Month: February 2021

20/02/2021

So, no midweek beery adventure this week. We’re making up for it by taking the illegality up a notch. Today’s drinking den is a place which is normally a café, but we’re reappropriating it. 

The café at the end of the stone jetty is a building I have had my eye on for a while. It would make a tremendous micro pub. It’s an amazing location, just far enough away from the promenade to keep away the lager stragglers, but still only a five-minute walk from the bus and train station. I had ideas about an electric golf cart that could transport customers during bad weather. It has a small kitchen for simple seafood dishes. Salty dried squid torn into strips, dipped into go-chu-jang and mayonnaise, is a fantastic beer snack.

Anyway, none of that today. I’ve got some cans of Gin and Bitter Orange from ALDI to drink whilst painting. It’s a west coast IPA substitute that’s easier on the bladder until the toilet is accessible.

Dave arrives with the key, and we’re quickly into some cans of Hoppy Pale from Seven Brothers Brewery that I picked up from the new Co-op. Then some Easy IPA from the same people.

Side note: maybe it’s a Covid hangover, but I keep having to have Strongbow palate cleansers after hop forward beers; my whole olfactory system is an alleyway of soggy cardboard.

Stout time, and it’s a Morrison’s purchase. A Costa Rican Coffee Extra Porter by Buxton Brewery. Extra porter, not extra coffee, which is fine by me. Maybe a little sweet? Talking of sweet, next up is Black Custard from Team Toxic, a lactose vanilla porter. Needs more custard, but not bad. Now back to the Pales, again from Buxton, their Axe Edge which is a pretty decent beer, but lacking a bitter finish. More Tinderbox from Fell, but this is bottled, and a little flat. I have another can of Gin & Tonic to perk it up, and then it’s back to the stouts. Breakfast Can Wait from Pomona Island is a fine finish; big, yet balanced flavours, and then it’s time to go!

Where Next? Thinking caps on, chaps.

13/02/2021

Got a ‘phone call from Dave this morning. He’s got a cask of something red and hoppy from the local brewery. I can’t stay long, I want to get back for the rugby.

There’s a barn in one of the fields by the green lane that winds muddily from the canal, down to the railway track. On the walk there, behind Happy Mount Park and alongside the back of the golf club, I notice a small concrete shed amongst the trees that crown the hill. A possible drinking den?

I’m just finishing my painting, when Dave arrives with a load of his friends. We access the barn, and there’s the cask; it’s covered in old, wet, Fuller’s London Pride bar towels.

“We better not be drinking that shite!” says one of Dave’s mates.

We nod, and guffaw in a Northern accent.

I have a couple of pints, and chat with Dave about where we’re going next. He winks at me,

“I’ll give you a ring, Monday morning!”

 

Cheers, Dave!

10/02/2021

‘And all her paints are dry…’

Well mine aren’t. I was listening to Jane’s Addiction on my phone, thinking about the drizzle. It was barely more than damp air, but it was waiting, waiting for me to get my sketchbook out. Today’s drinking den was the old Bubbles toilets. The promenade entrance doors were caged and inaccessible, but the lower level access hid two large store rooms. One would make a perfect cellar, the other perhaps a small kitchen, and toilets? I was post-covid pub thinking. The installation of a spiral staircase behind the fictional bar would join the upper and lower halves. Split at the bottom like a mermaid tail.

Aaaaanyway…

I take a chance on the weather and complete a small painting of the upper level of the old toilets. The installation of windows would at least get rid of that mural.

Dave and the others arrive about two o’clock, and we prize the lock away from the crumbling brick, opening the large metal door. Inside is a council workshop, rusting cans of WD40 cover the sideboard. We push them to the far corner and our bottles and cans take their place.

There’s Harbour Brewing, Northern Monk, a few different BrewDogs. We start with a four pack of draught Guinness. Smooth, easy drinking, head-ache inducing draught Guinness. Next a BrewDog Overworks sour to awaken the senses, harbour Big Wednesday IPA, I’ve got a container of cask Tinderbox from Fell, and Northern Monk Norse Star Impy Stout. Thornbridge North Bridge is shared out, then a Vault City Honeyberry Sour. We finish with a Stars & Stripes from Northern Monk; it’s okay. Needs more jam, needs more peanut butter. I’m left thinking about that bottle of Yellow Belly on the top of the till in the Little Bare. Ah well!