difference.  But if you’re a micro looking for a pub where you can stick six handpulls on the bar to showcase your own beers plus a range of other interesting micros, it’s giving you what you want from a pub with much lower risk and investment than you’d get elsewhere.

There are about twenty Project William pubs now, and they’re all – apart from one uncertainty – booming.  Everards gets the return on its investment from the other drinks.  The micro gets its Brewery tap.  A community gets its pub back.  Everyone wins.

I wrote about Project William in the Cask Report and The Publican.  It’s such a clever idea, the biggest question for me was why no one else had done it, why the big PubCos didn’t take heed.

Well now, someone has.

Thornbridge have worked with Enterprise – one of the two giants of the PubCo world with between 7,000 and 8,000 pubs – before.  The Cricket Inn in Totley is an Enterprise pub, but the leasehold model is not ideal for a brewer with as many great ideas and beers as Thornbridge has.  So brewer and PubCo have been talking about doing things differently.  When Enterprise decided to take a leaf out of Everards book and create a different kind of leasehold, Thornbridge was the first to jump.

The result was the Greystones:

God bless Farrow and Ball.

This was a failed pub in Sheffield called the Highcliffe, a great building that had just become a haunt for local, erm, ‘characters’, the kind of people who spend more money in a toilet cubicle than at the bar.  The refurb was a joint investment – with Enterprise chipping in most of the cash.  Thornbridge are free of tie on ales so they can showcase their range.  Enterprise gets a big pub run by people who know what they are doing.  Sheffield gets yet another amazing craft beer pub, which also has an emphasis on ‘arts and the local community’, with gigs and other events happening regularly.

The Greystones opened on November 3rd.  It sold 3000 pints in its first 48 hours.

So if you’re that ambitious micro, it’s not simply a case of walking up to Enterprise or Everards and saying, “Gizza pub” – they need to be convinced that you have the business acumen to make it work, and that if they pay for a refurb it’s going to pay back.  But if this model catches on – as it surely will – we’re going to see more abandoned pubs revived, and a much greater variety of drinks on British bars.

Hats off to Enterprise – not always the hero in stories about British pubs – for having the vision to do this.    Props to Everards for coming up with the original idea in the first place.  And well done Thornbridge, yet again.

I’ll be doing a Hops & Glory event with a tasting of Thornbridge beers at the Greystones on Thursday 16th December.

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Exclusive: the Euston Tap: A Sneak Preview

When the Sheffield Tap opened almost a year ago, I wrote that it was almost worth getting the train to Sheffield just to sit and have a drink in the station.  Since then, I have done just that.  But now there’s no need: the team behind this wonderful craft beer bar – one of the best in the country – have now repeated their stunning success at Euston Station.
In an audacious and visionary move, Jamie Hawksworth and co – also responsible for the Pivo bar in York – have taken a lease on one of the iconic square Portland stone buildings flanking the front of the station, and made it the Euston Tap.  Yesterday, manager Yan Pilkington invited me for a look around.
London landmark becomes beery destination.
The builders – imported like the management from Sheffield – were still busy when I arrived.  A lobby into the bar area was being erected over the door, and Yan and Jamie were in the cellar struggling with the three pythons that will take the beer into the bar.  Said beer was standing on pallettes outside on the grass, and there was an awful lot of it.  I imagine the guys won’t be getting too much sleep between now and 6pm tomorrow,  Friday 5th November, when the place opens.
Signage will be subtle, to say the least
I love the ambition here.  And while it’s not finished, it already looks stunning.
It’s a small place, but not as small as you’d think if you walk past.  There’s standing room for around 65 downstairs, and then a spiral staircase leads to a second floor where a lounge area will seat up to around another 50.
When you walk in, the main bar itself – like the one in the Sheffield tap – takes your breath away.
Would you like a beer sir?

They’ve gone for the American craft beer bar style, with all the taps coming out of the back wall and nothing on the bar itself.  By opening time, this back bar will be flanked by two fridges, which you’ll be able to walk up to and inspect.

But the main stars are the draught beers.  Expect to encounter beers here that you will never see anywhere else.  The taps will be constantly rotating, and treats lined up for the first couple of months include cask Thornbridge Alliance and Bracia – outstanding, rare beers never seen on tap before – and Coalition, a collaborative brew with Dark Star that has been maturing for two years at Thornbridge.  One cask is coming here, the other is going to the Sheffield Tap, and the rest is going to be bottled – that’s how rare this beer is.  The cask beer selection will at all times include three beers from Thornbridge and three from Marble.
Eight cask ale taps, looking forward to the objections from dinosaurs
There are 19 quality keg beers.  I spotted Bernard’s wonderful unpastuerised lager, Matuska, a rising star from the Czech Republic that blew us beer writers away when we visited recently, Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA, and Stone Pale Ale, to name but a few. In those fridges there’ll be 100 rotating bottles.  Currently these include 60 American craft beers, 30 German and ten from Danish cuckoo brewer Mikkeller.
You have never seen a craft beer selection like this anywhere else.  And Yan insists you won’t be paying through the nose for it either – cask ales start at £2.70.
There’s just one serious flaw.  This is a listed building, and the work that can be done to it is limited.  Which means there is one – ONE – toilet in the entire place, and it’s at the top of the spiral stairs. So remember to go before you get here.
   
If you’re a craft beer geek already, you will now be reading this already queuing outside the Tap for tomorrow’s opening.  If you’re not, I urge you to get to Euston as quickly as possible to sample some remarkable beers in what will be a wonderful atmosphere.  You’ll never make your train from Euston again.
See you there.

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New York Dive Bar Drinking

This city is like an abscess that I can’t stop poking.  It makes London look like Somerset.

After Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ Empire State of Mind and Paloma Faith’s New York, and of course the big daddy (why is that phrase sticking in my head?) New York New York,  I’ve been wondering why people write so many songs about NYC when no one does anything similar for London.  Sure, there are songs about London, songs set in London, songs that are of London, but no direct hymns of praise to the city like those NYC regularly gathers.  It’s simply more impressive.  (Waterloo Sunset may be one of the best songs ever, but even it addresses London obliquely).

Stop to look around you at New York’s awesomness though, and you’re likely to be knocked into the road by someone who cannot stop or slow down and WILL NOT change their straight course down the pavement for anyone or anything.  I blame all the coffee: at 10pm, the Starbucks queues are almost out of the door, and there’s one on almost every corner.

There are no people on bikes here.  Clearly that would be instant suicide, even for London’s most hardy don’t-give-a-shit weavers and pavement riders.  And there are no grocery stores – there’s no Tesco Metro grab something to cook on the way home culture here.  Even shops that call themselves delicatessens don’t sell fresh bread, fruit or vegetables.  What I thought was a clever move renting a self-catering apartment now starts to look flawed.

It’s Friday night in Manhattan.  I’ve been in town for six hours.  I only had four hours sleep last night and my body clock is now suggesting it’s 2am, but I need to stay awake for a couple more hours to try and beat the jet lag, so I look for a bar.  I know where the craft beer bars are, but when I start trying to walk there from my aparthotel in the garment district I realise my legs won’t carry me more than a few blocks, so I look for somewhere closer to home. There were scores of Irish bars around here when I looked earlier, but now I can’t find any.

And then, on West 44th Street just off Times Square, I come up trumps.

I’m not sure whether I should tell you about this place, but if you’re around NYC it’s probably already old news to you, and if you’re not, well hopefully you’ll fuhgedaboudit before you’re next here.

Jimmy’s Corner is about fifteen feet wide and every surface is crammed with framed photos of boxers.  It stretches back into a neon fairy-lit, jumbled haze for about sixty yards or so, but there’s one spare stool at the bar so I grab it.  This is no Irish theme bar, no tourist destination.  It’s what locals call a dive bar, but we use that word differently in the UK.  A British dive is run by someone who doesn’t give a shit, makes no effort, just sells bad drink to people who need it.  This ‘dive’ may be shabby, but love and tradition are worn into every part of it, layers deep.  The mirrors behind the bar are almost covered in autographed dollar bills.  The bar top consists or laminated photographs of Jimmy (if it’s him) and other bar staff meeting boxers, celebrities such as Paul McCartney, and a generous smattering of topless women.  Simple A4 signs, posted at regular intervals along the bar, read LET’S NOT DISCUSS POLITICS HERE.  There’s a signed photo of someone out of The Sopranos.

The first pint of Sam Adams lager goes down without touching the sides.

I nicked this fantastic photo of Jimmy’s Corner from the Time Out New York website.  I hope no one minds, because I daren’t take a photo myself.  As this was the woman who served me, I think you can see why.

Everyone here is watching the baseball game.  Greying, careworn men with New York Italian or New York Irish accents order beers and tequilas, roar at the screen and argue over the rules.  The New York Yankees are playing the Texas Rangers and have to win this game to stay in the series, or cup, or whatever it is.  I order a second pint and watch, uncomprehending, as A-Rod hits what I would call a six and yet the score doesn’t change – still 1-0 to Texas.  I watch for an hour, and the score gets to 1-1, and stays there.

I love this place.  It’s not about the beer (although Sam Adams seems to be a regular fixture next to Bud, Bud Light and Rolling Rock in pretty much any New York bar now.  And if you’re about to comment that ‘yeah well, Sam Adams isn’t really a craft beer now it’s just as bad as Bud and anyway there are way better beers to try in the US such as x, y and z,’ then congratulations on missing the point so impressively).  It’s about finding pubs or bars that just have that feeling.  This is the kind of place you’d return to night after night, eager to establish a quiet routine, because it just feels like the kind of place you want to be.

Later, I’ll Google it: apparently Jimmy Glenn was a boxing trainer who met Ali.  The walls are lined with his personal effects, and he still works here.  Despite its location, they reckon tourists accoutn for only 5% of custom.

But for now, I’m too tired to read or write any more.  It’s 3am London time, which means I’ve been awake for 21 hours after only four hours sleep the night before.  I think if I go to bed now, I’ll sleep through.

I get to my room ten minutes later.  I check the game: 5-1 to Texas.  I have no idea how this is possible.

G’night.

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Crap pub tells customers how much it despises their custom

I’ve never really enjoyed drinking in Camden, North London.  It’s all just a bit too cool for school, edgy pubs with an ultra hip vibe and clientele and aloof bar staff disguising the fact that the pubs are actually a bit seedy and the beer is crap.

There are, of course, exceptions.  Read reviews of The Enterprise at Chalk Farm on sites like fancyapint, and punters love it’s old school indie atmosphere, eclectic mix of regulars, music and poetry nights and decent beer selection.

However, it appears the feeling is not mutual: the Enterprise really dislikes its customers.  BLTP alerted me to the front page of their website, which is, incredibly, an extended attack on the behaviour of punters at the bar.

This pub hates you and your custom.  Go away.

I worked behind a bar for four years.  I know people can be annoying after a few drinks.  But you know what?  It comes with the territory.  If punters behave in a way that really is abusive, unpleasant or unreasonable, you absolutely have the right to eject or even bar them.  But if it’s merely irritating, I’m afraid you just have to deal with it, or if interacting with people upsets you so much, get a job somewhere else.

No one likes an arse or someone who gets to the front of the queue and then spends five minutes deciding what they want.  But it seems the objectionable behaviour that so upsets the Enterprise staff includes asking for a full pint and making sure you’re given the correct change.  And as for trying to start up a conversation with the bar staff – how dare you!

Here it is in full:

A MESSAGE TO OUR CUSTOMERS:-

To all of our lovely patrons, to make life easier and more fun, when at the bar please do the following:

Be rude, whistle, click your fingers and shout when you want to be served. Don’t forget how blind we are…so wave that money!

Order one drink at a time-then pay separately

Get to the bar and forget what you ordered, then proceed to ask your 10 mates what they want again. We love to stand around and wait whilst you decide…Fosters or Kronenburg?

Complain about the music being too loud…then complain about the music being to low

If we say we don’t sell something, the chances are we are lying to you! So please keep asking for what we don’t sell (Stella please!)

If we can, we will always serve you a cold beer in a warm glass

There is nothing on Earth more attractive than a drunk man…so whip out those o-so-witty chat up lines…us girls love it

The bar staff get paid far too much money, so please do not tip us it is just insulting!

You are right! The head on that pint was far too big! Let me give you an extra pint for free because of our greed

We always like taking your money, but there is nothing better for us than you leaving your money on the bar in a puddle of beer…don’t forget to point at it, just in case we can not see it floating there

If paying on a debit or credit card, when it comes to putting your pin number in, ignore us and finish that conversation with the stranger next to you…or better go for a little walk. Its fun for us to find you

I’m sorry you were correct! That was a £20 note not a £10 note!

Please tell us when we close…I’m sure you deserve that last drink after time…why do we want to go home when we can serve you until you collapse!

Thank you for coming and we cannot wait to see all of your happy faces again soon

Love

The Enterprise

Maybe it’s a not serious, but an in-joke between the pub and its regulars.  Maybe I’m just not hip enough to see the warmth and deep but ironic levels of customer service and love that exude from the pub’s every pore.  Maybe when you go to the bar there’s lots of joshing and banter.  But I doubt it.  And if it is a joke, clearly no one’s told the hipsters of the Enterprise that jokes are meant to be funny.

I’m sure staff in most pubs in the UK need to occasionally vent their frustration and I fully support their right to do so.  But to do it in public like this – this is the home page of the pub’s website – is extraordinary.   BLTP summed it up perfectly when he sent the link to me: graceless.

So if you drink in Camden, please, please don’t drink in the Enterprise.  They clearly don’t want you there.  In these difficult times, there are many other pubs that would welcome your money.  Everyone will be happier.

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What’s on YOUR pub juke box?

No it’s not.  Mine is.

I’ve been really busy, and then I’ve been away on holiday, drinking vast quantities of Estrella and Cruzcampo (and an accidental awful pint of Fosters) which means I missed the publication in the Morning Advertiser of My Pub Jukebox.

I get drawn to this column each week, like an itchy scab.  Every week, without fail, sales reps from brewers and pub equipment suppliers, and middle managers from pubcos, choose tracks by Queen, Bryan Adams, Michael Jackson, Chris Rea and Chris de Burgh.  I swear someone once even chose a track by the vile, unspeakable M*ka.

And every time I read it a bit of me dies a little inside.

Yes, I’m a music snob.  Far more than I’m a beer snob.  If I was as snobby about beer as I am about music, you would not be reading this blog.  You’d be trying to find my address so you could come round and punch me in the face.

So I abused my position and demanded the chance to do my own pub jukebox.  They said yes.  Sadly, it’s not a feature that merits inclusion on the MA’s website, so I can’t give a link to it.  But if you don’t have a copy of the MA dated 23 September, here’s my selection below.

If you like, you can debate it, and suggest your own track listing.  It won’t be as good as mine though.  Just live with that.

Pete Brown’s Pub Juke Box

“Long before I was a beer snob I was a music snob: a terrible, obnoxious snob who delighted in stuff other people had never heard of, or found unlistenable. Having said that, at least eight of these ten would liven up a night down the boozer.  Just accept that my music collection is better than yours, and we’ll get along fine…

1. New Order – Temptation

The soundtrack to my life – simple as that.  It’s been played at every meaningful event I’ve ever experienced; the sound of a band intoxicated by the realization of how good they might – and almost did – become.

2. Roland Alphonso – Phoenix City

I found this by accident on a Trojan Records compilation and it’s been my party starter ever since.  Why it’s not a staple cover of every ska band on the planet I’ll never know.

3. The Clash – Straight to Hell

If a pub has a jukebox that doesn’t have at least one Clash CD, I won’t drink in there.  It’s a litmus test.  Music but no Clash means the landlord doesn’t know what he’s doing, so the beer’s probably going to be rubbish too.

4. Arcade Fire – Wake Up!

“WHOOOOAA-OH! WHOOOOAA-OOH-OOH-OOOOOOOH-OH!  WHOOOAAA-OH-OH-OOOOOH-OH! WHOOA-OH-OH-OH-Ooooh.” I think that says it all, really.

5. Orange Juice – Consolation Prize

“I’ll never be man enough for you”.  A geek’s rant raised to something noble and majestic by one of the most inspirational men singing today – mainly because it’s a bona fide miracle that he still is – Mr Edwyn Collins.

6. The Blue Nile – Tinseltown in the Rain

Their albums come along less frequently than Halley’s comet, but that’s because perfection takes a long time. Songs of neon, traffic, bitter coffee and rain – the soul of the city, written as epic by the singer’s singer.

7. Godspeed You Black Emperor! – The Dead Flag Blues (intro)

From a genre known as ‘post rock’, the bleakest song ever written.  So dark it’s actually funny: “The sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides.  And a dark wind blows.  The government is corrupt.  And we’re so many drunks with the radio on and the curtains drawn.” I’m just showing off now.

8. Guillemots – Sao Paulo

While stuck on a container ship en route to India with a barrel of traditional IPA for my book Hops and Glory, I went a bit mad.  This wildly inventive group’s 11-minute caterwauling, multi-dimensional masterpiece was the only thing barmy enough to make me feel a sense of equilibrium with the world.

9. Elbow – One Day Like This

“Throw those curtains wide. One day like this a year would see me right.” Pubs used to play the national anthem at closing time. Now they should play this – by law – for a mass sing-a-long just before last orders. Talking of which…

10. Richard Hawley – Last Orders

From a man who lives in the pub, whose music is the pub, a melancholy piano solo to soundtrack a sleepy walk home after a night well-lived.”

My favourite REAL pub juke box is at the Shakespeare in Stoke Newington, London N16. It’s almost as achingly hip as my selection, and has the added bonus that it exists.

If you want a more crowd-pleasing version, the Beer Widow has already posted her response.

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Classy Pub Crawls

The Guardian is steadily featuring more stuff about beer and pubs.  Only little snippets here and there, but they’re growing in size and frequency.

Today has a short feature on pub crawls with a little extra class or quirkiness, and I was asked to contribute one.  Go here for my take on Sheffield by tram, ending with a night at the Hillsborough Hotel.

But please, drink responsibly.  *Tries to keep straight face*

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Stirring things up in the Publican

I’ve had a busy month in The Publican, the pub trade mag for which I write features and a monthly column.  If you don’t run a pub you might not see it, so I occasionally provide links here in case anyone is interested in the topics.

Firstly, I wrote a piece about how pubs are the best places to watch the world cup – often better than being at the game itself (especially in the face of relentless vuvuzelas) – and there’s even academic research to back this up.  Research that states the bleeding obvious mind, but solid academic research nonetheless.

Then I got angry about people who pretend that pubs aren’t pubs.  It’s been a few months now since the new chairman of Pub Company Mitchells & Butler insisted a city analyst referred to the company’s pubs not as pubs but as ‘licensed catering outlets’, but he’s not the only culprit, and this is a viewpoint I’ve been mulling over for a while.

Finally, I totally lost my rag over the news – sorry, very strong rumours – that A-B Inbev is about to sell Bass.  I love that they’re getting rid of it – or rather, I did until I discovered the breathtakingly cynical terms of the deal.  A-B Inbev have still refrained from commenting on the story, but sources inside the company say the deal is ‘common knowledge’.  I’ve never been angrier about anything in the beer industry.  I’ve taken the piss out of them before, but this move is beyond piss-taking: if and when it is confirmed, report back here for the official start of my ‘Boycott A-B Inbev’ campaign.

(That last sentence may be a joke.  But I’m not entirely sure.)

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