Leicester Square

I’m sure when Dr Frankenstein surveyed the remnants of his laboratory the morning after the thunderstorm he said to himself, “Do you know what? That might not have been such a good idea………” And in a similar fashion I am now reflecting on whether my good intentions have released a monster into the world and am I in fact beholdenly guilty for the chaos and damage this monster will no doubt wreak.

Anyway the background to this week’s tour. As all dedicated readers will know, this was the 1^st square after the Xmas and New Year break and as a celebration of the resumption of business as usual and to also attempt to blow away those January cobwebs, I’d planned an ambitious but not unrealistic seven pub trek around Leicester Square. I say “not unrealistic” because there are so many bloody Cask Marque pubs around this area we’d only have to walk a short distance up and down Charring Cross Road, pop into Leicester Square itself to claim all seven venues.

Looks pretty yes? But bloody cold! 

The other factor that I’d hinted towards at the end of the last post was that we might see a few new faces accompanying the tour regulars. Talking about the regulars, we had the pleasure of Aussie Pete squeezing in a potential last tour before the imminent birth of his first baby (apparently it’s bad form to go down the pub when your partner’s in labour), Buddy Rob and New Guy Micky (who had even come into town especially for the tour after working from home). The housewives’ choice and One Direction stunt double Spiky Haired Ed had even sacrificed a, let us say, “more intimate engagement” to be with us. Honoured Ed, honoured!

But there was new blood! The one positive thing about the company’s Xmas do was that a spare seat next to me on our IT department table was filled by a certain delectable creature, namely Emma from the company’s Payroll department. Now it’s worth just mentioning a quick word about Payroll as it’s a curious section where 99.9% of the workforce is female, seriously you walk past their desks and the smell of cats and knitting yarn pours over you like a cloud of noxious gas and you suddenly get the urge to go and buy shoes. That said they do have a reputation of being “up for a party” and can be see donning various forms of fancy dress for certain themed evenings. So trying very hard to keep my eyes off the “off the shoulder” bit of Emma’s stunning dress, I told her all about the Monopoly Tour and said she should whip up some of her more party-focussed colleagues and join us for a square in the New Year.

Well the good girl only just went ahead and did exactly what she promised didn’t she, whipping up no less than three other tailess creatures to join for the 1^st square of 2013. At one point there was going to be 6 “pretty ladies” about which I was excitedly tweeting all week, but a couple of last minute drop-outs (Mags, looking at you!) saw the number slightly drop. But beggars as ugly as the BGC cannot be choosers and I’d settle for 4 fine examples of the fairer sex any day of the week! I’d tried to generate some interest in what we generally do on tour nights (drink, scan, moan about work – usually in that order) by sending the links to the Cask Finder app and a cut out and keep version of the Beer Tasting Wheel. None of this was done with any serious intent but you could have knocked me down with a very smelly kipper when all 4 leapt into the spirit of things, even going so far as to promise to drink some beer on the night (apart from Emma – I’ll say it again my dear, it’s not that you don’t like beer, you simply haven’t tried the right one yet)!

The other strange thing all the ladies asked for, well no, actually they demanded, was a nickname each. I tried to explain how the nicknames were never meant to be a feature of the tour and had just grown organically as a way to identify the tourists but this didn’t wash any with them as the demand for nicknames warped slightly and became a demand for derogatory nicknames. Everything I’ve ever learnt about treating ladies, well like ladies, seemed to be turned on its head as I was forced to think of something nasty for each of them. Could I do this? Perhaps I should start them off with a nice nickname and see if events on the tour would change them. So to that end I should do a quick introduction and say that alongside the lovely Emma we had lovely Brenda, lovely Gemma and lovely Nicole.

(l-r) Lovely Gemma, Brenda and Nicole at the start of the evening. Note non-glazed eyes at this point.

Oh, talking about very smelly kippers (we were a moment ago, read back if you don’t believe me) this was the smell that greeted us as we stepped over the threshold of the first pub, The Garrick Arms in Charring Cross Road. I won’t bore you will the travel route taken other than I was impressed by the ladies’ preparations to wear non-idiotic shoes which allowed us to walk from Embankment rather than have to change tube lines to get there.

 

 

I think I pull this off better. For example I'm not holding a big invisible poodle.

Anyway back to the Garrick…………..smell of fish aside (I knew it was a bad idea to bring the girls) this is a smart Greene King pub doing a very brisk trade on a busy Friday night. It’s quite a largish place so getting a fairly comfortable position to order drinks and stand wasn’t too much of an issue although the harassed barmaid bit another customers head off when he suggested that it was he that should be next to be served.

Garrick Arms - Note BGC's scarf (more of that later)

The girls were true to their beer sampling words as Brenda, Gemma and Nicole all joined me in a beer called Detox from Oxfordshire Ales, which was in fine form and mine literally didn’t touch the sides. Emma was sticking to her “no beer” pledge and went with a bottle of that awful Rekorderlig. Turning our attention to the certificate it was easily spotted framed and hung on the wall, but in their infinite wisdom the pub management had hung it about 11 foot high up the wall. Either they were expecting Peter Crouch in that night or the only way this was going to be scanned was by either forming a human pyramid or climbing on top of the fruit machine. Perhaps if we’d come to this pub 3 or 4 drinks into the evening we might have attempted either option but with only a sniff of the barmaids apron at this point we just finished our drinks and left.

I mean, come on! How do they dust it?

Next stop was just across the road in the Bear and Staff, a smart Nicholson’s pub done out in their usual black and gold livery. They still had Ding Dong from Stroud Brewery, which I’d last tried in the Black Friar and was more than happy to try again. Because everyone (yes, even Buddy Rob had a Ding Dong) apart from me were drinking halves (OK Ed and Micky were on pints of lager but they don’t count) we were working the barmaid hard especially when the Ding Dong ran out and we had to make a last minute substitution and order a half of Atomic Blonde for Nicole – a substitution that was more than welcomed as it turns out as the more “lagery” taste hit all the right notes. There was no sign of the certificate unfortunately so the ladies were still to break their scanning ducks.

Bear and Staff. BGC and Staff.

It was about this time that questions about previous tour squares were banded around and the girls seemed to find it odd that certainly at the start of the tour I’d visited more than one square on my own. This led to the very witty Brenda renaming the BGC to BNM (i.e. Billy No Mates) which went down with much more hilarity than it really deserved and instantly changed “lovely Brenda” to “Bitchy Brenda”. The other subject broached at this point was the history of my scarf, which again regular readers will remember was saved and adopted when found abandoned in a pub on Fleet Street. I never knew girls were such story tellers because by the time Nicole had finished with the very innocent story, the origins of the scarf were now that I’d mugged a homeless man and stole it from him. The story was even embellished to the degree that she actually named the street that I dragged this poor fictitious man down before beating him up all for the sake of an Austin Reed scarf. So that was her “lovely” replaced with “Jackanory” – and if they didn’t have that in New Zealand you can look at their wiki entry!

Girls and Beer - this could catch on! Pinky out Gemma!

So back to the tour, Billy and I stomped across the road again to the Brewmaster, another Greene King pub which had all the welcome and charm of a kitchen showroom. The beer range was rather slim and the barman recommended Old Speckled Hen as the best bitter but I have to give the ladies even more credit as they tucked in with a gusto that the pub and the beer didn’t deserve. Finally though we spotted a certificate that was available and with a chance of scanning and whilst I can’t claim the girls were leaping in the arm clicking their heels it was nice to prove that the app does work.

The final pub in Charring Cross Road was The Porcupine our second Nicholson’s and by far the best of the 4 that we’d so far visited. Cosy and intimate it also had a very fine barmaid who not only knew where the certificate was hiding (for some reason behind a door behind the bar) also knew that we wanted to see it for scanning. BNM decided that perhaps going to the pub with other people required some social interaction so was more than happy to stand a round for the tour newbies and tour oldies alike. London Stone from Ha’pennyBrewery was selected as the standard drink but I also got a half of the Old Engine Oil porter from Harviestoun and a bottle of the classic Duvel for comparison. The barmaid also produced a branded Duvel glass and went even further up in my estimation.

That glass of Duvel

There’s beer evangelists and tasting experts with much more experience and knowledge than me (hey, I’m just a middle aged bloke who likes drinking) but I’m going to give Billy a bit of a pat on the back here because this tiny tasting experiment was well worth doing and it was really encouraging to see all concerned trying the different types of beer and not turning their noses (oh their cute cute noses) up at any of them.

Before we started this evening’s entertainment Aussie Pete had the bonza idea to bring along his 50 scan Cask Marque polo shirt as a potential photo prop. He’s never worn it, claiming they sent the wrong size but it was the perfect thing to produce from the bag as Alektorophobia Emma (one for the QI fans here – it doesn’t mean what you think it might but it was the most appropriate sounding phobia I could find. ) posed for a photo outside of the Porcupine. We’ll never challenge London Fashion Week, that’s for certain, but there’s a certain “street” honesty about our photo don’t you think?

 

We finally made the short walk into Leicester Square, which was perhaps unsurprisingly fairly buzzing with folk even on a chilly January evening. Just next to the famous Odeon cinema are two Cask Marque accredited pubs, the Moon Under Water, which from the name is easily recognisable as a Weatherspoons and surprisingly a Yates’s, a chain not normally known for their real ale.

Fearing that both pubs might be very touristy and very full, it was very pleasant to find the Weatherspoons not at all cramped and staffed by some very pleasant barmen. The certificate was located at the end of the bar and although several of the barmen claimed that it wouldn’t work they were delighted to see the successful scan show up on my Ale Trail

No Nicole, it's not a new type of latte.

I think it was here that the drinks went off in all sorts of variations and varieties. I know I had a pint of Hoegaarden and Ed amazed me by getting a fine pint of Köstritzer. Buddy Rob changed things all up by having a pint of Budweiser rather than a bottle and I was rather fearing the girls had reached their ale limit when various vodka based drinks were ordered but Brenda pulled it all out of the bag by not only drinking a Bombardier but seeking it out from the bar herself. And thus Bitchy Brenda became Bomber Brenda.

Thumbs up that Rob sometimes does drink something other than bottles of Bud.

I’m not sure who was orchestrating the changing of the polo shirt but it was obviously Gemma’s turn and she confirmed that apparently the correct procedure when wearing it is to point to a breast. I will remember this next time I’m wearing mine in Sainsbury’s.

And just to be clear, that's not my hand.

Taking our leave from the Weatherspoons we braved the cold outside as we pondered on the wisdom of seeing whether we should visit the Yates’s. The place looked to be everything I feared about these two pubs; scary women dressed in scary dresses queuing for entrance whilst burly bouncers were stopping all who tried to enter. Giving this up as a bad idea I’m not sure whether our attempt should count enough to claim the pub a scanned but I do think we made the right choice.

Come on Cask Marque - surely near enough to award the scan?

So it was quick scoot up to the north end of the square and a diversion into Leicester Street and the final pub of the night, The Imperial.

Apparently Brenda has to mark her territory when drinking.

This Taylor Walker house was positively abandoned in comparison with the other pubs we’d been in and we almost had the whole of the bar area to ourselves, which was rather lucky as the Polo Shirt fun and games took a curious twist when after Bomber Brenda had proved she can pout and pose with the best of them (but there’s no evidence of breast pointing) somehow both Gemma and Aussie Pete ended up in the shirt at the same time. All sorts of cheap jokes about “pairs of tits” of course leap to mind but I’m fair too polite to use them.

I am very suspicious of the dirty look on Ed's face.

Emma was now well into the scanning and spotted the certificate blu-tacked behind the bar. A helpful chap about who I have no idea whether he worked for the pub or not leaned over and pulled it down and another scan was in the bag. It’s also worth noting that whilst I’ve completely forgotten what beer we were drinking, the more important thing was the vodka based drinks were ditched for some more grain based magic.

It's that bloody shirt again!

I’d very early on in the evening resigned myself to catching the last train but the clock doesn’t stop ticking for anyone and as things started to get hazy I was reminded by Buddy Rob that I’d better leave or turn into a pumpkin. I seem to remember a final swap on the shirt as Nicole completed the set of “girls in shirts” (I’ll have enough for a calendar at this rate) and then it was time to tell everyone I loved them all and stagger back to Embankment.

So was it the best square so far? Do you know what, I think it may well have been. The ladies were delightful company and their willingness to try the beers was exemplary. Did I change the perception of beer for them? Well probably not but I did prove that there’s no need for special “lady’s beers” appealing to what the idiot marketing people think girls should be drinking. All we need to do now is encourage the standard measure to be 2/3rds of a pint, served of course in a delicate stemmed goblet and I think we could be onto something………………………..

End of the night - Note glazed eyes and scared expression. The monsters are released!

Number of Cask Marque Pubs visited = No idea – I need to check…..

Did Billy fall in love? = Yeah, or course he did, at least 4 times (no Ed, one of them wasn't you). Well 5 if you count the barmaid in the Porcupine.

Another Advantage = The girls “love” a photo don’t they? I don’t think we’ve ever had so many on a single post!

Nicknames = So did Gemma remain "lovely Gemma" - No, no way, not after the polo shirt twosome with poor old Pete. Try "The Gemmaration Game"

Next Stop = Coventry Street

Those of a nervous disposition - avert your eyes now..........

 

Bow Street

Before we begin this week’s documented evidence of debauchery there’s some hot beer news that needs to be reported.

Firstly the wonderful and lovely Melissa Cole dived into the depths of Staffordshire and came back bearing the delightful gift of this very stylish Freedom Brewery mug.

 

All I had to do was pick it up from the elegant Rake in nearby Borough Market. Seeing as I would drag my burning body across a freshly tarmacked road studded with sharpened lollipop sticks for a beer glass, I was only too happy to comply. So it’s a big thumbs up and thanks to Melissa and I encourage everyone to visit her site. I am soooooooo in love with this woman!

Secondly, last Friday, the 28^th of September saw the beginning of Cask Ale Week, the annual celebration of all things Casky and Aley. Best of all it was possible to download a voucher for a free pint and take this at a Cask Marque pub. So last Friday the usual gang all trooped into the Bridge Lounge and ordered 5 pints for the princely price of £0.00 – You do the math! When I say the usual gang, that was sort of true as Charlie and New-Guy Mickey were more than happy to tag along, but we were also joined by Big-J and Peachy for their first smell of the sort of things we get up to.

The other thing that came along with Cask Ale Week was an email from the lovely people at Cask Marque saying that anyone who achieves 12 new scans during Cask Ale Week will receive a special limited T-shirt. Well slap me round the face and call me Betty! That’s speaking my language. By the end of the weekend I was already up to 3 new scans and all week Aussie Pete and I have been venturing for a swift lunchtime visit to gather more scans, which means my total has exploded. Thanks must also be given to Trevor at Cask marque who has faithfully been processing our visits when for one reason or another we didn’t get the scan. So Trevor, this one’s dedicated to you even if you did call me Del Boy!

Anyway, onto this week………………..as mentioned in last week’s communiqué we were off to Bow Street and with its proximity to Covent Garden there was a real hoard of willing volunteers who wanted to climb aboard the good ship Monopoly. I’d planned out a visit to 4 pubs that circle Bow Street but I was also very aware that the sights, sounds and attractions of Covent Garden may easily lead us off track and into areas we would need to “save” for other visits. Leicester Square and The Strand leapt to mind (second fright for The Strand!)

A very arty shot of BGC in Bow Street

 

Alas though, as the time to leave approached people started dropping out of the tour for the most flimsy of reasons! New Guy Mickey was off to the theatre (Drury Lane in fact, i.e. right next door to where we were going to be) The Chief had visitors apparently, Big-J can’t do Fridays only Thursdays and even though Peachy had come to work in his disco shirt he claimed an achilles injury which ruled him out. Even the delectable Mags had gone AWOL! We’d also lost Charlie to a late afternoon meeting but he did reappear in the nick of time and promptly told us about the restaurant he was just in with one of our suppliers, eating weird and wonderful meats (Orang-utan, Armadillo and Kiwi I believe) and drinking absinth from a bottle with a snake inside! He then changed the order of the pubs saying that Sybil and the supplier guy would meet us at the Punch and Judy.

The weather was atrocious and in a constant rain and without a single umbrella between us, a very bedraggled 6 of us (Aussie Pete, Spiky haired Ed, Buddy Rob, No-Nickname Michael & Charlie) made it to the tourist trap that is Covent Garden, but not before I had my Bow Street photo taken for posterity.

The Punch and Judy will be a well known pub to anyone who has visited Covent Garden. It sits at one end of the market building and has the balcony where you can watch the street performers doing their acts below. That’s not to say you still might not find it though as we discovered when we entered the door by the pub sign but found ourselves in Moominland instead.

A very arty shot of BGC about to enter the Punch and Judy

 

The Punch and Judy is another Taylor Walker run pub and comprises of two bars, one upstairs by the balcony and one in the basement. We tried the upstairs bar initially but the bar was so crowded and again so bloody noisy that we scurried down to the basement bar as quick as flash. I’d also noted that upstairs there wasn’t a single cask beer on sale; it was all bottles and keg. Downstairs there was the huge choice of one single beer, Ginger Bear from the aptly named Beartown Brewery. As I checked the beer in on the Untappd site I commented, “Great Beer, Vile Pub” – why vile I hear you ask? Obviously you don’t go to Covent Garden and expect to find it empty, but I wasn’t prepared for the hordes of tourists and crowds of office workers that had also decided to spend a Friday evening there. So the Punch and Judy obviously doesn’t have to look very hard or do much to attract their drinking footfall so why of earth at one of the most tourist trapping pubs, in the capital of Great Britain are they only selling one British Beer? And not only just one beer, but a very un-regular beer at that, I mean wean the uninitiated in on something standard like London Pride, don’t give them ginger flavoured beer as a start point! As we perched outside, trying our best to escape the crush, I noted a table full of Italians sit down next to us, they all ordered Stella Artois……………how sad that when not in Rome they’d chosen to do what every non-thinking drinker does, and how sad that this pub doesn’t seem to want to invest in promoting and trying to change these closed minds. On a positive note, the barman was good enough to hold the Cask Marque certificate for us to scan from its position behind the bar, but that’s about the only good point I can think of.

We were just finishing the drinks and were planning to make our way to what should have been the first pub on the list, the Lamb and Flag in Rose Street when who should appear but Sybil and the supplier guy. By the looks of it the one absinthe had turned into a vat of absinthe and both of them had been swimming in the stuff. Sybil at least was putting on an act of trying to look sober but the supplier guy was rocking and reeling all over the shop in a quite frightening fashion.

Anyway off we went to Rose Street and needless to say the journey which couldn’t have been more than 200 metres saw us all get split up and lost. I found myself with Buddy Rob trying to use the Cask Finder app to locate the pub when we heard a voice from behind us cry out “Where you going then, are you lost?” It was a shabbily dressed guy with a goatee and a t-shirt that announced him as “Direction Guy “ – “We’re trying to get to Rose Street” I told him. “Oh yeah, the Lamb and Flag” he replied with an amazing sixth sense of what we were going to do when we got there. “Follow me!” he yelled and strode off. “5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – there, Rose Street!” he yelled and by George, he was right. I dipped in my pocket and handed him a slack load of change for his troubles. “Another bloody pound” he muttered “I’ve just had one of those” and grumbling he disappeared. It turned out the “other one of those” he’d got was from Charlie who’d also taken advantage of Direction Guy’s services just moments before hand.

As we also slowly gathered together again we realised we’d lost two soldiers in action. No-Nickname Michael had sloped off perhaps trying to avoid what was looking like a soon to be messy evening and Sybil had also ran off for the hills. The supplier guy was still there, physically at least but perhaps not in spirit. He’d also gained a Chairman Mao type peaked cap which was explained by Charlie who told us he’d taken a rough tumble on the way to the pub and had cut his head open!

The pub, and a lovely traditional boozer at that, was another superb Fuller’s place and Buddy Rob had secured me a pint of Red Fox and himself a bottle of proper Budvar Budweiser (“Wow, Rob, back onto the proper Bud?” asked Charlie “Are you enjoying it?” – “No” was the answer) before fleeing the crowded bar and leaving Spiky haired Ed to get the rest of the round.

A very suprised looking Charlie. Note Buddy Rob's proper Bud in hand.

 

Still raining all the people who would normally be stood outside had come inside leaving us crouching beneath the last corner of the outside awning. There wasn’t a chance of getting the scan in such a melee although I did manage to ask a barman about “Cask Marque, mate, you know the thing for your beers!” but from his reaction I could have just asked him if he wanted to go for a rumba in the cellar. So Aussie Pete made me pose in the rain for a photo to prove to Trevor that we did visit and add the scan from Cask Marque HQ.

Look Trevor, we were there honest!

 

It was at this point that we lost the supplier guy…………..last seen weaving down towards Charring Cross. I wonder if he made it home?

The next pub on the list was The White Lion in Floral Street, so it was back through the rain soaked streets of Covent Garden and the welcoming lights of this Nicholsons Pub. It was certainly a very smart place and the pint of Brain’s Jack Black Oatmeal Stout was superb although the barmaid, who must have only just started working there, trying to pass it off with the biggest head I’ve ever seen on a pint. Luckily there was a colleague on hand to help out and thinking that this guy might know a thing or two about beers Aussie Pete asked where the certificate was. Again we were met with blank looks as if we were talking Chinese. He asked the manager for us whose reaction was unexpected to say the least. He whirled around looking as if we’d just taken a dump on his floor and demanded to know how long we were going to be in the pub. Eh, what on earth has that got to do with it? He then said it was in the office and he’d go and get it in a minute but his whole attitude was one of real irritation that a customer had asked for something. He then went to the end of the bar and proceeded to have a conversation with a couple of guys completely ignoring us. When I approached again to remind him, he disappeared and was instantly “too busy” to help. I can only say what an absolutely disappointing way to treat paying customers and this little rubbish Phil Mitchell lookalike should really think about how he wants to be thought of. The word I have at the moment is “belligerent” and I’ll be telling the folks at Nicholsons exactly that.

Spiky haired Ed and BGC wonder why the White Lion bothers with Cask Marque

 

So with another non-scan (Oh Trevor……..?) and Charlie scarpering complete with new brolly to the cinema, it was just the four of use who crossed over into Drury Lane and into the Prince of Wales. This is another Taylor Walker pub and was actually quite quiet for its location and Taylor Walkers fondness for blaring music. They also had a much better beer range…….take note Mr Punch and Mrs Judy. I ordered a pint of Twaites Crafty Devil and asked the barmaid if she knew where the certificate was.

Now do you know that character from Family Guy, Consuela  the Latino maid who always answers “no” in the most lackadaisical fashion? Well it was like having a conversation with her! We finally established that the certificate was in the office because there was something wrong with it but there was no way she was going to get it for us.

“Oh, come on, we only need it for the scan”

“………………………………………..no.”

“Please, we’d be really chuffed.”

“………………………………………..no.”

“But we’re on a mission and Aussie Pete needs it for his T-Shirt”

“………………………………………..no.”

And on and on it went like this. Aussie Pete then asked the manageress herself who told a slightly different story in that it was in the office but it would take at least two days to find it. Why aren’t these places proud of these awards? If I was running one, I’d have it framed and up where everyone could see, if fact I’d direct them to it even if they weren’t scanning.

So I’m afraid Trevor, for the third time tonight, it’s over to you……………”

Aussie Pete was now desperate for this final Cask Ale Week scan so although we’d done all the four planned pubs, we decided to make our way further east to Great Queen Street and the fantastically named HerculesPillars. Waiting inside as if he knew we were coming was a huge smiling barman who seemed delighted to serve us. Aussie Pete almost yelped with excitement as he saw the certificate (framed and where everyone could see) behind the bar. The barman jokingly tried to prise it off the wall but it was fixed firmly there, but he was only too happy to take phones from Aussie Pete, Spiky haired Ed and myself to get the scans. One pint of absolutely delectable Sambrook’sPowerhouse Porter later and I was falling in love with this place. Aussie Pete was starving by now and suggested we eat, I was only too happy to comply and we took the barman’s (who we now knew as Joseph) advice and plumped for a very non-paleo spaghetti carbonara.

Aussie Pete scores the beer 72?

 

I then noted that the Young’s Bitter (I think?) had run out so what did the pub do? They placed a little sign on the tap which read that it needed changing and that there would be a light delay whilst the lines were cleaned……………I mean how much better could this place get? Well to answer that, all it took was a pint of Truman’s Swallow and Swift served in a traditional pint jug. We then played a game of “guess the nationality” with the barmaids, who thankfully seemed happy enough to play along with us 4 slurring idiots before I rounded off the visit by treating everyone to a bottle of Orval, explaining to Spiky haired Ed how each and every grain was blessed by monks (shhh, don’t tell him otherwise. It would be like telling a 5 year old Father Xmas doesn’t exist).

BGC and Aussie Pete toast Joseph. Joseph gives the tour the thumbs up!

 

Aussie Pete had let slip to our new best friend Joseph that I was blogging about our visits and he pressed upon me his business card, wanting to know where he could find the blog. Well I’m afraid Joseph that no sooner had we left the pub but I lost the card. I don’t know where it went, but all I know is by the time we reached the nearby Shakespeares Head I’d lost it. I hope the mail I sent you does reach you and all I can say is we truly enjoyed the visit and promise to be back at some point. Maybe to present you with a best pub on the Monopoly Tour award because anywhere else we go will have to do a heck of a lot of work to beat your performance tonight!

So as previously mentioned we staggered in the style of four supplier guys over to the Shakespeares Head which we nearly missed as the frontage was covered in scaffolding. This was a large open plan Weatherspoons but the certificate was easily found and the pint of the self-brewed EdwinTaylor’s Extra Stout was on the mark as well. I’m not sure how it all happened but the final thing I remember was grabbing hold of some poor innocent young Korean chap and forcing him to do the Gangnam Style dance with me. For an even more unfathomable reason he seemed only to happy to join in, although this could have simply been fear of course in case this crowd of mad crazy middle aged oldies (not you Ed) turned really deranged.

You will dance when ordered to! Note Cask Marque certificate in back ground!

 

But that said it was probably a very apt way to end what has to be the most mad crazy visit of the tour so far. Cheers to all those lovely people who made it so memorable! Now where’s Trevor’s email address…………………….

I have no idea who took this for us.

 

Number of Cask Marque Pubs visited = 87

Got a Cask Marque Certificate? = Then put it up!

Got an attitude problem with your customers? = Then go and do a non-customer facing job. Shepherd perhaps?

Next Stop = Community Chest #2

Whitehall

Before we launch into today’s exciting and much awaited blog I need to report some even more thrilling news. On Tuesday this week, I received an email from “Sam”, an executive from a PR company on behalf of Cask Marque themselves. Their question, would I like to be interviewed with the view to a press release about the Ale Trail and Cask Finder and my Monopoly Blog………..! Well would I? Would I ever Trevor!

So it was with an immense frisson of excitement that I rang Sam today, betting of course on the fact that everyone who works in PR is bound to be female and Sam was sure to be a young, nubile, beer loving girly who might have a kink for slightly overweight bespectacled ale fetishists. “Hello, this is Sam,” resonated the mellow baritone timbre of someone who could definitely not be female……ah, never mind. Sam turned out to be a delightfully friendly chap who none the less grilled me mercilessly about the motivation of the Monopoly trail making me question my own sanity and whether I need to get out more. (I do, but there again that’s what the trail is all about!) And of course piled on the pressure for tonight’s episode which I promised him would be complete by tomorrow. So, Sam! This one’s dedicated to you!

BGC gets into the spirit of Whitehall

But pressure aside, I was very much looking forward to doing the Whitehall square as for starters it’s an interesting street. Running from Trafalgar Square to Parliament Square it has numerous places of interest along its length including Downing Street, the Cenotaph and Horse Guards Parade. The two pubs I’d identified were at the Trafalgar Square end and were also exactly opposite each other which promised to make it a trouble free visit. On the south side was the Taylor Walker pub of the Silver Cross and on the north side was Weatherspoon’s grandly named Lord Moon of the Mall.

The usual gang of suspects were rounded up (in fact they didn’t need rounding up, they were all gagging for an excuse for a pint!) and we were all delighted to discover that Spiky haired Ed’s social diary was completely blank and he was willing to forgo the sexual education of Beckenham’s single women and join us gang of old sweats on the trail once more.

BGC on the south side of Whitehall about to enter the Silver Cross. Note Nelson in the background.

Alighting at Embankment station, where Charlie had promised we could take a short cut up to Whitehall, I was surprised to see we were actually walking up Northumberland Avenue, i.e. the next square on the board. The possibility of another “double-square” visit was on the cards and as we entered the Silver Sword I told the boys of this idea. But was well and truly slapped down as they all decried the idea saying that we would lose out on another excuse for a visit if we did it that way! Well blow me down! They are actually enjoying this!

My love of real ale must also be rubbing off on them all as 3 of them followed my lead in ordering pints of Thwaite’s Wainwright ale leaving just Rob sucking on his usual bottle of Bud and Spiky haired Ed on a pint of Stella Black – Stella Black? What’s that all about then? For a start, it’s not black and tastes just like normal Stella. Or am I missing the point? The only redeeming feature is that it did come in a nice stemmed glass.

By popular demand: L to R - Charlie, Aussie Pete, BGC, New Guy Mickey, Spiky haired (and limp wristed) Ed - Blurred photo copywrite of Rob

The Cask Marque certificate was propped ideally behind the bar but when I asked the barmaid if she could bring it nearer so I could scan it, I might as well have spoken my request without using any vowels so perplexed was her frown at what I had said. I explained further about what Cask Marque was and the frown turned to downright panic as she obviously thought that a crowd of imbeciles had descended on her pub and were trying to have their wicked way with her. It was then I had a flash of inspiration as I realised I had my Cask Marque 25 scan bottle opener with me and proudly presented said item as prove of the Ale Trail and my own sanity. It did the trick anyway and Aussie Pete and I took the scan without any further trouble or a restraining order.

The visit lengthened into two pints as I tried the AdnamsBroadside whilst the manly drinkers stayed with Wainwright (Ed and Rob still on Pina Coladas) and we all commented how the pub was a real oasis of calm when one considered that the mayhem of Trafalgar Square was just yards away.

BGC on the north side of Whitehall about to enter the Lord Moon. Note Nelson in the background.

We then safely crossed the road (looking at you Ed) to the Lord Moon of the Mall, a much bigger, and very typically Weatherspoon’s looking pub with “fantastic windows” as noted by Aussie Pete. Once again I seem to have been nominated as beer picker as everyone followed my lead of a pint of DanishDynamite from Stonehenge Brewery. It was then that Ed came out with a real pearl of wisdom by asking, “Danish Dynamite, is that like a German beer?” but to be honest he had a point. Although the beer was nice, very nice in fact, quite exactly what was Danish about it escaped me anyway.

So there we have it, two pubs, two scans, job done………….or so we thought until Charlie, with very obviously the scent of the barmaid’s apron in his nostrils suggested that Whitehall was such an interesting street we should walk the complete length of it and venture down to the far end. I knew there was another Cask Marque pub at the Parliament Square end, namely the RedLion but had thought it was rather a hike away. But I’m glad to say that Charlie’s wisdom shone through and we easily fitted in another couple of pints at this fine Fuller’s pub.

It was here that I (and Aussie Pete) had a Cask Finder breakthrough moment as we persuaded both Spiky haired Ed and new guy Mickey to download the Cask Finder app and pop their Cask Marque cherries by scanning the Red Lion. Well done guys, only 99 more to go!

As we left the Red Lion to catch the tube at Westminster I was coerced into another photo call outside the pub, it was then I suffered my second “famous moment” of the day as a gang of merry night-outers gate crashed the photo. “What you lot up to then?” asked one of the slurring revellers. Sensing an opportunity for more blog traffic I handed one of the girls one of my BGC business cards telling her that the blog would be up tomorrow and they’d be mentioned. Now I’m sure I heard one of them say “Oh, so you’re the Beer Glass Collector!” in a voice of awe and wonderment but I must admit it could equally have been more along the lines of “Beer Glasses? WTF?” but it rounded off a most satisfying evening and my first taste of public life. Ah…………anything for my public!

BGC and some random strangers outside the Red Lion - Blurred photo copywrite of Charlie.

Number of Cask Marque Pubs visited = 60

Sir Robert Peel? Well, would you? = Ed would.

First Great Western? = Well they were on time enough to get me back for The Last Leg anyway.

Next Stop = Northumberland Avenue (again)

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

The Angel Islington

Oh weep ye gentlewomen of England! Clutch your creased posters of the modern day Adonis to your hearts, wrent you clothing and claw at your haggard faces! Spiky haired Ed is no more!

Torn all too early from us, we are cast adrift in this living purgatory without a stylistic rudder to guide us! And all because he tried to cross the road looking the wrong way!

OK, ok, panic over, tissues away, he’s not dead. But he bloody nearly was!

Now that this blog is gaining something of a reputation at work, probably the wrong sort of reputation, there was a group of co-workers who were gagging to join me on the next instalment of this epic saga, which is why I’ve ended up doing two squares in one week. It was a group of 5 of us who strode boldly out on a pleasant Friday evening to sample the delights of The Angel Islington. But first we need to take a history lesson.

BGC points out to Charlie the orginal "Angel" - Rare picture of Spiky haired Ed in the middle of the road not being hit by traffic.

The Angel, of Islington fame, was a coaching inn near to a toll gate on the Great North Road and now finds itself smack bang in the middle of modern day Islington. It’s gone through a couple of rebuilds over the years but the inn that was built in 1899 is still there, seeing life in the 1920’s, 30’s, 40’s and 50’s as the famous Lyon’s Corner House tea rooms and is now used as a bank. This place was mentioned in Dickens’s Oliver Twist no less and is also the first square on the board where I’ve managed to drink a pint right on the location itself, because although banks don’t serve pints, Weatherspoon’s do, and next door to the “old” Angel is a pub, called amazingly enough “The Angel”.

So emerging blinking into the evening sunshine we exited from Angel tube station (pub facts: Angel tube station has the longest escalator on the London Underground and the third longest in Western Europe (thanks Charlie) and is also one of only 5 stations on the Underground named after public houses – no prizes if you can guess the rest) and Spiky haired Ed must have been blinking more than the rest of us and he dashed to cross the busy Islington High Street, looking in completely the wrong direction only to be bounced by a couple of tons of Big Red London Bus. Saved only by the amount of hair gel protecting his precious face he nonchalantly continued to the cash point leaving the rest of us to joke with the bus driver who remained amazingly humorous considering the circumstances.

Couple of Angels

The Angel (the Weatherspoon’s one) is another open plan, pine floored, drinking cavern but it does have some of the friendliest bar staff ever. Being unable to locate the Cask Marque certificate I asked the manager where it might be, this caused him to leap batman like into action by racing around the pub, scanning the walls like he was searching for a hidden panel, only to also come up blank. He was then told by another member of staff that the certificate was up “in the office” and so off he went again returning with the treasured item allowing Aussie Pete and myself to scan it, explaining how it had been on the wall but had got knocked off and the frame smashed (what are the chances of that happening?) Now in how many other places would the reply have been, “it was around somewhere mate but dunno where it is now”! So top marks for the Angel’s staff, and also top marks for the couple of excellent pints of Cotswold Spring’s Stunner and Thornbridge’s Jaipur.

It was back to the history book then, as during my research into the Angel (the Islington one now) it mentioned the Red Lion Inn, (now the Old Red Lion) as being the place where Thomas Paine wrote some parts of “Rights of Man”.  The Inn is now a theatre pub and lies just across the crossroads from the Angel – rather confusingly the pub sign shows a picture of a boxer dog rather than a lion, but the pub’s website explains this as being Rolo, a much missed pub dog. The website also gives a full listing of what’s on in their upstairs theatre as well as mentioning that it welcomes “Monopoly Crawlers”!

Catalog pose on entering the Old Red Lion

The pub is a real mishmash of styles, with a glass panelled snug, the theatre box office and big screen teles all vying for position in the bar area. There’s a chirpy familiarity about the place that makes you feel like everyone would know your name after just a couple of regular visits.

For my first pint I plumped for the classic Timothy Taylor’s Landlord which came in a Abbot Ale glass and Charlie’s three pints of Grolsh (not all for Charlie (well not yet anyway) came in Carling Glasses (Grrrrrr). Again being unable to locate the Cask Marque certificate the bar staff finally found it under the bar – “ah, I remember what happened now” said one “It got knocked off the wall and the frame smashed” – What are the chances………..eh?

The evening then started to unravel into hilarious visits to the unlit toilets and much joviality around the fact that upstairs there was a performance of a one-man Tommy Cooper tribute show. “I wonder if he’ll do it like that?” mused Rob “Or perhaps, not like that, but like this?” and the mileage we seemed to get out of this joke went on far far too long. Far too long………………..

I remember a pint of Abbot Ale (served in a Woodforde’s glass) and trying Ed’s awful sickly sweet Kopparberg (served in another Abbot Ale glass) a pint of Spitfire (served in a branded thimble possibly) and a final pint (that should have been a half – thanks Charlie) of Landlord (served in a Landlord glass! Horay, got there in the end!)

Which brought the evening to a fitting end, a dash back down the longest escalator on the tube (luckily not like this guy) a race onto the just departing train from Paddington and a sprint round the monstrosity that is Reading Station. Cheers guys! Top evening!

Number of Cask Marque Pubs visited = 42

Highlight of the evening = The barman in the Old Red Lion bemoaning that the picture of David Beckham pinned up to advertise the Olympic Football had had the C-Word scrawled across it after being there for about 10 minutes.

Final Pub Fact = The licensees for the Monopoly board game used to meet for tea in the Lyon’s Corner House (see above) which explains why it was included in the game. So there!

Next Stop = Chance?