I agreed to meet Pete at the Commercial Rooms at twelvish. Geoff gave me a lift down to Bristol. Thank you very much Geoff. So after a quick look around a couple of music shops I made my way to the the farmers market in Corn Street to purchase a pie. This route meant that I had to pass the Commercial Rooms. The place was full to the rafters. Customers three deep at the bar and nowhere to sit. On then to the pie staff. The pieman was missing yet again so I had to rely on the attentions of another staff holder. I asked for a PM pie but neither the helpful lady stall holder nor I could find one. So I settled for a Moo pie seems to be the same ingredients as the PM less the kidney. I will find out later when I scoff my lunch. I meet Pete as he walked through the market and told him of the chaos within Weatherspoons. So it was off to find a substitute pub and some real ale.
We found the King William Ale House in King Street. On entering we noticed that there were not any hand pumps. So I asked the bar maid if the beers were cask conditioned. She said yes so we opted for two pints of Old Brewery Bitter 4%. The beer was served with a massive head so we asked for the glasses to be topped up. After being asked if we wanted a flat pint there was a little bit of muttering but the glasses were topped up. Now, the taste of this brew was not too bad. However, it was extremely gassy and if we had realised that the beer was brewed by Samuel Smith we would have walked out without ordering any beer. So after a few moans and finishing our pints we struck out afresh for another pub. Found the Old Duke also in King Street. We opted for a pint of Doombar 4%. However, this beer was also not up to scratch. We just couldn't put our finger on it but there was something not quite right with this beer. So we drank up and fell back on one of our old favourites, The Shakespeare Tavern where we order a pint of 3 Speckled Hens. However (there are a lot of howevers in this posting!) we got Old Speckled Hen 4.6% and very nice it was too. Especially in comparison with the beer we had already consumed. At the same time we order a portion of chips just to ward off the cold you understand. After about 20 minutes there was no sign of the chips so Pete made an enquiry at the bar. Aparently the bar maid had forgotton to place our order so we had to wait another 10 minutes or so. Lo, the chips arrived and shortly afterwards the barmaid brought us each a halp pint of Old Speckled Hen by way of any apology. Now why don't more businesses, pubs or otherwise, do this sort of thing. It costs a small amount of money but goes an extremely long way to keeping customers happy and more importantly keeps them coming back and spending their hard earned cash in you premises instead of someone elses. Ranting aside now.
Tonight is curry night. Watch this space.
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