Still in Kirkoswald, with the Fetherston looking rather inviting, despite having more foliage than the Crown. Foliage often means a menu comprising “with a ragout of”. FACT.
But it looks just as “locals pub” as the Crown, perhaps more so.
Competition for the “Best beer mat display in Kirkoswald 2020” award is fierce.
It had just opened, so hard to judge whether the Crown is normally busier.
Whatever, the welcome is warm in an unspoilt gem you get a lot of in the A69 corridor. The barman was devastated that the Theakston has just gone, and I bravely take a punt on the Kirkby Lonsdale from just down the M6.
“Handpump Heaven” is later, and the barman tells me the pub is packed with discount hunting CAMRAs when beer goes down to £2.20 a pint.
It wasn’t as expensive as folk tell me Birmingham and London are these days now (£5 ?, really ?), and the Singletrack was a fruity NBSS 3+.
The Theakston barrel was changed; I nearly stayed for a pint, but further ticking duties awaited. If they’d actually had Magnet on, I’d definitely have succumbed.
I never did find out about the missing “a”. Or “e”.
I’m hearing that cask sales are dropping year on year, but whenever I go in northern pubs like that it is cask all over. And during a wet session in Wipers, Rye, on Sunday we drank to of the barrels empty. Maybe it is the trendy young ones that has gone off cask, but have they ever been on?
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It’s the Old Boys to blame.
I confess I don’t share your optimism for the mainstream, though the enthusiast pubs like the Ypres, the Taps in Lytham and the Cambridge Blue may look like cask boom towns.
And it’s more the wine and cider and posh lager than craft keg.
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Maybe (some of) Camra’s wishes for higher cask prices will prove successful. Like any rational consumer, I’ll drink less when price go up, but maybe the aficionados have attended a different business school than I did. Bad quality cask is down to one thing – not enough custom. Make it a “luxury product” like bottled stout, it’ll soon be a niche product.
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Excellent summary. The more you sell the better the product. And that applies as much to Doom Bar as to Harvey’s.
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A fiver a pint in Brum!! I blame Brexit 😄
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That’s only 2 euros now, I believe.
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😄
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I’d have been tempted by Magnet as well.
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