Our old friend, Mr Tim Martin and his pub chain W*th*rsp**ns have been named "Pub Brand Of The Year".
I know that will give so many of us a lovely warm feeling.
Well kept beer and good food all at affordable prices.
www.jdwetherspoon.com/
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>> Well kept beer and good food all at affordable prices.
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>> >> Well kept beer and good food all at affordable prices.
>>
The rest of us, who are not the rabble, use our local non chain semi gastro pub for good food and well kept craft beers in decent company
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>> The rest of us, who are not the rabble, use our local non chain semi
>> gastro pub for good food and well kept craft beers in decent company
I don't think that's entirely true for the people drinking with you.
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In my experience pubs claiming to be gastro pubs tend to not be especially good either at food or drink. but if they are better at one than the other it's almost invariably food. The range of real ales and ciders is often dire.
Spoons is very good for ales, which are kept and served well, and while the food is only average, it gets more stars from me because of it's price.
I joined CAMRA a couple of years back but last week went to my first "event" - the AGM of my "Chapter", which was held in a 'spoons. I think I can trust them as fairly good judges of beer...
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Or they're Brexit-worshipping buttmonkeys.
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Cheers
I’ve been a CAMRA member for years. As have several of my friends.
I don’t know what a buttmonkey is but I’d like an apology.
If not I will pursue you, I will find you, and I will make you drink Double Diamond.
And we don’t have a beard between us, or a pony tail.
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Ha ha!
Never heard of Double Diamond but I presume it has all the similarity to good beer as Kestrel Pilsner or McEwan's lager.
Sounds a vicious enough threat to be worth my most humble apologies, sir.
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ps Buttmonkey is a small US brewer but I think it can be construed rather offensively so have asked mods to consider deleting the term/post.
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>> Never heard of Double Diamond
Although it has a much longer history Double Diamond is remembered as one of the 'keg' beers that brewers developed in the sixties. They were pasteurised and driven from the keg by CO2. Much easier to transport and required no skilled keeping. As such they replaced proper hand pulled ale from the big tied houses of the time.
DD was widely advertised on TV with the tag line Double Diamond Works Wonders.
Other big brewers had similar products.
By the time I was first drinking in the seventies keg was beginning to wane as, driven by CAMRA and others proper ale made a come back. According to Wiki it's still available but it's a long time since I saw it in a pub.
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>> By the time I was first drinking in the seventies keg was beginning to wane
Not in my day* I was weaned in the days of the red revolution.
* started frequenting pubs at 15, Living out in Essex, which had no "local" breweries, we had either Watney Combe Reid or Allied Breweries - mostly branded Ind Coope. All of it was dire I know now.
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I can recall an ad from my childhood with a guy making a diamond symbol with his hands to advise the barman of his requirements in a noisy pub, and then inverted his hands to make a smaller diamond/triangle shape to signify a half for his missus.
Presumably that was DD?
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>> Ha ha!
>>
>> Never heard of Double Diamond
WHAT? I guess you never got www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRklsYZaxeQ up there - it was an IPA.
Mind you LL should have said "Red Barrel". which was muck.
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>> WHAT? I guess you never got www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRklsYZaxeQ up there - it was an IPA.
Was it really an India Pale Ale or just sold as such?
To my mind IPA implies a reasonable alcohol content. At the time of course the only clue as to this was a declared Original Gravity but I doubt DD was much over 3% abv.
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>> >> WHAT? I guess you never got www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRklsYZaxeQ up there - it was an IPA.
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>> Was it really an India Pale Ale or just sold as such?
Was it ever beer of any kind?
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>>Was it ever beer of any kind?
Like I'd have known either way.
I didn't much like beer when I first started drinking, so I drank lager, and enjoyed it with the occasional top or dash.
I got into proper beer when first working as a welder and fabricator in a pretty rough place place where Friday lunch time drinking in a nearby country pub was verging on the compulsory and lager drinkers were treated cruelly. Of course I denied ever having tasted lager and forced the first couple of pints of real ale down before realising that actually I rather liked the stuff.
Been making up for lost time ever since.
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>> In my experience pubs claiming to be gastro pubs tend to not be especially good
>> either at food or drink. but if they are better at one than the other
>> it's almost invariably food. The range of real ales and ciders is often dire.
Pubs dont claim to be "gastropubs". they live or die on food ambience and service, (nil pointe spoons)
>> Spoons is very good for ales, which are kept and served well, and while the
>> food is only average, it gets more stars from me because of it's price.
Spoons main business is price. If they dont get it cheap - very cheap, they dont stock it or serve it.
Not an attractive proposition to me.
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>> Spoons main business is price.
Can't argue with that.
If they dont get it cheap - very cheap, they
>> dont stock it or serve it.
>> Not an attractive proposition to me.
I've never seen Timothy Taylors in a 'spoons, I assume they won't play that game. But plenty will.
As for the food - many pubs do everything out of a fryer or a microwave using cheap supplies - just watch which foodservice vans turn up. Some charge a lot for food no better than 'spoons.
As for ambience, I've been in some dire 'spoons, and others that are really very comfortable.
When you want to refuel away from home, reasonably reliable average can be OK . The last one we used was the one in Chichester. Very good I thought.
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In my experience, 'gastro pubs' serving 'craft' beers are merely using mealy mouthed words to charge extortionate prices. A bit like putting the words 'heavy duty' on any cheap old battery.
One of my local 'spoons arranged to have Adnams contrary to official policy. The manager bowed to customer pressure and got permission from higher up. One beer, Southwold IIRC, would sell out quickly. I saw it in another 'spoons near Tower Bridge shortly after.
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>> In my experience, 'gastro pubs' serving 'craft' beers are merely using mealy mouthed words to
>> charge extortionate prices.
You are using mealy mouthed words to hide the fact you are a tight git.
Last edited by: Zero on Mon 13 Sep 21 at 10:04
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>>>>As for ambience, I've been in some dire 'spoons, and others that are really very comfortable.
The last one we used was the one in Chichester. Very good I thought.<<<
I would hazard a guess that quality of ambience/comfort were a a direct reflection of the neighbourhood and clientele.
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>> I would hazard a guess that quality of ambience/comfort were a a direct reflection of
>> the neighbourhood and clientele
This is a "neighbourhood" in effect. Hence your statement is of course quite correct.
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>> This is a "neighbourhood" in effect. Hence your statement is of course quite correct.
While Miss B was at Uni in Sheffield we used two Wetherspoons as lunch places.
Usually it was a place on the old Ward's Brewery site on Ecclesall Road. Clientele mostly families including a large number like us with students. The other, the Benjamin Huntsman, was in the City Centre. Lot of customers there were the 'each pint lasts an hour' crew nipping in and out of the bookies. Not particularly pleasant and not somewhere I'd return.
Childwall Fiveways in Liverpool, close to The Lad's Halls at Liverpool Hope, was a bit of a hybrid; a smatter of all day drinkers but also people on work breaks, business meeters etc.
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>> Spoons main business is price. If they dont get it cheap - very cheap, they
>> dont stock it or serve it.
>> Not an attractive proposition to me.
>>
Can I take it that I am not likely to see you in a 'spoons any time soon?
I find that very reassuring.
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I use them quite a bit, fine for me. Last one I was in was in BSE looked like some sort of old church or lodge type of place in the past, the pub floor was upstairs. Fairly central had a nice range of local beers that I'd not tried before which I enjoyed.
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>> Last one I was in was in BSE looked like some sort of old church or lodge type of place
>> in the past,
That was the Corn Exchange.
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>> >> Last one I was in was in BSE
Not surprised you can still get BSE in Spoons.
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>> That was the Corn Exchange.
Thanks, it was a nice building. Seemed mainly to be builders etc in there when I popped in.
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 13 Sep 21 at 20:37
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>> Can I take it that I am not likely to see you in a 'spoons
>> any time soon?
>>
>> I find that very reassuring.
So do I. been in a spoons 5 times. 1/ Your favourite local now ex spoons. Had burger and chips, mostly overcooked and inedible IF you could stabilise the plate that was sliding around on the greasy table like a hovercraft. 2/ somewhere in Sutton. The seats were sodden - hopefully by beer, but judging from the age of the clientele I fear not. 3/ Had A full English breakfast in one somewhere, very nearly turned me off breakfast forever. 4/ Beconsfield services cant remember why I didn't like it, 5/somewhere else, dragged in p*******d dragged out similarly.
They do save some lovely buildings tho.
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All chains have good and bad branches - WS is no different to pizza, burger, italian etc. It is mainly down to local managers, even though the product may be the same.
But is is clear the main WS strength is low prices - food and drinks. They can only do this by cutting costs and quality - in fairness buying in bulk will generate some savings.
There may be some who go to a WS for intelligent conversation, fine food, impeccable service, in elegant clean surroundings.
Most go there because they are well located (town centre sites), cheap and functional.
It's all about expectations and what you are used to. Personally I would tend to go elesewhere even if a beer and snack costs a few £ extra.
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>> They do save some lovely buildings tho.
>>
The Kights Templar in Chancery Lane is nice, an old bank building. 'Spoons in Guildford is the old Dennis factory. The Regent in Walton was a cinema, it's now, 'was a wetherspoons'.
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>> The Knights Templar in Chancery Lane is nice, an old bank building.
Was my bank for a while (Nat West Law Courts Branch). We also used to bank the work 'takings' (Lands Tribunal Fees) there. Much later, as a pub, it was my work local. Pendrel's Oak and Shakespeare's Head are also pleasant.
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>> The Regent in Walton was a cinema, it's now, 'was
>> a wetherspoons'.
When they shut the Aldi opposite its supply of customers dried up.
Or was it the other way round?
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Our Favourite Pub Chain is Pub Brand of The Year - bathtub tom
