Comments on: Tooled Up Froth Blowers, RALF and the Ring

By: Previously on Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog | Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog

Previously on Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog | Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 08:04:29 +0000

[...] Ancient Order of Froth Blowers and the Pub Users Preservation Society; the Real Ale Liberation Front; and the National Society for the Promotion of Pure [...]

By: Alan

Alan — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:20:09 +0000

“Winnington” however is pronounced “bicycle parts”.

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 10:26:50 +0000

Winn-ing-ton. Got it.

By: Bailey

Bailey — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 07:48:29 +0000

So, who’s in charge? Is there someone we can email? Did you get called Hector and do the ‘Ring out!’ bit and everything?

By: Bailey

Bailey — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 07:47:48 +0000

Ralph, I’d guess, but we’ll ask Mr Winnington if we hear from him.

By: Craig

Craig — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 22:41:26 +0000

Is RALF pronounced Ralph? As in “to ralph in the toilet”, or “Raif” as in Ralph Fiennes?

I’m American so I pronounce everything nasal-y.

By: BeerViking

BeerViking — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 21:29:03 +0000

The Ring is still going, there’s been well over 600 so far. I’ve been on a couple of them. It’s hard work – 12 halves if you do the lot – but surprisingly good fun, and you get to discover good pubs you’d never even have heard of otherwise.

By: Ian Worden

Ian Worden — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 21:14:50 +0000

The Ring did exist and is mentioned in the obituary of ‘Arry Hart in the December 2007 London Drinker – he was one of the (or the?) organisers. It is reproduced at http://camraswl.org.uk/obits.html. I had a little involvement in CAMRA SW London in the early 1980s and remember meeting ‘Arry – I think he was also a leading light in SPBW Wimbledon branch. The author of the obituary, Chris Cobbold, was Chairman of SW London branch for many years and would be worth contacting for your research. I haven’t seen him for years but he is on the British Guild of Beer Writers website.

By: Phil

Phil — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 19:51:43 +0000

It wouldn’t surprise me at all. When Easter was coming up a folkie of my acquaintance started going on about “doing the Mobberley Eight”, as a regular (traditional?) custom on Easter Monday. I thought it was going to be ringing the bells in eight different churches or something, but when I asked it turned out to be a pub crawl on bikes. Rules are strict: in the course of the day you visit each of eight pubs, scattered around Mobberley (which is pretty rural), and you drink a pint in each one. Halves, of course, are frowned upon, and the beer absolutely has to be real ale. Apparently one of the eight pubs has gone keg since they started doing it, so the rule is to take along a bottle of something ‘real’ and drink it on a bench outside. It all sounded very Frothblower.