Wait until next year

Ever since I first heard him I knew that Joshua Ray Walker was one of the best singers and songwriters in the world right now. After seeing him live I am more and more convinced he is right up there with the very best active today. Walker is a Texan country singer who has been performing for over 20 years and releasing incredible records for nearly a decade. This is country music in the more…

This week Boak and Bailey have been posting briefer, daily posts, like how most of Beer Blogging (including their site!) mainly functioned a decade ago. It is has been a lot of fun to have something to read every day, for there to be different kinds of things looked at from different angles, and to see something more provisional – to be reminded that blogging works really well as a means of…

Several years ago I came to the realisation that I really don’t enjoy watching football in pubs. There might be a good atmosphere, but there is every chance there won’t be…especially if the game isn’t going the right way. I’m not a huge fan of football commentary but I would still prefer to hear the analysis of professionals rather the addled and misinformed musings of a pub bore behind me. I’d…

The Tamworth Tap is a three-time CAMRA National Pub of the Year. I felt a degree of trepidation before entering. There’s always a worry with anything so acclaimed that it might not live up to its billing, might be a disappointment, might be something I just don’t get. I get this feeling with books, films, TV, as well as pubs. I don’t think it is quite inverted snobbery, a sense that if something…

The World’s Greatest Pub Blogger, RetiredMartin, will occasionally consider a pub one of his Top 100. This place, The King Billy, is one of them. And rightly so. It is unlikely I will ever visit as many pubs as Martin, and will certainly never reach his levels of Pub Expertise, but this pub is definitely in my top 100 too. And probably quite high in that list too. It’s a magical pub. Sometimes…

A fantastic weekend in Nottingham with friends – visited lots of pubs and bars and got at least some kind of sense of the kind of Beer City that Nottingham might be. At least in terms of the city centre I would say it felt like one side was very craft-y while the other was Mega Booze Dome-esque. There were a few good traditional pubs, but it didn’t feel like there were loads of them – and even…

Some incredibly rough and ready thoughts on the Bexley Council election results – somewhere I think is interesting at a national level as it was very much a target for Reform but ended up being, at least on the surface, a pretty straightforward victory for the incumbent Tories. This is obviously a huge generalisation, but Bexley, as a borough is inherently small-c conservative (as well as…

Pub websites should be brilliant. They are a (reasonably) quick, easy and cheap way for pubs to market themselves, keep in touch with regulars and generally articulate what they are all about. At a bare minimum they are a good way to let people know when you are open. Beyond that you can list what beer is on, what food is available, what events you’re holding. Are you dog friendly, kid friendly,…

The Queen Charlotte is a former Brewdog pub, which in some ways is the least interesting thing about it, but also something that probably needs addressing at some point, if only to acknowledge both its recent history and its potential future – that here is an example of how pubs can not just survive but thrive once they have been released from Brewdog’s grip. It is a fine template of what newly…

I’ve been thinking a bit about pubs as second homes, surrogate homes – public houses as public homes. That sometimes you are away and need to sit somewhere familiar, homely, rather than a sterile hotel room. That sometimes you might be at work and need a break, somewhere to ground yourself, a refuge, an escape – a lunchtime pint or somewhere to decompress on your way home.  These aren’t…

Monday, a day off and finally some sunshine, so I spent the day working in the garden, doing some good honest manual labour for once. By late afternoon my body was creaking and it was clear I needed a long, cold drink. I headed for the Duke. The Duke is a funny old place. You have to ring a buzzer and wait to see if they will let you in. There’s a big screen behind the bar where staff can check…

Midges gathering around a brick fencepost. Tradesmen sleepily filling their vans. The high, eerie hum of the postman’s electric van. A woman receives her supermarket delivery, then runs out of her front door – a bottle of lemonade has been pierced and is spraying everywhere. She waves it like a Grand Prix winner. Men with covered faces and smiling eyes straddle a half-built extension, brave…

God, it’s rained a lot lately. Day after day of the stuff from the start of the year, relentless precipitation, the only variety in weather being whether you’ll get drizzle, a shower or a downpour.  And yet, the dog still needs walking. And one night we headed out for a walk and the heavens opened and we were all soaked and we were very grateful for the dog dragging us obligingly into the…

Sunday afternoon in The Old Tiger’s Head, Lee. It’s good to see a pub doing well when it has had its fair share of trials and tribulations – to go from boarded-up to thriving is quite an achievement, I think. It was sad seeing its counterpart across the road, The New Tiger’s Head no longer a pub, but at least the building hasn’t been completely left to rot. As an aside, I think more pubs should…

A very swift half in the Running Horses, Erith. If you were to flick through local history books you would see that Erith once had many pubs in its town centre. Now it only has one. The Running Horses is a rather large and rather handsome 1930s building, overlooking the Thames. The Saloon bar is lovely, with what looks to be the original features, but is generally closed. The public bar is a fair…

Boak and Bailey wrote recently about honesty in writing about pubs and beer. It is for Patreon subscribers only, but it is well worth subscribing to them if you have any interest at all in the subject matter. I won’t quote from it, as it is behind a paywall and that doesn’t seem fair, but I will say it gave me plenty to think about – not just in terms of writing about pubs and beer, but in…

Back with more thoughts! We were in the William the Conqueror at Rye Harbour last weekend. We went in at teatime Saturday after a stroll around the nearby nature reserve and it was a reminder that a long walk is improved immeasurably by a good destination. The place was cosy, calmly lit and while not too busy it wasn’t too empty either. The kind of place to rest weary bones and enjoy the…