As this winter drags on and on, one place of solace ought to be the pub. Excellent beer, a cheery welcome and a warm fug of heat as you enter, makes the winter blues dissipate somewhat does it not? One problem I have found recently though in that otherwise cheerful picture I've drawn, is that far too many pubs are at the moment, not to put too fine a point on it, bloody freezing.
On Saturday, our trip to Magic Rock having taken the knock due to appalling weather, a brave band of us went for a few pints in Manchester. It wasn't all plain sailing. On one of the coldest days of the year, it wouldn't be unfair to say that two well known pubs in the Northern Quarter, both in the Rochdale Road area, were as cold as a sheep on Arran.
Times is hard I know and fuel bloody expensive, but you don't go to the pub as an endurance test. A small coal fire in one room will not heat a large pub on a very cold day. This really is a case of speculating to accumulate, because customers will simply not sit about drinking beer when the temperature inside would make a yak shiver.
Put another couple of pennies on a pint - I don't care - but heat the pub up please.
It has to be said that the three, shall we say, less traditional pubs we visited, were lovely and warm. Even if the beer was icy.
Are you sure you're not just nesh? Old codgers feel the cold more and all that.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, it's far from unknown to find pubs heated to ridiculously tropical levels - Wetherspoon's Kingfisher in Poynton recently springs to mind.
ReplyDeleteRather have heat than cold. Any day.
ReplyDeleteWent in youre local yesterday it was like a fidge it was warmer outside
DeleteHere here!
ReplyDelete"it's far from unknown to find pubs heated to ridiculously tropical levels"
ReplyDeleteSomething I addressed in my column back in February 1998.
Yesterday I joined with friends from Maidstone CAMRA on their annual Good Friday Ramble. The pub we stopped off at was, shall we say, quirky but boy was it cold!
ReplyDeleteWith no food of any description, (fortunately we had been warned about this and had brought packed lunches along with us), and precious little in the way of heating (one samll open fire where most of the heat disappeared up the chimney), the place wasn't exactly welcoming. With tempertures outside hovering just a few degrees above freezing, things ween't much better in the pub. I was glad to leave. as at least one can keep warm whilst moving about.
It amazes me as to how such places manage to stay in business, and I for one will NOT be returning!
I don't like sitting in a pub wearing my coat. In the Vernon in Liverpool on 20 March, I was drinking with some friends, and the pub had the nearby door wedged open. The Vernon is otherwise a good pub, but that is just stupid.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you think I wasn't there? I agree. It has been like a fridge recently.
ReplyDeleteI'd certainly agree that inappropriate wedging open of doors can be a problem. Bar staff often don't realise that it's warmer behind the bar than in the rest of the pub.
ReplyDeleteLikewise people who when they're about the depart stand for five minutes gassing with their mates holding the door open.