Llandybie Pub No.2, and a total contrast to the gentlefolk-friendly Red Lion, two minutes and a dispensing chemist away.
The Ivy Bush is either a Beer Guide regular or they love those mid-2000s stickers as much as I do.
A dozen in, Old Boys and “tradesmen”, and a sight to delight the multi-pump hater.
Landlord in both GBG pubs ? It can only be the name, surely ?
I’m clearly the only cask drinker, though no-one seems to ostracise me completely.
I join the Carling man toasting his cool, consistent pint.
“Can I have a flake in that ?” he asks the (longstanding, I sense) landlady.
Continuing the theme, he whips out his keys to slice the cream off. I expected a Swiss army knife.
“Shall I take my top off” “No !“
I know how much you love my videos, so here’s 5 seconds of bubbling Burton best.
The Carling chums were great pub company, bemoaning a trip to Westminster for a wedding the week before that I sensed wasn’t a Royal occasion.
Yes, you may sense I’m rambling. The Landlord was not the pinnacle of the brewers art, but neither was it so bad I’d have taken it back, either here or in a Brunning & Price.
No pot plants to rescue me, but that’s what urinals are for, aren’t they. Beer tipping and a place to display our greatest puns.
How many CAMRA members have converted to Carling this year d’ya think ?
retiredmartin 
That’s a fairly heavy duty Landlord pumpclip, I’d assume it’s a regular beer from it.
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If it’s dodgy Landlord (sadly often is and I try not to drink it unless in a pub with a known track record) or Marston’s brand-a-like as in this pub then it’s Probably Guinness for me.
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That’s why you won’t die in your final GBG pub having ticked the Guide, Richard.
Think on that.
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?
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You’ll die in your 90s at Clifford beer fest having eaten 5 pies and drunk 5 gallons of Sunshine.
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If the Landlord is “dodgy” I expect it will have lost sales to the Wainwright which is Britain’s fastest growing golden ale having “experienced near double-digit growth for the last three years is determined to stay ahead of the consumer curve with ever changing demands and drinking habits”.
Now Wainwright is launching a chilled cask ale, Wainwright Altitude, but that won’t be for me as I consider over-chilled to be as bad as over-gassed, over-hopped or over-priced. However if pub goers want cold beer you can’t blame brewers, large or small, for brewing cold beer and Wainwright Altitude was “Coming soon” in the Woolpack at Weston near me two days ago.
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Interesting. Do you think there’s a change taking place among casual beer drinkers in England, with some desiring a colder temperature, even for cask, rather than the cellar-cool temperature that has traditionally been ideal?
I mean, I’d imagine the brewers are responding to some perceived preference on the part of customers, going to the trouble of putting out new products like that.
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Perhaps. I just don’t think cask beers like London Pride, Greene King IPA etc are consistent enough, however good the basic cellar management is.
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Definitely. Most drinkers these days expect a cooler drink (cf. the times when there was no cellar cooling and ambient temperature of cellar was much higher). I include myself here, there’s nothing worse than a pint of warm cask ale. Many die(nosaurs) hards would argue that over chilled beer loses it’s flavour. I would argue that it soon warms up and the flavour opens up, if its too cold, but if it’s warm in the glass then it’s been warm in the cellar and deteriorating quicker. I would contend a warm, flat pint has put more casual drinkers off cask ale than anything else.
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Spot on. Actually, temperatures weren’t the issue in Wales.
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Yes, the trend has been towards cooler drinks and it’s just as well that we’ve moved on from the time when “refrigeration is hardly justified unless the [public] house is a very profitable one”.
For me beer should be cool, not cold and not warm.
With a cold beer “it soon warms up and the flavour opens up” but at my age “soon” isn’t soon enough and I don’t have the patience for that.
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I seem to remember a campaigning organisation being set up a long time ago when mega brewers were trying to change the beer drinking landscape. You’ll probably know about it better than me Paul? Personally, I believe the cask ale market will survive and indeed thrive. It just pains me when so many CAMRA members appear to condone Marston’s and their continual manipulation, homogenisation and monopolisation of the real ale market. Amber tinted spectacles probably.
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Ooh, Amber. Lovely.
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The SPBW was before my time but I’ve known about it and I think it still exists.
As one who is more familiar with Marstons beers than most on here I don’t understand the “their continual manipulation, homogenisation and monopolisation of the real ale market”.
Offering products, whether cask beer or meals, that are what pub goers will buy is not MANIPULATION but is what every brewing and/or pub owning business needs to do to survive in a competitive market.
HOMOGENISATION isn’t what I’ve experienced with Marstons beers. They’ve not just stuck with their beers that were popular in the 1970s but branched out into all sorts of styles examples of which are Old Empire, which I like, and Marstons 61 Deep and Banks’s Sunbeam, which I don’t.
Marstons are no more capable of MONOPOLISATION than any other medium or large sized brewer and I’m not aware of anywhere, not ever Burton or Wolverhampton, where their pub ownership approaches anything like a monopoly.
You’re more optimistic than me about the cask ale market surviving and indeed thriving.
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I know the 2005 GBG cover is infamous but I always thought the 2004 one was worse, depicting as it does two blokes talking Bloke Stuff (beer, football or cars) while the woman makes a brave but ultimately doomed attempt to join in.
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Yes, blokey stuff should be grounds for immediate expulsion.
From something.
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Actually Bill, if it’s a CAMRA member he’s talking about undercooked broccoli for GBBG volunteers, members discounts and the new logos. So not so bad.
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Yes, maybe she’s the one trying to steer the conversation back to sensible things like beer, football and cars (and early 16th century Flemish portraiture obvs)
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Has Landlord started appearing in far more pubs? My sample size is rather small, but it seems much more common in the last two years or so especially in places quite distant from the brewery.
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Yes, seeing it quite a bit, in dining pubs, free houses and Pub Cos (even Greene King). I guess it’s well known and, like Adnams, associated with heritage and quality like Adnams/Harveys. Sadly, if it’s not conditioned before serving it’s rubbish. Was good in Apsley House in Southsea last month.
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When it is on I think it a truly great beer. I think that of Broadside and most Harveys too.
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But even more than us folk who use the Beer Guide, the Southworth adventures tend to focus on the acclaimed pubs (though you go off plan easy enough!)
Which makes perfect sense, go for the best, but I suspect you’re spared the worst of our slow moving cask 😉
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Reading your posts for about three years I sense a resignation that cask is slowly waning…a bit like newspapers… conversely I sense surviving pubs are as good as ever 😮
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That’s perhaps because Martin’s already done the cream of the crop, so very often he’s now getting the second or third helpings. I wonder how many new entries actually only last a year in the Guide.
If you visited the five- or ten-year entries you would, by and large, get a succession of excellent and usually thriving pubs.
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That’s spot on. If I was recommending pubs in towns they’d largely have been in the Guide for several years, or even out of the Guide.
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That is a very good point well made!!!!
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Agree on both counts.
On the other hand, cask may be slipping but keg like Punk IPA makes up for it.
And the welcome in pubs continues to be great 👌
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“Williams the chemist”
From his window displays it looks more like a book store.
“Ready -paint splattered clothes from Primark Swansea”
Judging by what’s on the table in front of the paint splattered bloke sitting down he needs extra large overalls to put all that in!
“I expected a Swiss army knife.”
I thought they were banned over there? Or is that only in London? 😉
“Yes, you may sense I’m rambling.”
Well of course you’re rambling; you’re in Wales. I thought they all went on the ramble around the picturesque countryside in Wales. 🙂
“How many CAMRA members have converted to Carling this year d’ya think ?”
Baby steps. Keg first surely?
Cheers
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Swiss army knives banned?
I thought they were neutral.
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