Egon Ronay’s 1990 guide to pub and bar food is a fascinating read, having become something of a historical document.
For each pub he includes, he lists the beer available, and many of the brands have now disappeared: Ind Coope, Watneys, Charrington, Usher’s and Eldridge Pope crop up repeatedly. And whatever happened to Fuller’s K2 lager?
One the whole, things seemt to have improved. Even the best pubs in the 1990 edition seem to be there largely because they offered two real ales rather than one, and there was a lot of Webster’s Yorkshire Bitter on offer. The White Horse was rated as the best pub in London but, by current standards, sounds pretty run-of-the-mill.
But this passage from the introduction still rings true:
Have you ever walked into a pub full of people and immediately felt totally isolated? This can happen when most of the clientele already know each other and may have unwittingly sat in old Joe’s favourite chair by the fire. Fine if you are a member of the ‘club’ but not so pleasant if you are a stranger… On their travels, our inspectors are invariably strangers and gauge a pub on how well they are received and looked after as such. There is no point in recommending an otherwise lovely old inn somewhere in the wilds if visitors to the area are not going to feel welcome once inside.
7 replies on “Things have changed”
I had a pint of Ind Coope’s Burton Ale recently. Very nice too.
So did I.
Oh, yes — I remember reading that, now you remind me.
I think I recognise that Ushers sign from a pub near Salisbury station.
And you were at the Wyndham Arms.
I do hope you visited the Haunch of Venison and the Chough ( one of the interesting but as its name suggests hard to find Hidden Brewery Company pubs ) as I mentioned in my email to you all those months ago !
Salisbury is a lovely little market city and the perfect venue for a rail and ale day out especially if you live in the smoke.
Glad you had a good time.
We found the Egon Ronay guide on a shelf in the Haunch of Venison, and did indeed visit the Chough. Posts on those to follow!
I wasn’t aware things had been so bad so recently. I sort of assumed that real ale (or should I say real beer 🙂 had done better in the recent past in the UK, given that things aren’t really that great now. Interesting to see that in fact it’s the other way round.
Lars — even when I moved to London about 10 years ago, it was fairly common to find pubs that didn’t have any real ale on. Now, that’s very rare. So, on the whole, I think things are pretty good now. I certainly think we’re in a bit of a golden age for beer in the UK right now.
And, contrary to the view that ALL THE PUBS ARE CLOSING! we’ve noticed several interesting ones open in the last year or so.