Favourite places to drink (part three)

In 1979 I spent a few months living in a squat in the East End of London.

We knew some people already living in the area and they pointed out a boarded up terraced house. After ripping off the boards we had ourselves a house. And it was free.

I think it was one of these houses

Admittedly, it wasn't perfect. There was a reason the house was unoccupied: the roof leaked. In several places. Just as well we moved in during the summer, when it was dry.

Best was that we had one bedroom as a rehearsal room. A drum kit and a couple of amps. How many happy hours we spent jamming away. Matt on drums, me on bass, Tym or Piers on guitar.

There were quite a few pubs in the area. One we drank in quite a bit was a Truman's pub on Devons Road, the Tenterden. It had a slightly odd, but old interior. Truman had been keg only for years, but had released a cask beer, Tap Bitter, a couple of years earlier. The Tenterden stocked it, but I wasn't mad keen.

Looking at the OG, I'm guessing that it was a cask version of their Keg Bitter. Both were around 1039º. I found mixing it with a bottle of Guinness produced something more to my taste. Guinness at the time, being bottle-conditioned, was a cracking drink. But a bit too pricey to drink straight.

There was only one Good Beer Guide listed pub in the area, The Little Driver on Bow Road. A Bass Charrington house, which sold Draught Bass. At the time still brewed in unions. I used to wander down there from time to time with Simon, who I knew from both school and university.

I realise now blending was a bit of a theme for me back then. Because I didn't drink the Bass straight. I'd mix it with a bottle of White Shield. Just to add some extra oomph.  The Bass was a perfectly acceptable drink straight.

Me and Matt worked in an arms factory close to Old Street tube. I can't imagine there's any manufacturing industry left around there now. We'd sometimes drop by the George & Vulture at lunchtime. A traditional Fullers pub. Where I first grew to love London Pride.

I didn't linger long in the East. As the summer came to a close and the rains arrived, the house became uninhabitable. And I moved back to Leeds.



The Little Driver
125 Bow Rd, Bow,
London E3 2AN.



The George & Vulture
63 Pitfield St,
Hoxton,
London N1 6BU.
http://www.georgeandvulture.com/

Dresden yet again

After we got back into the city centre, we looked in vain for somewhere else to drink.

We soon gave up and resorted to the hotel bar. It's difficult to describe the atmosphere of an Interhotel bar to someone who never esperienced it. A bit like a 1960's estate pub, but without the charm. This particular one only sold bottled beer.

Obviously, being an Interhotel, it didn't sell just any old stuff. Oh no. It had the DDR's posh export beer: Wernesgrüner Pilsner. It might not have been the perfect circumstances for my first taste of the beer. After several days drowning myself from the inside out with top-class Czech Lager, Wernesgrüner was a big disappointment. I wasn't impressed.

I've had it once or twice since. And I'm still not impressed. Give me some of the DDR-period Thuringian beer any day of the week. Far better stuff, most of it. Despite not being all-malt like Wernesgrüne. Just goes to show what a false sign of qualityan all-malt grist is.

Dresden again

dresden was the first place in the DDR I ever visited. On a trip that started in Czechoslovakia then slipped over the border.

I wasn't impressed. After a few days in the beery heaven of Prague, Dresden was more like a wasteland. The city centre didn't seem to have any pubs. In depseration, me and Matt jumped onto tram in search of somewhere for a beer. Eventually we spotted a building with "Gaststätte" on it. We quickly jumped off and were rewarded with draught beer.

I wasn't that impressed with the city, either. A cityscape with all the grace and charm of past-war Birmingham.

Not sure about Feldschlösschen's logo. Don't think you could use that today.

Dresden with Matt

DDR label fun, with a vague personal twist.

You should be getting the idea. I've a long trip coming up and a effing load of posts to write.

My first experience of DDR fun, was with Matt. University friend.

I enjoyed Leipzig more than Dresden.

Priest in a pub

Another image from the Cornishman, sometime in the 1950's. Do you think He pulled any pints while he was stood there?

Benny Hill says . . .

An advert from the Cornishman of April 7th 1955:

Here's what the beer was actually like:

Hammerton Stout

Year

Brewer

Beer

Style

Price

size

package

Acidity

FG

OG

Colour

ABV

Attenu-ation

1960

Watney

Hammerton's Stout

Stout

15d

half pint

bottled

0.05

1019.9

1046.8

375

3.47

57.48%

Source: Whitbread Gravity Book

Pretty sweet, judging by the feeble degree of attenuation. Much like the man himself.




Thanks to Matt for the image.

All the young punks

I was at Leed University in 1976. The release of the first Ramones album that year was a pivotal moment in my life.

Listening to the Ramones turned right up to 11 on the balcony of my student flat in North Hill Court is one of my strongest memories of that year. Maybe it's the guilt. I should have been studying for my first year exams. Or maybe it's the home-brewed iced Mild we were drinking as Blitzkrieg Bop stormed from the speakers. Who knows.

A few months later the Ramones the Ramones played Leeds Poly. A whole bunch of us went along. Me, my brother, Pete, Matt, Tym. We started the evening in the Eldon. A Tetley's pub, like most others in Leeds. Several pints of Tetley Mild got us nicely warmed up for the evenings fun. They might have played just 50 minutes, but they crammed in almost as many songs.

Over the next 10 months I saw most of the punk greats - The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Damned, The Jam - and culled my record collection. I've never looked back. Never returned to the pretension of progressive rock. And what was the beery accompaniment to all things punk? Mild. Tetley Mild.

Mild: beer for punks.





The arrow marks the spot where the iced Mild was drunk:

Matt, Lucas

Matt was over to stay at the weekend. It's always great to see him. For many reasons. Not only smugness. There's a bit of genuine affection. I've only known my brother and Henry longer.

Matt stayed with us twice on this trip. Once on his way to Vollenhove and again on the way back. (I'd have given him the Stout to try, but there's been none around for ages.) Old friends have a tendency to dwell on the past. Not me and Matt. We didn't go further back than the shed night*. That was only three and a bit years ago. The same day as my first archive visit.

He mostly spoke about the philosophy of history. I think that's what it was. It wasn't the history of philosophy, I'm sure about that. Very abstract stuff. In return, I expounded my theory of beer style evolution. We know each other well enough that he didn't bother feigning much interest.

Saturday, I had a party to take him to. Lucas's birthday. (I bought him stainless steel saucepans as a present.) Thankfully, it didn't end too late. Getting home with both ankles intact is always a relief.

Lucas calling on Sunday morning was a surprise. "Can I bring around an Al Murray video for Mike to borrow?" "Sure. What about a pub visit?" Matt had requested one pub visit during his time in Mokum. Unwaged, as often, too many Amsterdam nights out would soon, as so many rats, eat away his small pile of euros.

"Let's go to the pub by the bridge." I suggested. "Do you mean Ter Brugge, or the small one?" Lucas replied. "The posh one." "OK". Matt, as so often, said nothing. Couldn't have any objections, then.

"Can I come, dad?" "Only if you don't whinge, Lexie."

The yuppie pub by the bridge isn't a long walk. I'd name it, except that I won't. Another one of my things. It's a beery-ish pub. Maybe forty in total, across bottled and draught. Filliers jenever is on the menu, too.

"I'll have a witbier" Lucas said. "Whatever you're having." was Matt's tradition-true response. "Can I have cake?" You can probably guess who said that. His name starts in an a and ends in a lexie.

Over the years, I've learned a few things about luring the kids into pubs. Laying a trail of sweets is number 1. Much less trouble than number 2: giving them my full attention. I bought five Belgian bonbons. (I told you it was posh.) Five euros is a small price to pay for fifteen minutes peace.

We didn't drink quickly enough. I was barely three sips into La Chouffe number two when Lexie said "Can we go home now?" "You wanted to come." "Dad, finish your beer." Lexie tried to forcefeed me Chouffe. One bonbon more bought me enough time to finish my beer in relative peace.

Lucas cycled off to happy hour at the Hell's Angels bar. We strolled back home. "Tell me more about Slovenian philosphers." I said to Matt, as I drifted into my Sunday afternoon doze. I awoke in time to catch the last 25 minutes of Polizeiruf.



*When, at the 50th birthday party of other university friends, Matt and I had to sleep in the shed. That's telling you your place.

Pub - work

Here's part two of the work pub interface. At least as experienced by one fat old bloke. You would have got it all in one chunk, but Stonch called me out on one of my numbers posts yesterday. "Why not write some more travel reports?" I could have just said "because I haven't been chuffing travelling recently." Then I remembered: the past is a foreign country. Let's do some travelling there.

I was already past the passage where Lexie tells me to bugger off to my computer when I noticed Stonch's comment. Two blogs, indeed. Diversity is the name of the game here. And I'm never going to fill a blog with amusing stuff. The numbers occupy the spaces left by my intermittent imagination. The stories of my kids help me through the days when I can't face statistics. Well it makes sense to me.

Where was I? Pissing it up during and after work. That was my theme. See where interrupting me gets you, Stonch? Just delays the fun bits. Whatever they might be.


Arms Factory, Shoreditch, May - July 1979.
While I was living in a squat with just about everyone I knew, I got a job at an arms factory. Well, not just me, me and Matt. I can't for the life or me remember the company's name. But it made the boxes for anti-aircraft missiles and doors for warships.


George and Vulture
63 Pitfield St,
London, N1.

We often ate our lunch (me and Matt) in the little park opposite the George and Vulture (still one of my favourite pub names). Occasionally we'd nip in for a quick pint of Pride. A few years later, Piers worked behind the bar.


Bricklayers Arms,
63 Charlotte Rd,
London, EC2A.

I think this is the right pub. It was a specialist real ale place. I can well remember one lunchtime session there. We only got 30 minutes. And it was a 3 or 4 minute walk to the Bricklayers. One Friday they had Fuller's Hock on. I manged to sink 5 in 20 minutes. That's still a dinnertime record for me.

Work - Pub

I've just finished explaining the form, function and fine etiquette of trolling down the pub from work to Lexie. He stopped making eye contact and concentrated on his pasta before I even got to past Legal & General.

"Go away and do what you have to do on the computer."

"What?"

"Before I count to three."

"You want me to go on the computer?"

"One . . . .two . . . two and a half . . . ."

That's when I started typing. After two and a half. The discovery of a lifetime, afternoon, er, somewhere inbetween. How to get peace while I type. Bore the eyebrows off everyone. Boring done, we can continue.

When half of Lexxie's left eyebrow had dissolved, a thought struck me a glancing blow. "Why not write about the work pub dynamic?" Loads of pseudo-sociological stuff and dim recollections of postprandial pissups as padding. Tastobrillic.

The customs surrounding drinking in conjunction with work are as varied as some incredibly varied thing. (Five minutes is long enough to try thinking up a good simile. I'll use the Blackadder defence.)

I've worked in a few towns and a few countries. Nowhere, in my experience, matches Britain, and in particular London, in its dedication to pissing it up down the boozer during or after work. Lloyd George - bastard - put paid to pre-work pub fun.

Here's an overview of my work/boozer experience:

West Yorkshire Passenger Transit, Leeds, 1979
Every Friday, after we got our paypackets everyone went to the Highland Laddie. Considering me a middle-class ponce, my Tetley's Mild drinking abilities were unexpected. Three or four pints in 25 minutes.

Legal & General, Surrey, 1983-1984
A dream job, in a way. My first employment as a programmer. The canteen had a licensed bar. And they had cask beer. And it was cheaper than in a pub. The food wasn't bad, either. On a side note, it's where my career as IT professional began. But they had a bar in the canteen! With good, cheap beer!

That wasn't good enough. Friday lunch, everyone went down the pub. Restraint isn't my middle name. I'm more a get two pints and a couple of double short in on last orders type of bloke. I found my colleagues a bit overenthusiastic. Office work tempered my thirst: three pints in an hour.



Oh dear. I forgot about London. When I worked in the arms factory in 1978. Shit. I didn't want to mention that. You'll think I'm a nazi. What the hell. It's a good tale. And involves Matt. I'll tell you tomorrow. Promise.

The DDR with Matt

I first visited the DDR in, I believe, 1984 [11.04.1984 according to the visa stamp]. With Matt. We'd forgotten about the unsavoury incident in St Sebastian station (the closest I've come to a fight in my adult life) and were travelling together again.

The trip was quite complicated. We first went by train to Prague and then continued on to Dresden and Leipzig. I'd already visited Prague and had a good idea what to expect there. The DDR was virgin territory.

It was no surprise to discover that much of Dresden city centre had been rebuilt after the war. War criminal Bomber Harris's fault. The firebombing of Dresden was one of the most senseless and inexcusable acts of the British military during WW II. Harris deserved to be in the dock with Göring in Nuremberg. We were staying in an Interhotel on the main drag, a street almost as soulless as the centre of Frankfurt. It was a tall, concrete box with all the charm of Swindon bus station.

Our first task was to find somewhere to have a drink. I didn't expect it to be quite as a difficult as it turned out. My only experience with the Eastern block was Prague. Finding a pub in Prague (or anywhere else in Czechoslovakia) wasn't exactly a challenge. They were on almost every street corner. Dresden was very different. Perhaps the chief planner had been a teetotaller. There seemed to be zero pubs. We resorted to asking passersby "Wo ist eine Kneipe?". We got plenty of weird looks, but no directions.

Eventually we found somewhere promising: a large cellar beerhall. We had to stand and wait in a queue at the entrance because, in typical DDR fashion, there were no free seats. There were plenty of empty seats, but they were all at tables decorated with a "reserved" sign. They hadn't been reserved, of course. These were just the tables the staff couldn't be arsed to serve. Matt insisted on going straight to the bogs for a shit. While he was doing his unspeakable business, some people who had come in after us were given seats. When Matt finally emerged we had a good deal more waiting to do.

It looked very promising. I could see them serving a lovely-looking dark lager. Brilliant. I was staring to get a real thirst. That first pint was going to be so sweet. After quite a bit more waiting, we were shown to a table. My order was easy: "Zwei Bier, bitte". "What do you want, Matt?" (I could have said "Do you want a beer, Matt?" Despite knowing him for more than 30 years, I still find that funny.) My joy was short-lived. The waiter informed us that they stopped serving beer at 14:00. It was 14:05. Triple bugger.

Rather ungallantly, I blamed Matt and his shit for missing out on a memorable beer experience. Come to think of it, my resentment is still simmering just below the surface. Why else would I remember the incident so well after all this time?

More frustrating exploration confirmed the city centre as a disaster zone, pub-wise. Time for plan B. We decided to try the outskirts. Jumping on the first tram we saw, we frantically scanned the passing streets for a boozer. "Gaststätte - that means pub, doesn't it?" We jumped off and took a closer look. It certainly looked like a pub from the outside. We entered. It looked like a pub inside, too. It wasn't even that crowded. (Getting a seat immediately in a DDR pub was a rare event.) A half-litre of a beer-like substance was soon sitting on the table in front of me. I relaxed for the first time that day.

That evening, we took the easy option and drank in the hotel bar. Bottled Pilsner Urquell or Wernesgrüner. After one of the latter, I stuck with the Czech beer. Wernesgrüner never impressed me, even though it was supposedly better-quality than most other DDR beers. I always preferred either Thüringian beer - Mühlhausener Pilsator was a great beer - or Berlin beer. Sternquell in Plauen brewed a good Pilsator, too. (Pilsator was a style specific to the DDR. Brewed from better quality ingredients than the standard Pils and actually - unlike 99.99999% of Pilsners - quite similar to Pilsner Urquell in flavour profile.

Type	OG	FG	app. attenuation	ABW	hop gm/hl	colour EBC	CO2
Deutsches Pilsator	12.5° -13.3°	2.75° (max)	min. 78%	3.8 - 4.5%	300	max 12.2	0.40%

[At this point, in my speedily-written original (no time to check anything too technical) it said ******* ADD SOME TECHNICAL STUFF ABOUT PILSATOR. *********. The table above is that information. The columns don't line up. I know that. I'm not stupid. But to fix it would take too long. The kids want psycho slasher game. It shouldn't be too much of a challenge to your intelligence to work it out. A pencil and paper should suffice.]

The next day we tried our luck across the Elbe in Dresden-Neustadt. This part of town mostly survived the war. It wasn't much more heavily-pubbed than the other side of the river. We did, however, find a kiosk with a few outdoor standing tables clustered around it. Here we drank bottled beer and looked out over the Elbe. I'll tell you what reminds me of it very much. Have you ever seen Tatort? The episodes set In Cologne feature a similar kiosk with a view over the Rhine to the Dom. The two detectives go there and drink Kölsch a several times every episode. Sadly, it isn't real. The kiosk is only there for filming. Shame. I wonder what happened to the one in Dresden?

After two nights in Dresden, we took the train to Leipzig, hoping it would be better for pubs. Well, I was hoping that. Who knows what goes on in Matt's mind. I gave up wondering about that years ago. We were staying in another charmless Interhotel. That must have been their mission statement: to provide non-socialist foreigners with adequate acomodation in an ugly building at a slightly unreasonable price.

Leipzig wasn't quite as severely rearranged by the RAF as Dresden, though there were still plenty of ugly holes in the city centre. My mind is a strange place. I couldn't tell you what I ate for breakfast the day before yesterday, yet I could lead you to the Leipzig pubs we drank in. At least their locations. I don't think they're all still pubs.

The first place was a pub/restaurant behind the Town Hall. As usual, we had to queue for a seat. We'd been travelling for 6 or 7 days by then and Matt's conversation was even more sparse than usual. So I started reading the book I'd brought with me. After about three pages the waitress came past, spotted my book and told me to stop reading. I'm not quite sure why. Maybe she'd been taught as a child that it was impolite to read at the dining table. Or perhaps whe was just being weird. Or power-crazed. You didn't argue with the staff in Eastern Europe if you wanted to drink another beer sometime in the next week. I put my book away.

The next day, we stumbled on a pub not far from the station. "Since 1982" a sign proudly proclaimed. See, things were getting better. Once we'd got our beers, Matt decided he wanted to buy a momento of the DDR and disappeared into the department store opposite. I wish I could remember what he bought. It was bound to have been something weird, pointless, tacky or all three. I was happy enough just having a seat and a beer. No way I was going to move, short of nuclear war.

That was it for my first visit to the DDR. I've returned to Leipzig several times, but never to Dresden. Surely there must be more pubs there now? (This pub guide seems to confirm that. I hope the author knows what he's talking about.)

this time it really was Leeuwaarden

I still had one 10 euro Blokker train ticket left.

"Where do you want to go this time lads?"

Alexei: "Middelburg", Andrew: "Leeuwaarden".

"Leeuwaarden it is then. I've already been to Middelburg."

Long train journeys have become much more relaxing since Alexei got a PSP for christmas. Money well spent. The train was packed. "Why are all these people going to Leeuwaarden?", I thought. As it turned out, they weren't. Going to Leeuwaarden, I mean. All was revealed when the train stopped on the outskirts of Heerenveen. At Heerenveen Ijsstadion. Aaah - that explains it. Some skating competition had filled the train. If I were Dutch, I probably would have realised it was on. But I'm English and have almost as much interest in skating as in Zoroastrianism. No, that's not true. I am slightly intrigued by Zoroastrianism.

It was raining when we arrived. A leaden low sky and persistent drizzle make a town look its best, I always feel. Where is everyone? More importantly, why are all the pubs shut?

Did I tell you about my Dutch Pub Guide? When Tim Webb pulled The Netherlands from his guide, I put together a web replacement. How generous of me. Well, not really. It's for my use. I like to have a few leads when I arrive in a new town. The Leeuwaarden section isn't long. Almost 3 entries, it has. We headed for entry number one.

Dikke Van Dale had everything going for it: it was open, heated and dry. Perfect. Dad was in need of warming up. Like so many of the trendier cafes in Holland, its beer-buying hands are securely tied by Inbev. Westmalle Dubbel and a Korenwijn, maybe? Oh look at that - Hertog Jan Grand Prestige on draught. That'll do.

You know those dismal fake Victorian interiors you find in Britih pubs? Van Dale has a classier version. It must have something to do with the way I was brought up, but I find something disturbing about fake books used as decoration. They're almost as bad as fake handpumps.

I like to have a cultural destination planned when I drag the kids off. In Leeuwaarden, it was the Natuurmuseum Fryslân. Skeletons are good entertainment for the kids. I left the kids to wander and sought out the cafeteria. What, no beer? Aaaaagggghh.

According to my highly accurate guide, Strohoed (Leeuwaarden's only real beer pub) didn't open until three. At 15:05 I was staring at its locked door. What's that sign in the window say? Bum. Another 55 minutes to wait.

Finding somewhere to wait out those minutes wasn't easy. It was raining again. We ended up in somewhere that looked more like a tearoom. Westmalle Tripel - that'll do nicely.

Here are my notes:

"Strohoed - a long, thin pub in a typically Dutch pubby style. (My powers of description had been washed away by all the rain.) Andrew is whinging. What's wrong with him? I bought them Vice City for the PSP. Miserable gits. No, I shouldn't be unfair, Alexei is being quite reasonable. Andrew complains that his knees are hurting. They will be soon, when I take a hammer to them.

Reasonable enough brown beer café. Piano. Upright. Whingeing effing kids spoiling my 5 minutes in the real beer pub. Standard day out.

Last night I dreamt that I lost my coat and had to borrow Matt's. It was crap. Didn't keep the wind out. Fascinating, eh?"

warm piss

Piss. We all have it. In its natural, fresh state it's always warm. That's the easiest way of telling if the lager bottle you're drinking from has been weed into. Anything above room temperature, I would pass on.

Only once, many years ago, have I been confronted with a penis-refilled bottle. I know who was to blame: Matt. Luckily, I realised what had happened after just three mouthfuls. Perhaps the sick grin on his face tipped me off. It couldn't have been the smell, because, as we all know, drinking straight from the bottle kills the aroma.

A party in Leeds is where it took place. Matt and me were terrible party crashers. "Were you invited?" "No. You're really lucky we came." That was another party. Matt threw up and then covered his pool of sick with a rug. Happy days.

Warm piss or cold piss? Which is better? Room temperature and not too heavy on the bubbles, that's how I like it. So either let the Bavaria Pils warm up or Matt's piss cool down. That's my advice.

Matt

My mate Matt rang last night. He said he'd been reading my blog. "A good insomnia cure" was his verdict. Thanks Matt. It's good to get an honest opinion every now and again.

In October 1975, I drank my very first pint of Tetley's Mild with Matt in the Pack Horse in Leeds. It was the a beginning of a beautiful and lasting friendship. Matt and I have kept in touch, too.

My first taste of Belgian beer was in Matt's company. A bottle of Gouden Carolus that we'd bought in Prisunic on Cour Alsace-Lorraine in Bordeaux. We were living hand to mouth, relying the odd English conversation class to buy the bread, onions and wine we subsisted on. When my tax refund arrived, we splashed out on a sausage and a bottle of Belgian beer. Happy days. Being half-starved and penniless is such fun. Afterwards, that is. When it's become a good story to tell the grandkids.

Of the three breweries whose archives I pore over, Truman's is the only one whose beer I ever tried. Me, Matt, Simon and Tym were living in a squat in Swaton Road in the East End. Just around the corner on Devons Road was a Truman's pub, the Tenterden Arms. It was a well-preserved old boozer that even sold cask beer. Truman's something or other. I can't remember exactly what it was called. Their first cask beer for many years, when they were still a bit tentative about moving away from keg. It wasn't great. I used to mix it with bottled Guinness to get something half decent. I've always been a fussy drinker. Matt wasn't so bothered. He drank the Truman's straight.

About this time, I drank my first Courage Russian Stout (hah! I finally worked in a Barclay Perkins connection). It was in a grotty Courage tied house on the Roman Road. They didn't sell cask beer, but they did have Russian Stout. I can't remember if Matt was with me. He could have been. He was usually hanging around somewhere in the background during the important events in my life.

We last met almost a year ago, at the Argyll Arms, just around the back of Oxford Circus. It's a smashing pub, with all the partitioning intact. The Victorians certainly liked drinking in intimate surroundings. Most of the rooms won't seat more than half a dozen people. I was fresh from an archive visit. My tales from the crypt entranced him almost as much as my blog. I stopped when I saw his eyelids starting to drop. I didn't want him spilling his pint and getting us thrown out.

Later that evening, we were at a surprise birthday party for another university friend. In an odd reversal of custom, the party wasn't a surprise for the birthday boy, but for me and Matt. It turned out to be a memorable night. Though not for the usual reasons. I'm not going to bore you with the full story (I have my numbers to do that job). Matt and I ended up sharing a shed for the night. I've slept in some funny places before, but never in a shed. Now I think about it, it's no surprise that Matt was along for this first, too.