Nothing like overselling a blogpost in the title, is there. You’ll get no “Golden Pints” nonsense here, this is a pub blog.
As is traditional now, I celebrate completion of a Beer Guide county with a lovely bit of pink highlighting.
Simon will be delighted to know that, in contrast to the Plough & Sail, my last tick here is a pleasant stroll from the station.
Just make sure you carry on to Southend East, home of Mawson’s micro pub, and wonder why there has never been a Beer Guide pub in Shoeburyness*.
I know someone who lives here so I’ll watch what I say. I‘m not going to call east Southend a beer desert,
but if you miss Mawson’s you end up at a Greene King Flaming Grill. It’s hard to miss.
And if you arrive at the High School for Girls you’ve walked too far.
Hopefully he can spot a micro a mile off, looking like the chippy you really wanted.
You know what it will look like by now, don’t you ?
It does, at least, have bench seating of a type against the wall, and pleasingly Mrs RM heads there rather than the high seats. She was brought up well in Kent.
Mawson’s is one of those modern micros with a scary beer range, quirky decor and a good mix of locals, so it’s a winner on that basis alone.
But, really, how does my ancient brain deal with all this;
I bought Mrs RM the local Georges (well-kept homebrew) so we could have a legitimate tick, then noticed everyone else having a scary thick liquid from the keg machine. I sought advice.
“Dark Star Crème Brulee, it’s gorgeous !”
So it should be at £3.25 a half. I’ve had too much Sam Smiths at £2 a pint recently.
Mrs RM had found the bench seating with space invaders on the table. There were no controls.
She sank the crème brulee, grumbled about odd beer flavours, and then gave a withering assessment of the pub. And the beer mats.
“That’s a chimpanzee not a monkey ! And it’s not blue !”
The lady in the window was reading out a round robin Christmas letter from a relative. Slowly and deliberately. Almost as if she thought I was BRAPA.
For a moment I thought Mrs RM was going to go over and tell her to shut it, and wondered how I might restrain her. But she was just searching for her phone.
I dragged her out before she turned her attention to the (empty) vodka bottles.
*Is Shoeburyness a real place or just a Billy Bragg lyric ?
retiredmartin 
And what about the beer? I expect a detailed, but brief, description of the beer in a Good Beer Guide Pub? ‘Well kept home-brew’ is insufficient. Or are you just being very polite and avoiding the obvious? Go on, say it … say what you really want to say. It was crap wasn’t it?
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Makes a change from reading out the entire contents of the menu to her companions 😉
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Give it 20 years….
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Another top post …GK flaming grills are hit and miss depends if new build or adapted old boozer I reckon…Mrs RM warming up for Christmas 🍺🍺
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A New England 2017. Your pub ticking efforts deserve better.
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“And if you arrive at the High School for Girls you’ve walked too far.”
That, depends. 🙂
“Hopefully he can spot a micro a mile off, looking like the chippy you really wanted.”
After seeing ‘chippy’ in the sentence right after ‘High School for Girls’ I don’t know what to say!*
“Mrs RM had found the bench seating with space invaders on the table. There were no controls.”
I was going to point out that first photo shows Donkey Kong but in the second photo it is indeed now Space Invaders. Did the screen just rotate through different old arcade games?
And as for the price of the bottles, I guess shouldn’t complain too much about over here. I see the Chimay Rouge is £5.20. I can get a bottle of Chimay Blue over here (which is the 9% as opposed to the 7% Red) for about a pound less.
Cheers
* – http://onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-definition-of/chippy
(third definition) 😉
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Thanks Russ. (I think). Yes, I think those tables just showed rotating games but I wasn’t looking THAT closely !
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Not unless they’re amphibians from outer space – the second one is Frogger.
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Shoeburyness spoons, despite being in ASDA car park, is lovely, so fingers crossed you get a trip next year…!
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It has a Spoons ! In an ASDA car park ! Must visit.
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