An interesting thing about the Wetherspoons beer festival is that it's being covered by pretty much all of the British bloggers, even those who have a self-imposed boycott of Tim Martin's pubs.
Normally when we blog about a festival or some beers we've sampled, however interesting it might be to us, our readers are not sharing the experience as they won't have been to the festival, and may not ever get to see the beers we write about.
In this instance though, we are (nearly) all going to Spoons on a daily basis and taking in the festival. It's great that a Northern blogger is drinking the same beer on the same day as a Southern blogger, and they are both writing about it. It's good fun reading about people's search for the Stone IIPA (which I've still not had), and, in my case, drooling over the description of how much they've enjoyed it.
So one thing the festival is doing is bringing us all together and making it feel like we are all drinking in the same boozer, and that's a really enjoyable experience.
17 comments:
If we're all drinking in the same boozer, that's presumably why it took me 20 minutes to get served in JDW's William Webb Ellis in Twickenham on Friday night ... and after all that the beer was mediocre anyway.
true, an online pint with someone can be almost as much fun as a real pint with someone... but it's still not enough to get me into a Wetherspoon's.
I wouldn't write them off completely, but I've got a lot of other pubs I'd rather go to first!
I've not been in on a daily basis and probably will only look in again to find the fabulous St Georgen Brau Keller Beer which is even better in cask form than it is at source in the brewery tap. I like your sentiment though and don't have the sniffy attitude of some towards JDW, but as I have pointed out, you have to pick and choose. As others have pointed out, an enthusiastic manager makes all the difference and it seems bad form to blanket punish the good with the bad.
Not trying some of the specially commissioned beers also seems to me to be taking principle too far, but if that's how you feel... well fine. Sort of. I'm trying hard not to be sniffy myself about that kind of thing, so I better shut up now.
Tandleman, maybe I'm just not a real beer lover!
Touchy!
I reckon going to Wetherspoons because they've done one interesting thing is like Angie taking Dirty Den back just because he's bought her some flowers. I want to see real proof that JDW is actually going to be a force for good and not evil before I cross the threshold. God knows I've been to enough of them in the past to make an educated decision on this front...
I rarely go into Spoons during normal times as the ones within reach of me are pretty poor or there's better pubs in town to drink in bearing in mind my liver ain't up to the biggest sessions in the World. But giving up on the chance to drink the Sheps/Stone beer is a big step to take.
I admire people's principles and wish I had more conviction with certain things myself, but a bloody good beer is worth crossing the line for.
To be fair, it's got nothing to do with principles -- we actually are just bloody minded!
Bailey - your sense of perspective seems awry - at least to judge by your Dirty Den and Angie example it is! And god and evil. They might not be much cop at JDW, but evil? Shome mishtake shurely?
Or even good and evil
So now I know what it takes to get a union official across a picket line. Just brew up a tasty beer on the inside, specially for the occasion!
"Strikebreaker Ale". Got a ring to it, that...
Make it Strikebreaker Imperial Stout and I'm tempted. As long as my disguise is foolproof!
I have long been a fan of Boak and Bailey but the cultural reference to Eastenders has just sealed it for me. I frequently do the same.
Today I threatened to drug my mate and bury him alive. He laughed it off, but what he doesn't know is that I'm not soft like Tanya. I'd sleep soundly while he suffocated.
Tandleman -- I mean evil as referenced in Google's mission statement: "don't be evil". Not in the Josef Mengele sense. Just a bit of rhetoric.
Stonch -- ta. I got my place at university partly by talking very excitedly about Eastenders. Best episode ever: Joe Absolom ties the bloke off Spandau Ballet to a chair in E20 and tortures him for 30 minutes. Although I don't really watch it much these days, if I'm honest.
I didn't even know there was a picket line!
Tandleman - see the next post!
Without a convenient Wetherspoons to visit I'm still missing out on the collective experience, resistance may be futile but the borg cube is currently not in my system.
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