Back to Spoons, unfortunately.
Despite giving you the best of Pub Life like this;
they also seem to be serving up ale like this;
This is Dorchester. Hardly a real ale backwater, you’d have thought.
And the Royal Oak has made itself a GBG regular alongside the inevitable free house and micro.
It’s your average market town Spoons; part boozer, part coffee shop, part greasy spoon, part Day Care centre. Hi-Vis to the fore.
Seagulls in the garden compete with screaming babies and gentlefolk reading the breakfast menu, which they surely must know by heart by now.
It’s a GBG tick, so I have to try the cask at 10.30am. I should have had the Doom,of course, but that Elgoods Meerkat nonsense had been enlivening debate on what we call Beer Twitter, so I thought “Gosh, I’ll try a half !”.
Well, it was foul, a chilled vile mess (see top). Technically not NBSS 0 as that’s (bizarrely) what you score when you go in a Harvester to be amazed there’s no cask on, but the 0.5 was reluctant.
I took it straight back and did the whispered “I’m sorry, this one doesn’t taste quite right” line. Spoons never quibble, but of course they don’t ask you to identify whether it’s a brewing fault or a rat in the cellar for them. Or turn the pump clip well.
“What would you like instead ?”
“The Bitter” pointing to the Jennings. Staff know the beers by name rather than brewer
“Which one ?” turning all the clips round.
It was vile, undrinkable, with bits floating in the top (NBSS 1). It would put you off “real ale”, or at very least Elgoods and Jennings, for life.
But how many times can you take beer back in the same pub.
And some folk think that asking which beer is going fastest is wrong, you know.
Yes. I’ve scored the beer on WhatPub. What I’d love to know is, has anyone else ?
retiredmartin 
Ugh indeed,, how on earth do these places get GBG status?
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I presume that local CAMRA members had consistently good beer there throughout the year and no-one sent in any beer scores to the contrary.
I’ve no problem with the branch.
Could have been outrageous bad luck, of course. 😉
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I think it’s more like selective scoring, score the good stuff and can’t be bothered, or decide not to, score the bad.
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Interesting. Does that happen in your branch? I certainly have seen pubs with longstanding entries being given the benefit of the doubt over the odd bad beer score at a GBG selection meeting, and I suppose that’s fair enough.
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All I know is regarding my nearest branch The Prince Arthur in Fleet, I have had more poor pints than good as well as poor service, yet the local CAMRA bods on Farcebook (intended) rave about the place. To be fair I am not a regular as I don’t care for the Spoons model.
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Do the local CAMRAs rave about the beer quality or the variety of beers they’ve got in?
Looking back I scored an NBSS 3.5 there. Tellingly that’s the ONLY Fleet pub I’ve ever been in. If it wasn’t the Spoons there wouldn’t be an entry. Not that that’s a valid reason, of course.
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Spoons have their place, but I can’t believe why there’s so many of them in the guide.
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Simple answer is because they’re often the only reliable outlet for real ale in a town, particularly if you live in North West London, East London or Scotland.
And 10 years ago they were often the best place for a range of guest beers, if you like that sort of nonsense 😉
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The Blue Raddle and The Convivial Rabbit to follow?
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One of those, Roger!
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A few mornings ago in Brighton I flicked through Tim’s so called Wetherspoon News and in an article about how successful his business has been he wrote something like “we’re only as good as our next pint”.
So has Wetherspoons got a future ?
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Oh dear.
There’s a point at which something you remark on occasionally becomes the norm, and a duff pint in Spoons is becoming the norm.
Watch future Beer Guides to see if local branches see it like that.
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I somehow doubt that will be the case, the local branches seeing the reality that is.
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Jennings does go off at the drop of a hat, but what gets me is that these places seem to be fine with serving liquid foodstuffs that are off, but would launch a major enquiry if they served a rotten burger.
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I’m not very beery, and I’ll always put a duff pint down to plummeting cask turnover rather than a brewery fault.
The Landlord at the Royal Oak at Knaphill told me only a tiny percentage of barrels was faulty, and I believe that.
I’d also be surprised if the issue was rats in the cellar, though Spoons have had rodent issues.
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I went in here last year, but didn’t have an alcoholic drink as I was going on somewhere else. Dorchester isn’t really a great town for pubs overall.
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Having said that, on last week’s holiday, I had two pub lunches in Spoons, each washed down with a pint of Brains SA, which is one of my favourite beers. Nothng wrong with either, comfortably in NBS 2.5-3 terrtitory.
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And the two pints I had at Gatwick to begin and end my trip were both GBG3+. No problem with turnover there, of course.
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Well the last British beer for a week or two and everyone’s knocking back several pints resulting in Tim’s highest turnaround of casks and the beer drinking unusually well. .
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You may not have seen, Paul, but I had a Doom Bar at the Beehive at 3.30am during an enforced stopover at Gatwick on the way back.
I can see why it’s our nation’s favourite cask beer.
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I have been in a dozen Spoons in the last few months in different locations and barely had a decent beer. Some of it has been vinegar (in both GBG and non GBG pubs). Eye off the ball perhaps. 2.5 on the Camra scoring is middling but below average (due to the 0 meaning not available).
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See, folks, you can trust Duncan, even if you can’t trust me. Dorchester was the worst I’ve had in years.
And beer thats 2.5 might be “competently” kept but I’m unlikely to enjoy it, perhaps less so when there’s better non-cask options.
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I sometimes pop into The Royal Oak whilst Mrs JB spends lots of money in the excellent Frank Herring art and craft shop further up the road. Needs must. I am pleased to report that I have enjoyed consistently good beer quality, including a pint of Jaipur which was so good that I remember it from two years ago 🙂 That said, I’ve not experienced the place at 1030am. Dorchester always seems to have a rotating second rate pub in the beer guide, perhaps to make up numbers. I wonder which establishment currently has that accolade?
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There you go. I’m just unlucky.
Blue Raddle the regular, Rabbit the new micro, Spoons the 3rd.
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I found the Blue Raddle to be about the best in 2011. It’s nice that some things don’t change, maybe.
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It was the only really beery place in town, though I wasn’t over impressed.
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The Baker’s Arms and the Bull’s Head were in the 2018 edition, but neither featured in 2019. Both in my experience were OK, but not places you would go out of your way to visit.
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“Pub Men read TV Quick”
You read my mind! 🙂
“Look closely. No, go on”
That explains the blog title.
“but the 0.5 was reluctant.”
Blimey!
“It was vile, undrinkable, with bits floating in the top (NBSS 1). ”
Crikey!
And finally… bloody hell!
Cheers
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Wow!!! I like your honest Martin. It might mean put your average punter off cask but if it’s dross then so be it. Are standards dropping in Timbo’s empire?
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I’ve seen several reports on standards dropping in Spoons. I’d put it down to evil customers not drinking it in the main. The black pudding egg benedict is still great, though.
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