NO CASK AT DOVER PORT

The internet is rubbish down in Dover, so here’s a short post courtesy of Spoons WiFi. My mushroom benedict in the Eight Bells is the blue dot below.

We’re in Dover for our One Day Only heatwave, and a night of what the kids call “metal core” in a new venue converted from the old Booking Office to give the youth of the town something to do other than sketch the White Cliffs. Or whatever.

Stagediving teens not shown

Headliner are Movements from California, who inspire much moshing and stagediving from what Matthew describes as “a bunch of kids“. He’s 17.

It’s certainly a young crowd. There’s hardly any takers for the cans of Bud (craft !), 1664 and Strongbow, and I resist asking if they’ve hidden any Beavertown away for me. At the door ID cards are checked and most lads and lasses get a wristband indicating “too young to drink“.

I sneak out between acts for a half at the nearest pub.

Finding it is half the fun

The Cinque Ports is at the heart of the docks, only accessible via a flyover I have to climb up to in the dark.

Lovely Whitbread livery

Looks cosy, heh ? Bit like the World’s End at Tilbury Docks.

Standing only

A typical town pub, no food trade, and two unused hand pumps. Probably just as well, I decide.

A stunning craft keg choice, mind.

Fosters the connoisseurs choice

A half (sorry) of Fosters, £1.75. Better than the Rifle Drum, and cold.

I’m the only one not standing at the bar, discussing Strictly, domestic disputes, and undercooked broccoli at the GBBF.

In ten minutes I get the classics. Tainted Love, Town Called Malice, Pearl’s A Singer. I doubt it got beyond 1982.

I get up to go, and realise my elbow is stuck to the table. Then I try to exit from the locked door. BRAPA style embarrassment.

“Bye” someone shouts. Everybody hates a tourist.

Back to the stagediving teens.

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Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

29 thoughts on “NO CASK AT DOVER PORT”

  2. Yes, the battle for cask ale is lost. Undoubtedly, most ‘average’ pub goers in ‘average’ ‘everyday’ pubs these days prefer keg pilsner variants, occasionally Guinness, but hardly ever cask. And these are the sort of people who go out to the pub for many sessions throughout the week. The sad legacy of decades of landlords and landladies who couldn’t be bothered or didn’t know how.

    Like an old Gadgie said to me once when I was deciding which beer to have – Get some of that John’s Smooth lad, wherever you go it never varies.

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    1. Sadly that’s about right.
      My neighbour happened to be in my nearest pub at tea time yesterday, was on the Cobra lager and commented “You’ve got to drink lager in here”. The Banks’s Amber Bitter was actually in good condition but he wasn’t to know that. He had enjoyed the Wye Valley HPA in a Punch pub in town that afternoon so obviously prefers cask but, understandably, doesn’t want to risk a duff pint.

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      1. I think that’s the top and bottom of it Paul. Over the years generations have been stung with a dodgy pint too many times so the collective mind set goes towards avoidance and preference of something that might not actually be as good, but, at risk of repeating myself, as the old lad said to me in Scarbro’ – it never varies lad.

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      2. I realize the history is quite different, but in our more basic bars lagers win because of “they’re less filling” and “lower calorie.” Obviously we have no cask tradition to lose, but I am curious how many of the lager drinkers have reasons other than quality. One guy in Winchester said to us “I like bubbles.”

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      6. If I’m really honest, the Amber in the Banks’s gem in Worcester was “good enough” without being a patch on Wolves, and I couldn’t imagine passing it to a non-cask drinker and saying “Try this !”.

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    2. You’re right. I still say John’s on cask in South Yorkshire was one of the best sessions beers ever, but then CAMRA started promoting all that guest beer nonsense and along came smoking bans and cask died.

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      1. What about John’s in cask across the road from me? Legendary, like many other pubs in the area (All Enterprise or whatever they are calling themselves now) It only trundled 3 miles from the brewery. Sadly not the same anymore (like many other beers) and they haven’t had it on for years now – everyone drinks Leeds Pale instead.

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      2. I probably see John’s in cask twice a year in somewhere near Pontefract or Hyde. Last pint I had in Gee Cross, Manc I scored NBSS 4. Superbly rich and malty, same transformation as that Doom Bar. What can it mean ?

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      3. Bitterer than Doom Bar. And I’d kill for a pint of cask Magnet.

        I’m just setting off to walk to Bramham for a pint of OBB – Sir Humphrey sacked the landlord of the Old Star last week, you know the one who you met. It’s closed at the minute.

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      6. Richard,
        But being brewed just three miles away counts for nothing if it’s an Enterprise or Punch pub.
        Just about the angriest I’ve ever known a publican to be was in the Vaults at Uttoxeter a few weeks after it had passed from Bass Charrington to Punch. instead of his Draught Bass being delivered direct from Burton a few miles away it spent a while at whatever temperature it was outside in a distribution depot half way across the Midlands – and then the man from Punch seeing three weeks supply of Bass (conditioning) in the cellar assumed he was on the fiddle.

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      8. Richard,
        Yes, I don’t doubt that.
        The Smith family empire have NEVER sold any land or property since the 18th century and Humphrey’s not short of a bob or two now.
        Older followers of this blog might remember Harold Macmillan saying “The sale of assets is common with individuals and states when they run into financial difficulties. First, all the Georgian silver goes, and then all that nice furniture that used to be in the saloon. Then the Canalettos go.” and look what’s happened to this country since Thatcher sold off whatever she could – having got the idea from Ted Heath selling the off the Carlisle Brewery and its pubs.

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  3. So is “The Cinque Ports” in the GBG ? It is presumably full of hardened CAMRA members is a major topic of conversation is “…undercooked broccoli at the GBBF”.

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      2. To be fair they were perfectly welcoming, but you always feel a bit out-of-place when you’re popping in a locals pub for a quick half and aren’t going to join in the banter. A perfectly good boozer. Dover does stand out compared to Folkestone or Deal though.

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      3. But you’d think they’d want to benefit from the passing trade – several pints of proper beer as it’ll be the last for a while then several pints of proper beer as there’s only been eurofizz for a while.

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      4. The music venue (capacity 200) only has occasional events, is half a mile out of town along a dark road, and the pub takes some finding ! I’d be interested to go back in ten years and see if the lagers are exactly the same, as only that Guinness one will have been added in the last 20 years.

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      5. And twenty years from now you check if the Fosters is any better in the Rifle Drum, and report what ‘bargains’ are being offered !

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