A (post-lockdown) Brighton Pub Crawl

At the beginning of this week a last-minute decision took us on a trip down to Brighton, where we'd find...
Heritage pubs...

Amusements on the pier...

l

...and street art...

I got to paddle in the sea, get sunburnt, eat and drink a lot, get a bit lost in the side-streets looking for a bar, and take photos of all the touristic hot-spots.  So, despite missing out on a summer holiday this year, we managed to pack all the key ingredients into 24-hours on the south coast.

First stop for a pint of Harvey's 'Sussex Best' was this outstanding mock Tudor building which overlooks Victoria Gardens.

King and Queen (13-16 Marlborough Place, BN1 1UB - web).

It advertises itself as being Brighton's largest public house, which would probably be beneficial for practicing social distancing.

As was drinking before noon on a Monday morning, to be fair.

There's been a pub on this site since 1860, but the spectacular building that you see today dates from 1931.  I'm not quite sure why they decided to re-build it creating a large Tudor hall complete with minstrels gallery, huge fireplaces and a ton of intricate carvings throughout.  But it's a sight to behold.

(More about the King and Queen on the Heritage pub site here)

I didn't take the Good Beer Guide with me, nor did I spend time making plans of which pubs to visit. Mainly because I was afraid of finding the pubs I most wanted to go to closed.  

Numerous pubs have quite understandably taken the decision to hold off on opening their doors, as we saw walking up through the North Laines, passing several of Brighton's classic boozers that aren't quite ready for us yet.

So we were winging-it, and ended up in The Pond (49 Gloucester Road, BN1 4AQ - web).

I approached the Pond with a bit of skepticism.
Gun-metal grey paint job... modern mural on the side... a baby bao kitchen?
But all was fine, and this was a pleasant lunch stop.

We did pretty well with our selection of Taiwanese street food.
Look out... Foodie Pic Alert...

Beers were all on draft, with no cask ale, but featured a couple of interesting choices and I suspect the range is wider at other times.
The Arundel Brewery 'Pondwater' seemed an appropriate choice at the Pond.

After lunch we ambled along the seafront for a while and had a pint of local Laine's 'Ripper IPA' at a beach front bar, before heading for some craft beer delights.

The Craft Beer Co (22-23 Upper North Street, BN1 3FG - web)

We were served at our table by the friendly barman, asking our viewpoint on his face-mask or visor dilemma.
Oxford United were on the TV screens, making their way to the League One play-off final.
And the beers... what a great selection of beers...

This offering from Wylam and De Molen was a contender for beer of the day:

But one thing I've always liked about Craft is the mix of craft keg lines and cask ale.  From the choice of three real ales, I followed the Wylam with a wonderful 'Parabelum' milk stout from Gun Brewery. 

We received a tip from one of the locals in Craft that Easy Tiger was just down the road, was open, and would have some decent beers on, so that's where we headed next.

Time for a bit of sightseeing en-route as I stopped to look at a window display with a dried rat - a "generous donation"...

My, what a generous donation.

A little further along Upper North Street was our destination,
Easy Tiger (57 Upper North Street, BN1 3FH - web)
To be fair, we didn't really see much of the interior of this pub - we followed the direction arrows through to the small back yard and settled on an outdoor table.  Safety first and all that, but following one-way systems through pubs is a little odd and deprives me of my usual snoop around.

Easy Tiger is owned by the same folks as The Pond - as we discovered with the identical beer menu.
Having never visited when this was painted white and still called The Hampton, I don't know whether the change is a good thing or not.  It's a pub/Indian street food tie-in and although we didn't try the food, it did look good.

It was time to visit somewhere that I had planned ahead and double-checked was open.

The Evening Star (55-56 Surrey Street, BN1 3PB - what pub).
I've usually been in the Evening Star on football visits to Brighton, so have been used to squeezing in and finding a spot to stand.  So it's strange to see it quiet, with around a dozen punters in besides us on a Monday evening.
The beer range has been reduced for re-opening, but still offered a great choice.

Decisions, decisions...

From the Evening Star we headed down to Brewdog for a burger and, in my case, the decadent choice of an 11% imperial stout from Omnipollo.

After that the final stop was The Mucky Duck (7 Manchester Street, BN2 1TF - web).

What did we drink in the Mucky Duck?  Was the place any good?  

Oh, I don't remember - I'm blaming the imperial stout.

So, the conclusion?  Plenty of places open, which was good to see.  All with reassuring measures in place to make visitors feel safe, and all with a great friendly welcome.

Obviously drinking on a Monday helps alleviate problems with availability of tables and crowds, which suits me down to the ground.

A big thank you to our friends for the invite and the driving - I didn't expect I'd be exploring any pubs outside of Oxford this soon after their re-opening, so this was a great surprise.

Cheers. 

The Admiral keeps an eye on the re-opening pubs of Brighton

No Propping Up the Bar - please remain in the vicinity of your table.

Back in the pub!
If my counting's right (and I wouldn't bet on that) pubs have been closed for 105 days.  
It's a whopping 16 weeks since I wobbled out of the The Plough in West Hanney, the last pub I visited before lock-down.

For investigative purposes - and definitely not because we were chafing at the bit, desperately eager to get to the bar - we set out on 'Super Saturday' to see what was going on along Oxford's Cowley Road.

First stop was The Library (182 Cowley Road, OX4 1UE).
A quick glace at TripAdvisor sees reviews for the Library headed "Hipster Paradise" and "Too Much Riff-Raff". 
I certainly veer into the riff-raff category rather than hipster, particularly with my uncontrolled four-month mop of hair.
But, dodgy barnet and all, we were given a warm welcome.

The 'new norm', for the time being, is being met on the way in, shown to your table, where drinks orders are taken and the contactless card machine is delivered for payment.

All a bit different to the last time I was in here, squeezing through to the bar, then taking my pint into a crowded basement where we were watching local bands.

The Library  just has the one handpump for cask ale, but it's generally a reliable local beer - on this visit a Loose Cannon 'Abingdon Bridge'.

So, where to next?

The original plan, before we were waylaid by the Library, was to visit The Star on Rectory Road.  A pub that doesn't do food and has a decent sized garden seemed a good bet.

 

More of the same here: meet and greet on the way in, slips of paper on which to provide your contact details, some arrows on the floor to show us the way through the pub, and service at the table.

We opted for a bench out in the back garden and ordered a couple of lovely pints of XT '3'.

There were plans mooted to open pub gardens back in June, whilst keeping indoor spaces closed, but we were about to experience the downfall of that idea - the British weather.

Pub garden life.  Was that a spot of rain?

We moved to a table indoors, which was quiet, with sitting in the garden definitely the appeal for many on this first day of re-opening.  Out in the garden you can kinda pretend that nothing has changed, but indoors the out of action pool tables, socially distanced seating and the perspex screens shielding the bar are a reminder that these are no longer the care-free heady days of February.

Propping Up the Bar no longer allowed.  I need a new blog title.

Then it all went a little bit wrong. 

We called into the St James Tavern and managed to get a table, but were beaten by technology.  Ordering was by scanning a QR code on the table but with the pub wi-fi working at a snails pace, the app to order was only 6% downloaded after 5 minutes. 

Was this really all worth it for a pint of Timothy Taylor Landlord?

No.

So instead we headed right to the top of Cowley Road with the view to visit Cowley's Wetherspoons, The William Morris (59a Between Towns Road, OX4 3LR). 

Wetherspoons have some amazing and lovely buildings throughout the country.
This isn't one of them.

The system was a little different here - we were able to pick the table of our choice, there was no requirement to use the App, and bar visits permitted.
But I can't say I was thrilled when I got there to be faced with the choice of Abbot Ale or Doom Bar...

As with many of the chain pubs, this is big enough for social distancing to work without much having to change.
There were a lot of tables of folks who looked like they'd really missed this.  And security having to intervene when a fella starting hurling wheelie bins across the street outside, having lost all his money in the games machine.  He could probably have done with the pub being shut a bit longer.

It's all a bit odd, but it's great to see pubs open again.  Fingers crossed that punters will be sensible, doom-mongering predictions of second waves won't come to fruition, the pubs will be able to start turning a profit, and I'll have something more enticing to pick than Abbot or Doom Bar next time round.

Support your local & take care.

Garsington and Horspath Pubs & Beers

One result of the past couple of months is that I've explored pretty much every footpath within a three mile radius of my humble abode.

Never quite the same, of course, when the walking isn't rewarded by a pint in the pub at the end.  Or midway.  Or at the start.

So for this post, a bunch of pictures of closed pubs in a couple of villages just beyond the busy ring-road, to the east of Oxford.

The start of our route was an unspectacular trudge along the pavements on the boundary of Blackbird Leys until there's an opportunity to branch off on a footpath.

Trouble is, I'm not sure anyone other than me has tried to walk this path at any point this year.  Apart from no obvious route across the fields, there's a challenging overgrown stile at the end...

Experts only. 

But from this point on there are lovely trails leading up the small hill to the village of Garsington.

The village has a grand gated Manor House...

Impressive gates.

Some top-class knitters...

Impressive knitting.

...And the finely located St Mary's church, which boasts some great views from the churchyard across southern Oxfordshire.

Impressive village church.

But, alas, a distinct shortage of pubs.

Which is a shame, as the village was still served by a remarkable three pubs at the beginning of the last decade.
The first you would have come to, heading up the hill on your way from Oxford, would have been the Red Lion.  I managed to find a couple of pictures of it 'in action' here. 

The Red Lion closed in 2014, to be converted into private dwellings.

Private.

A little further along the road, stood the Plough, which closed it's doors a short while before the Red Lion.
Shame, because this was probably the counties Best Pub on a Hairpin Bend.  Possibly the only pub in Oxfordshire on a hairpin bend.
Now somebody gets to live there behind a big white gate and admire their own front garden pub sign frame.

No longer acceptable to turn up and ask for a Punk IPA.

Which brings us finally to The Three Horseshoes on the green. This closed in 2019, but plans were afoot for it to re-open. Initially the residents of Garsington put in a bid to make this a community pub, but it's eventually been brought by a private individual from Horspath.

Hopefully plans won't be derailed to get this back up and running. Hopefully with something more interesting that Old Specked Hen on the hand pulls?

The Three Horseshoes - fine back garden, if I remember rightly.

Heading along the Green Belt Way path, it's a mile downhill to get to nearby Horspath.

So what brings 1400 or so folks to live in the village of Horspath?  Well, they're just 3½ miles (and a wicked rush-hour traffic jam along Cowley Road) from the dreaming spires of central Oxford. They have the pleasant paths of Shotover country park on the doorstep.  

There's not one, but two fine cricket pitches.

And a brewery.

And (for the time being at least) a Lockdown Library...

Really appreciate this - kept me in some good reading material for the past couple of weeks.

 Including all your lock-down beer reading requirements...

Don't I always.

Two pubs...

The Chequers, with a fine location on the green, is predominantly the Gurkha Kitchen these days.  I've never ventured in myself, but apparently it does still retain a public bar serving fine craft beer from Wadebridge, the much sought after 'Doom Bar'.  (Please don't let that and Greene King IPA be all that's available when the pubs re-open!)

The Chequers Inn

The 'proper pub' is just around the corner.
The last time we called in to the Queens Head was a sunny Saturday evening with the place in full swing.  The chaps propping up the bar voiced their appreciation of my choice of Hook Norton 'Blackout Stout', older generations sat at the tables chatting away and watching horse racing on TV, whilst the Horspath youth hung out by the pool table.
It was doing a roaring trade - great to see, and I hope we can see it again soon.

Queens Head.

And just bringing this rambling post to a close, a mention for the village's brewery, Shotover.
They've been concocting ales in the old stable building of Manor Farm since 2009.  I'm quite a fan of their 'Scholar' best bitter, plus the porter when you can find it.

And yes, if you've seen a weird fella in a field, arsing around trying to take pictures of bottles of beers - that was me.

Looking Back At - Cambridge Pubs

Pubs have been closed for 6 weeks now....  oh, how we're missing them....
So I've taken the opportunity to look back at past photos and draft posts never completed, and present below a ramshackle selection of pubs we visited last April on a trip to Cambridge. 
  

Starting with the Free Press (7 Prospect Row, CB1 1DU).  This was the first place we visited when we were released from the Oxford - Cambridge bus (3 hours 35 minutes - "comfortable and stylish", the Stagecoach website advertises - disputable, after the first couple of hours). 
Mrs PropUpTheBar dismissed the Greene King beers ("When are we going to Pint Shop?" she demanded), but I do declare the 'XX Mild' was lovely, and the pub an undisputed backstreet classic.

Heading eastwards, we found a Good Beer Guide entry The Geldart (1 Ainsworth Street, CB1 2PF).

This was an intriguing street corner pub, with several rooms encircling a central bar.  Features included a cool jukebox, a quirky glass piano and pump clips made out of various musical instruments...

And classic LPs on display in the Gents...

Dr Hook's 'Sexy Eyes', Denise LaSalle 'I'm so Hot'
and 18 more of your sensual disco favorites.

I was keen to make a re-visit to Live & Let Live (40 Mawson Road, CB1 2EA), one of the first pubs I ever went to in Cambridge, many years ago.

No glass piano's or Erotica LP sleeves on the walls here - this is a no-nonsense backstreet boozer.  Looking at the picture below makes me really miss a visit to the pub.  How I'd like to be settling down in the corner there, with a pint of Oakham ale in front of me...

Shades of brown.

On this weekend last April it was stonkingly hot - the good people of Cambridge were almost in danger of me getting out the shorts and revealing my dazzlingly white legs.

The crowds were out in force...

Looking much quieter today, I expect.

An especially popular good weather spot was The Mill (14 Mill Lane, CB2 1RX) - plenty of vacant tables inside, with the vast majority of customers spilling out with their plastic pint pots onto Laundress Green.

The Mill.

I had a lovely pint of locally brewed ale in the Mill, but all wasn't well for those looking for summery gin-based fruit cup liqueurs...

A year ago, this was the biggest crisis that we could envisage.

We were in full tourist mode, poking our heads into College quads, obstructing the pavement to take pictures and stepping out into the road in front of cyclists.

And an obligatory pub stop for the tourist is the Eagle (Bene't Street, CB1 3QN).

Tourist-pub-wise, this is to Cambridge what the Eagle and Child is to Oxford.  Except instead of Tolkien and Carroll, they have Watson and Crick, announcing the discovery of DNA in the pub in 1953.

The Eagle beats the Eagle and Child hands-down on beer choice, spaciousness and character.  It stretches back into several rooms, including the RAF bar at the rear, complete with a ceiling covered in graffiti by World War II pilots.  

Failed miserably to get a shot of the RAF room ceiling of graffiti, so all I can offer is this slightly blurry 'blokes at the bar' picture.

I should briefly mention the Cambridge Blue - seeing as I always end up in it whenever I visit the city...

But prior to 2019 I didn't know they had a sister pub - the Blue moon (2 Norfolk Street, CB1 2LF - web).  This appears to focus on live music, with some decent sounding rockers sound-checking whilst we were there.

And craft ale, with some especially tempting and foolishly strong double IPAs and stouts on the keg lines.  I stuck to the more sensible Abbeydale 'Salvation Breakfast Stout' on cask.  Spotting the notice board, I felt it a better option than asking for Carlsberg.

No nonsense signage.

There are so many great looking pubs scattered throughout the terraces north of Mill Street that it's difficult to pick which ones to fit into your itinerary. We followed the Beer Guide and called in to the The Kingston Arms (33 Kingston Street, CB1 2NU).

Did I pick the beer on the Budget Bustin' Pump?
Yes - I'm a skinflint - of course I did.

But would we have to close the pubs in the
event of Armageddon?

And a final mention goes to the Old Ticket Office (Unit 1, Cambridge Railway Station, CB1 2JH), a nice conversion of a redundant part of the train station.  A trip around the country visiting great pubs and bars at railway stations would be quite a good project, when we're allowed, wouldn't it?

Shades of green.

The nature of my forgetting to take pictures, or just plain forgetting where we've been, means that this post omits some fantastic places we visited in Cambridge last year.

We did make it to Pint Shop and also enjoyed sitting in the yard at Calverley's Brewery.
I like to seek out a Milton beer when we're over in this direction - on this occasion accompanied by a fine pizza in the Devonshire Arms.  We also ticked off the Maypole, the Castle and the Mitre.  And probably some more - Mrs PropUptheBar will remember.

Those were the days.....

Inside the Elm Tree, I think...