Electric Company

OK, fair warning. This post is going to be a moan. A big moan. A big long whingeing moan. Want to leave now? Well you’ve had your warning……………

The thing is, it all started so well yesterday evening when I returned home to fine two pieces of beer related post waiting for me. Firstly there was the 2013 edition of CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide. But secondly, and probably more relevant to this blog, was a big padded envelope from Cask Marque containing my 25 scan bottle opener and my 50 scan polo shirt. Inside was a letter from good old Alistair from Cask Marque, encouraging me to try to get a photo in the shirt whilst holding a pint. Let’s just say it was a good job I didn’t take the shirt with me to work today…………………….

The next square on the board was the Electric Company, which meant I would have to put the old grey cells into action to decide where to go. After at least 2 minutes of thinking I stumbled on the brilliant idea to go to Battersea Power Station – now decommissioned and no longer producing any electricity but at least I wouldn’t be able to miss it!

Look, I didn't miss it!

 

Although the idea might have been sound, the location was less than ideal as the power station is located well off the beaten track and I could only locate two potential pubs anywhere near it at all. I also reckoned that a journey out to the wilds of Battersea would cause minimal interest in the usual gang of work alcoholics and try as I might I couldn’t even get Spiky haired Ed interested in a visit even though he’s got more baggage than a Paddington porter to get rid of at the moment. So once again it was just Jack Jones and me who alighted at Vauxhall station and walked the ½ mile or so to the Masons Arms on Battersea Park Road.

At this point, everything was fine.

 

As regular visitors (yeah right!) to this blog will know, so far I’ve been very impressed with the standard of Fuller’s pubs both in terms of beer, beer range and beer quality but also in the style and décor of the places. The Doric Arch and The Parcel Yard are both excellent examples of their superb pubs and on the face of it the Masons Arms also fitted the bill. All sanded floorboards and wooden tables the place looked cool and stylish as did the young trendy clientele all sipping from their oversized wineglasses. The barmaid informed me that it was actually table service (in a pub?!) but deciding very quickly I wanted the sausage and mash and a pint of ButcombeBitter I forewent this and just asked where the Cask Marque certificate was. “The Cask what?” she replied and somehow I knew this would end in a no-scan. She helpfully asked her manager but he also hadn’t heard of Cask Marque. “But you’re a Fuller’s pub aren’t you” I asked, “You must have heard of Cask Marque”. “No, I’ve been here two years and I’ve never seen this certificate” he replied. I tried to show him his pub on the Cask Marque app but the signal was playing up so couldn’t, but I still have to ask how on earth this can happen. Perhaps Fuller’s give their tenants a free reign when it comes to their pubs and providing they are turning a profit, pretty much leave them to their own devices, and I will freely admit that the pub looked to be being run very well. There was a good crowd in for a Thursday night, the place was clean and tidy (although a little too hip for my liking) but surely they have a duty to ensure that their pubs are being run with their primary product, i.e. ale, in mind? The pint of Butcombe was disappointing at best. Totally out of condition, it wasn’t exactly off, but flat, tepid and totally without any sort of carbonation or head, it’s not a good way to spend £4.15 (yes, you heard me, four pounds fifteen pence).

Now there’ll be a school of thought reading this who’ll say, “Well, why didn’t you complain? Ask for a new pint?” etc etc and they of course have a valid point. But after meeting such a clueless response when asking about Cask Marque I reckoned my chances of a bit of “ale understanding” was never going to happen. How do you explain to someone who doesn’t know about cask beer that the beer doesn’t taste right? Now don’t get me wrong, the staff were fine, very helpful, very courteous, I mean the fellow who served me my sausage and mash (which I have to say was excellent – but at £11 bloody well should be!) couldn’t have been more polite, but when you’ve made a special journey to go to a pub, specifically because of their supposed beer standards, I was miffed to say the least.

So rather huffily making my way back towards Vauxhall station I popped into the only other Cask Marque pub I could see for miles, The Vauxhall Griffin in Wyvil Road. This is a nice looking pointy corner pub and had a sizable Thursday night crowd flowing out of the doors. Best of all, the Cask Marque certificate on the wall, next to bar, easy access, scan in the bag. Unfortunately getting service wasn’t so easy. It was pizza night and the staff seemed to have to go through the minutest rigmarole to get the pizza orders to the kitchen that I’ve ever seen. Fill in a coupon, tear off the slip, give one half to the customer, stamp the other half, pin it to the board, jump up and clap three times, staple it to the till receipt, touch the floor, knock on the wall, get the change…………honestly it went on and one and on. Add to this that they seemed to have only one till it was a wonder I didn’t do a scan and dash.

If you look very carefully you'll see a member of staff abseiling the pizza order down to the kitchen

 

But I didn’t, I hung out for my pint of Cleopatra from Derventio Brewery, and was quite glad I did. Untappd describes this as a fruit beer and I’d certainly agree with that. A really challenging combination of sour fruit (it tasted like grapefruit to me?) and a big hop bite, it was good, very good in fact but one of those beers that really shouldn’t be served in pints. This is where we need continental sizes as a 0.3l would have been perfect but seeing as our pathetic government can’t achieve any sort of positive action for beer drinkers, I reckon there’s more chance I’ll meet Clint Eastwood on my next visit.

So, all in all, not quite the bright and sparkly visit I was hoping for. And just so I really knew I’d had a disappointing night, the wonderful First Great Western decided to delay my train. Oh FGW, I reckon someone could give you a load of track, a handful of trains and several hundred staff and you’d still manage not to be able to run a train company…………….oh wait a minute, that’s what someone’s gone and done!

Number of Cask Marque Pubs visited = 58 (Yes, that’s right, I’m not just scanning as part of this!)

Highlight of the night = Someone walking down the road, swigging from a can of condensed milk

If I could have a wish……… = Make pubs remember that they can do food, they can do a range of wines, they can do beautiful decorations and they can do service for a range of customers, but remember you should also be doing beer as well!

Next Stop = Whitehall

Pall Mall

So we turn the corner and begin our progress along the side of the board from the Jail to Free Parking. The first square, Pall Mall, also allows us to indulge in some more pub facts with which you can bore your friends and enemies alike! Firstly, Pall Mall takes its name from the croquet-like game of “palle-maille” which used to be played on the site of the street in the 17^th century. And if you haven’t bored your audience to death with that one, try telling them that Pall Mall was the first public street to be lit with gas street lamps in 1807. I thank you and good night…………….!

If you check any of the other blogs or sites about the Monopoly crawl, you’ll see that they nearly all visit either The Red Lion or the Golden Lion pubs when visiting this square. These pubs lie either end (almost) of the Crown Passage, a little backstreet connecting up Pall Mall to St James’s Street. Needless to say I was delighted when I checked the Cask Marque website to find that both of these pubs have Cask Marque accreditation, as does the nearby Blue Posts in Bennett street and a Friday evening after work drink, ready for the Bank Holiday seemed like an ideal thing to do especially if a 3-scan haul of pubs could be achieved.

Raking up the regular old soaks from work was fairly easy, with Aussie Pete, Charlie and Rob all leaping onto the merry Monopoly band wagon. But a last minute substitution had to be made when we had to replace Spiky haired Ed with New Guy Mickey as Ed had “got a better offer”. Well Ed, all I can say is I hope she was worth it! Splitter!

Alighting from Green Park tube it was an easy stroll along Piccadilly, carefully stepping over the sleeping bagged homeless outside The Ritz, and cutting down St James’s to find the Blue Posts.

Getting our hearing back outside the Blue Posts

 

Well easy that is unless you’re Aussie Pete, Rob and New Guy Mickey who went bowling up Piccadilly until they reached Regents Street, failing completely to see Charlie frantically waving his brolly like a demented tour guide. Finally gathering ourselves together we entered the Blue Posts to a cacophony of noise and crowded bar to squeeze ourselves behind the table with the tiniest amount of leg room in the world. The Blue Posts is another Taylor Walker pub and it looks like they had also been given the same delivery of country flags as had The Royal George (see Euston Road) but despite the jolly decorations the place was so full and so loud, conversation was impossible. Obviously the bar manager had also decided he thought the level of chat was too much so he whacked up the volume on the stereo system and made even hearing your own voice difficult. The beer choice was pretty basic also with the standard offerings of Wells’sBombardier, Young’s London Gold and another two equally ubiquitous ales. There was also Meantime’s Pale Ale but unfortunately Charlie and I only spotted this as we were leaving clutching our bleeding ears. “Where’s your Cask Marque certificate?” I yelled at the barmaid as we made our escape. “It’s out the door by the stairs” she replied, speaking through a megaphone. I knew at this point that it wouldn’t be. This has happened in the past, the person thinks you mean the Cask Marque plaque outside the pub and hasn’t got a clue about the certificate or the Ale Trail. The only thing Aussie Pete and I could find were the leaflets advertising the Ale Trail but by now with the tinnitus ringing in our frontal lobes we elected to forgo the scan and go somewhere quieter.

The somewhere quieter was the Golden Lion on King Street although with the Friday night crowd spilling out on the street from this tiny little pub we’d hardly found a silent oasis. That said the first improvement was the beer range with another Meantime product, London Lager being the choice of Charlie and myself. This instantly got a thumbs up from the BGC side of me as it came in a handsome stemmed goblet.

Either I like the glass or I've just heard Mickey's cousin owns a strip bar!

 

Rob was slightly less enamoured with his bottle of Bud. As someone who thinks he’s being adventurous when he puts two sugars in his tea Rob is very much a person who prefers the safety and standard of American Budweiser and when the pub could only supply the far superior Czech Budvar I thought he might enjoy the change. He didn’t. J

Anyway, back to the pub, which is a tiny but beautiful thing with its stylish stained glass and lovely semi-tiled bar. The Cask Marque certificate was proudly displayed behind the bar but was screwed to the wall meaning the assistance of the bar staff would have to be called into play to obtain the scan. My lovely barmaid was only too happy to take my phone and scan it for me meaning I’d captured what could be one of the harder to get scans. I bet there are not many pubs who keep their certificate nailed behind the bar!

When we joined the milling throng outside there was then the realisation that this was a seriously posh area of London. I’d commented in the last post that there were some seriously “nice” houses in Islington but this area is a class above. There’s money and there’s old family money belonging to the rich and privileged who wouldn’t think twice about spending the price of a family hatchback on a pair of red stilettos………and that’s all I’ll say on that matter.

Front of the Golden Lion - I've just spotted the shoes.

 

So finally after repeated photo calls we made our way down the Crown Passage to the Red Lion and stepped into a different world. Firstly we gone back 30+ years in terms of décor with a swirly pattern carpet and wooden and wrought iron bar but also gone somewhere else complete geographically with a pub that could easy fit into a backstreet of any town or city the length and breadth of the country. This wasn’t central London surely? There was no pretence, no bunch of “suits”, no young and beautiful admiring Prada handbags, in fact there wasn’t many people at all………….but it was heaven!

And for my next trick I will pour a pint of stout whilst mixing a Bloody Mary!

 

We spotted the certificate but wait, what’s this? It also fixed to the wall in this pub but this time right at the back of the bar, hiding behind some bottles of spirits and an electric fan………..what are the chance of that happening (yeah, I know I’ve done that joke before!) “Any chance I can scan your certificate?” I asked, feeling fairly sure the barmaid would refuse to let any old stranger behind the bar. “Yeah, no problems” she calmly replied as she turned to serve someone else. “How many times have you had to let people do that?” asked Charlie, “Oh, you’re the first” she answered. Oh……….WOW!

Outside the Red Lion

 

Feeling very privileged I then bored everyone rigid by explaining that the Adnams Southwold Bitter didn’t smell off but rather this was how it was meant to smell (a Southwold Snatch rather than a Burton Snatch)  before we all negotiated the steepest stairs in the world to make relieve ourselves in the downstairs loos. The Red Lion is worth a visit for these alone!

Number of Cask Marque Pubs visited  = 55

Three scan haul? = No, but two very select ones!

Message for the barman? = Turn it down guv’nor!

Next Stop = Electric Company

Pentonville Road and Go To Jail!

Returning after 10 days enforced chilled lager drinking I was keen to take up the reins of the Monopoly Challenge once more, especially as I was also hanging on at 49 Cask Marque certificate scans and desperate to reach the half century.

I actually thought I might make the magical 50 on my departure from the UK, but although Weatherspoons’s Windmill at Stansted Airport is Cask Marque accredited it only has the old style certificate without the QR code. So it wasn’t until my return and a meeting with fellow West Berks CAMRA member @timofnewbury that I claimed my 50^th scan at The Hatchet in Newbury town centre. I’d previously attempted to scan this pub but the certificate has been hung so high on the wall I needed to stand on a chair in order to get it! The barmaid made a feeble attempt to warn me off by quoting Health and Safety but luckily Tim was on hand to record the event and make sure I didn’t fall. So Alastair -@caskmarque it’s over to you now to get me my T-Shirt – I’m still waiting for the bottle opener BTW!! J

50 not out! Here's to the next 50!

After leaving Tim, it was off to London to continue the Monopoly Odyssey, picking up the trail at Pentonville Road, and those familiar with the Monopoly Board will know it’s the last of the light blue properties. Whilst watching the excellent BBC series of programs about London Streets (The Secret History of our Streets) I’d noticed that Pentonville Road is relatively near to Pentonville Jail (it’s all the name) being joined by the focus of program 3,the Caledonian Road. This meant that I should be able to do a double-square visit and hence complete the first side of the board.

The junction of Pentonville Road and Caledonian Road

Pentonville Road itself runs between Kings Cross Station and The Angel Islington and look to have no Cask Marque accredited pubs along it, but I then noticed via the Cask Marque mobile phone app that there was a new pub actually in Kings Cross station itself. But surely you would have done this one when doing the Kings Cross square I hear you ask? Well actually no, because Fuller’s The Parcel Yard has literally just opened!

Taking station boozers to new hights

Located above Platform 9 (just by the queue of idiots lining up to take photos of Platform 9 ¾ - yes seriously, there was a queue, and all of them adults!) The Parcel Yard is a truly wonderful pub. Leaving aside that there’s the full range of Fuller’s beers on draught they also stock other well regarded brews from Meantime Brewery, Veltins Lager and lots of other bottled goodies. The design is excellent with a mix of railway memorabilia, classic Fuller’s advertisements and an almost school science laboratory look with white tiles and lab stools. The only downside was that the management couldn’t find the Cask Marque certificate as it was seemingly lost during the opening panic. This of course gives me the excellent excuse to revisit at some point and just to say that Fuller’s really have raised the bar in terms of station pubs. I thought the Doric Arch was great (and it still is) but this place is superb and I’d recommend any thirsty traveller to try it.

From there it was a nice stroll up the Caledonian Road in the warm summer’s sunshine to the back of Pentonville Jail where I took a quick photo and then scurried away down Wheelwright Street just case someone thought I was planning a break out.

I turned right!

The thing that stuck me as I made my way to the HemingfordArms was that not more than a couple of hundred metres away from the jail you enter the sort of residential area where a basement flat probably costs nearly a million quid. If the genteel people where I live knew they were living anywhere near a jail, they’d flee into the hills but yet in this part of Islington there are some seriously nice houses!

Hemingford Arms - The windows don't need cleaning!

The Hemingford Arms itself is an impressive ivy frontaged building located on the corner of a mini roundabout. As I say the front of the pub looks staggering with the ivy interspersed with colourful hanging baskets and the inside is no less impressive with an arrangement of oddities and articles that really does have to be seen to be believed. Please check out some of the pictures on the pub’s website to see the sort of things they have there, it’s quite possibly the best location for a game of i-spy ever! Talking of i-spy, what’s this I see, the Cask Marque certificate proudly displayed behind the bar but oh no, it’s another old one without the QR code! The landlady assured me that she has got accreditation for next year, but they “just haven’t sent me the certificate yet” – but this put me a bit of a quandary as I’d now visited the two locations I wanted to, but hadn’t achieved a single scan.

I-Spy an accordian and a miner's lamp

So it was then detour time as I wandered past some more seriously nice houses in trendy Islington feeling more out of place than a pensioner with a mobile phone (one bloke out walking his dogs gave me such a dirty look as I walked down Barnsbury Street I almost felt I was burgling his house already) until I reached The Barnsbury on Liverpool Road. The first thing I couldn’t work out is why the place was so empty when all the other pubs I’d either been in or walked past were heaving with Friday night drinkers, in most cases spilling out onto the pavements to enjoy the nice weather.

The Barnsbury

It couldn’t be the beer as the pint of RCH Old Slug Porter was superb and looking around at the range of other beers, both on draught and in bottles this was a rear beer drinkers’ paradise. The only thing I couldn’t spot whilst looking around was the Cask Marque certificate and even the new bar manager Peter couldn’t seem to find it. “I know it’s here somewhere” he said whilst rummaging through a drawer full of old pump clips. Even though I was dreading “striking out” for the third time that evening, I couldn’t fault his enthusiasm to try to help me, and joy upon joy, it was eventually rewarded when he found the certificate hiding on a pin-board behind another poster. I also have to report on one of the most erotic scenes I’ve ever experienced in a pub when the pretty punky barmaid with pink and blue hair and Doc Martins explained to the new pretty perky barmaid with gold trainers which beer glasses to use with which beer. She then topped this advice when warning her colleague as she poured a pint of Brew Dog’s Punk IPA to “make sure you brim it, and don’t spill a spot – it’s expensive stuff!” – I reckon a better motto to live you life by would be hard to find and I think I’ll adopt it as my motto!

So with the first scan of the evening under my belt I was on a roll and decided to cut through Cloudesley Square past some more seriously nice houses and past the seriously nice Celestial Church of Christ to the seriously nice Crown, another pub from that seriously nice brewer, Fuller’s.

The Seriously Nice Crown

The pint of London Porter was seriously nic……….yeah ok you get the picture, but perhaps not as seriously nice as the lovely bar manager lady who had to fetch the Cask Marque certificate from the upstairs office. One thing I’ve noticed with the Cask Marque app, is that it needs a good 3G connection to register any scans and this can mean once you’ve scanned a certificate you then need to wander out of the pub before the scan registers. This happen at the Crown and I almost needed to wander back down Liverpool Road to The Angelic before I managed to secure the visit.

The Angelic

The Angelic is definitely a young person’s pub. The evening was wearing on now and I was starting to feel my age, surrounded by the young beautiful and trendy just beginning their Friday night’s fun, it was lucky that the Cask Marque certificate was freely available on the wall where it’s meant to be and I didn’t have to ask anyone else to jump through any hoops.

From there I found I’d come full circle as I was back at The Angel tube station just by the place Spiky haired Ed nearly met his demise at the hands of the Red London Bus. And with 53 scans and still going strong, it’s onto the next “side” of the Monopoly board. Cheers!

Number of Cask Marque Pubs visited  = 53

Remember! = Brim it! And don’t spill a drop!

Want to record your beer drinking exploits? = http://untappd.com (and add me as a friend!)

Next Stop = Pall Mall

Euston Road

A combination of last minute planning and the very poor incentive of a trip to Euston was enough to put off all the regulars from the office, so it was only me and Jack Jones who made the trip round the Circle Line to Euston Square on a sunny Thursday evening.

I also had mixed feeling about doing this square as on the pub front there is a heavy concentration of Cask Marque pubs round Euston Station but as previously alluded to, it’s not an area one immediately associates with beauty or sights worth seeing.

The first pub was The Britannia which is located within the concrete monstrosity that is Euston Station itself. It’s been noticeable that’s there’s been a bit of a resurgence of these station pubs recently with many of them having well needed facelifts and much needed refurbishments. It also seems to be a sector that the big brewing pub groups want to get into to. I’d already visited Fuller’s Mad Bishop and Bear at Paddington, The Isambard (also at Paddington) and The Wellesley at Waterloo – the latter two I’m not sure who runs them but going from the signage and styling it seems to be the same company which runs The Britannia. They are a bit of a conundrum these “new” station pubs; on the one hand I have to applaud a better class of boozer for thirsty travellers which have a commitment to Real Ale, and they certainly try to present something more than a swilling hole tacked on to a station. But on the other hand why do they go down the traditional pub styling route? You can’t just sling a few wing back chairs, a mock fireplace and wall lamps into what is a plasterboard box and expect to create an attractive atmosphere. Why try to recreate someone’s local when the one thing you’re definitely not going to have are locals?

The Britannia, coming to a station near you...

Anyway before I get too deep, The Britannia was clean and tidy and most importantly had the Cask Marque certificate displayed at the end of the bar. I’d only recently found out via Nate Dawg that it was in fact IPA-Day so it seemed only right to try to drink IPA. The only one on offer was Greene King’s version (which is discussed further in Kings Cross) and the ½ pint I ordered was fine and fresh but it was something approaching relief that I could escape the suitcases and other assorted luggage of the other customers and go and find a proper pub.

I’ve also previously mentioned in the Kings Cross episode my aborted attempt to find Fuller’s The Doric Arch (Head of Steam) – This time finding it was easier but it’s still tucked away on a corner of Euston Square and although there is a good flow of passing pedestrians, for drinkers searching for the place it can easily be missed. Which is a real shame because it’s a gem! Pleasantly decorated with a railway theme it’s quiet and personable and is probably everything The Britannia wishes it could be. There was a great range of Fuller’s beers on but I blindly plumped for a guest ale, a pint of Mauldons Pickwick which although was extremely well conditioned and very tasty I’d missed the fact they had a seasonal Fuller’s ale on, Wild River, which from the description seems to be very much an IPA to my untrained eye. If you’re wondering about the name of the pub, apparently Euston Station used to have a huge Doric Arch as the entry way to the station. Of course it’s since been pulled down to make way for the modern station but apparently there is a stone of it kept behind the bar.

Today's Doric Arch

Yesterday's Doric Arch

It was then just a short hop over the Eversholt Road to the Royal George, a large traditional corner pub from the Taylor Walker pub group. The barman was more than happy to lift the certificate from where it was displayed behind the bar so I could scan it, and with the pub merrily decked out in Olympic flags it seemed only appropriate to have a pint of Young’s London Gold.

The Royal George gets in the Olympic spirit

In terms of the Olympics I was in good company as on the next table to me were three official timekeepers from Omega but even their watches would have been put to the test by the amazing antics of the British Cycling Team who were performing world record brilliance on the big screen TV. When the world asks “where were you when Chris Hoy won his 5^th Gold Medal?” my answer will be the Royal George, Euston.

The official timekeepers measure the awesomeness of the GB cycling team.

So finally after visiting three pubs I hit the Euston Road proper and crossed it to head up Mabeldon Place to the aptly named Mabel’sTavern. Mabel’s is a Shepherd Neame pub and is a regular entry in CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide (although isn’t in the latest edition – The Doric Arch and Euston Flyer however are) and proudly displays a CAMRA Pub of the Year certificate alongside the Cask Marque one.

Mabel's Tavern

I asked the barmaid if I could scan it which slightly threw her and she needed to ask permission from the manager to do so (?)  - mind you this was the same barmaid who when asking me what I wanted, I indicated that another lady was in front of me, she then went and served the chap behind me! I know queuing is a national sport here but equally interpretation of the queue is a necessary skill that all barstaff should be able to do. Anyway, I digress; I choose a pint of Whitstable Bay and had a nice chat with the lady who had been in front of me in the queue. When the world asks “where were you when Chris Hoy got presented with his 5^th Gold Medal?” my answer will be the Mabel’s Tavern, Euston.

So finally it was on to the 5^th pub (yeah, talk about 5 gold medals – what about 5 pubs!) and the only one actually on the Euston Road. The Euston Flyer is another Fuller’s pub and is a world away from the Doric Arch. It’s a huge place where big screen TV takes priority and there was a large international crowd watching the Olympic swimming. Although the place was rammed with people, service was very quick and my pint of Seafarers was served up almost as quickly as the certificate was given to me from behind the bar, which seeing as the place was so busy was quite understanding by the barstaff. It was only when I was sat down that I saw that the pub actually has two Cask Marque certificates behind the bar, which perhaps reflects the hurly-burly nature of the pub.

The hurly-burly of the Euston Flyer

So with Jack reminding me it was time to go home I made my way back up Euston Road to the tube, it was then I reflected back on my attitude to this area of London. It’s still not the most attractive area but there are some glimpses of magic as well. Just check out the fantastic steeple of St Pancras parish church……………….seriously, check it out. I could also reflect back on a 5 Cask Marque certificate haul which is by far my PB!

Number of Cask Marque Pubs visited = 49

How did Jack enjoy the visit? = Much better than last time!

When’s the next visit then? = Not for two weeks. Unless there’s a Pentonville Road in Malta!

Next Stop = Pentonville Road