Wednesday Again and Out and About

Done the usual and caught the number 42 bus to St Nichol's Farmers Market and purchased my usual Pieminister PM pie. Simon the pieman was there and the transaction went quickly. Made my way down to the Commercial Rooms and order a pint of Cottage Hornet 5%. This was after the three bar staff and only two customers managed yet again to completely ignore me and served some lady way out of turn. Ah well Weatherspoons when your profits start dropping and you can no longer afford to add new pubs or hotels to your already huge estate watch out. There are up and coming pubs who have taken your early model and making it their own. In several pubs recently I have noticed curry nights with a drink for between £5 and £6 and other promotions. These pubs have no televisions, music or children. Beware Weatherspoons you have been warned. OK rant over. The Hornet was a bit darker than what I was expecting but was not too bad. Pete joined me and after a bit of a chat we made our way to the Shakespeare Tavern for a pint of Old Speckled Hen 4.5%. I seem to remember that this beer was brewed quite a bit stronger in days gone by. However, the beer went down well as did the customary rants. We came to the conclusion that if the government were to employ Pete and I as advisers all the troubles presently faced by the country would be sorted out. We worked out a consultation fee which came to £1000 per day with real ale supplied. All we had to do was place some kind of voice recording device on our table and the record the rants. We would then post the tape, disc or whatever to the PM's office and await our cheque. Yesterday this sounded quite reasonable and affordable when you consider the 100's of millions of our tax money the government so wisely spends each year on useless consultants. We would do the same job and provide the same service for a fraction of 1% of the this huge annual bill. Sorry slipping into rant mode again.

So we drank up and pressed on to the Ostrich. This is a good old fashioned pub. We had a pint of Marstons Ashes Ale 4.1%. However, due to the lack of cask marque signs, any mention of real ale and the appearance and taste of the beer I can only conclude that this beer was not cask conditioned and will put it in the same league as John Smiths smooth. Although to be fair it tasted much better than that. I also do not agree with the tasting notes provided on the Marstons Guest Ale site. Not to be defeated and due to the lateness of the hour. We stayed put and had a pint of Brains Bitter 3.7%. Although this beer was a slight improvement on the Ashes Ale I cannot really recommend it. The Ostrich pub was, however, very nice and I expect we will revisit sometime in the future. Perhaps in the summer when it would nice to sit outside and look at the boats.

So it was a quick walk back to the Centre where my bus the good old number 42 was slowly pulling away from the bus stop. I was not close enough or sober enough to make a run for it so I had to wait. The next bus should have been the number 43. This did not turn up but 20 minutes later the number 42 put in an appearance so I boarded. A little nap and nearly 45 minutes later I arrived home to a huge steaming bowl of beef stew. Lovely and delicious. Thursday is curry night but before that I have a fermenting vessel to run off into a pressure barrel.