What Would You Have Done?

 I wrote sometime ago about the relatively recent phenomenon of queuing at the bar.  You know the kind of thing, standing in a line rather than joining a general scrum in front of the bar. Proper pub behaviour, in other words.

On return from our week in Spain, we decided to stay a couple of days in London.  We'd flown from the fab London City Airport, which was way cheaper for similar times than flying from Manchester, and comparatively a lot easier to get to given our London flat is dead handy for the Docklands Light Railway.  The landing at London City is quite an experience, and I'd recommend it, but I digress. Once we'd settled down and sorted this and that out, a pint seemed, as it usually does, an excellent idea. 

We had returned to rather pleasant weather, so cheerily set off, me still in shorts and a tee shirt. Our destination, as it almost always is, was the excellent Aldgate Tap.  OK, it is a bit modern, but I know the manager (and the owner) and it is well run and with, for London, decent prices and excellent German beer.  It is set in a square with a fountain, lots of outside seating and, being London, standing room too, but we always sit inside to avoid the inevitable smokers and now, vapers.  The pub - well a bar really if truth be known - has rather a small actual bar - probably not much more than 10 feet (ca. 3 m) long -  with all dispense being from taps on the wall. There are no fonts or pumps on the bar itself.  We walked straight to the bar, like you do, chose our beers and found a comfy low level seat - as I get older, and with my new knee, I don't really enjoy the high perch of bar stools quite so much.

The manager came over for a chat, and we sat happily afterwards with minds in neutral, just passing the odd remark.  Three quarters through our drinks, I asked E if she wanted another. Be prepared and all that. She replied in the affirmative and then said something I wasn't expecting. "You might have a bit of a wait - have you seen the queue?"  Somehow I hadn't noticed, but a queue had spontaneously formed and was now snaking out of the pub itself and well into the square. It was work chucking out time, a warm and sunny day, and the queue was being extended before our eyes as more punters joined it. I was taken aback.  This was a dilemma I wasn't expecting.  I watched and though the bar staff were making valiant efforts, the line was not diminishing. It would clearly take some time to get to the front of it, and our glasses were nearly empty.

Now, as I wrote in my earlier piece, I don't approve of queues in pubs, but this one had been organised by the customers and the dozens of people were patiently waiting their turn. E asked if we should go somewhere else, but that seemed like a defeat. Now if it had been a long traditional bar, I'd likely have just ignored the queue and walked straight to the bar, but that was totally impractical here. The bar isn't big enough.

With a heavy heart and great reluctance, I walked out of the pub and joined the tail end of the queue. The British penchant for queuing had, on this occasion at least, beaten me into conformance. Thankfully, by the time we had our third and final drink, the queue had gone. 

I am relieved that in my previous piece, I didn't nail my colours too firmly to the mast. Do circumstances alter cases? I think so, but I didn't feel great about my compliance with it.

It should also be mentioned that there are usually two good cask beers on offer at a touch under a fiver a pint. Not so common in central London these days.