MORE ALSAGER JOULES

July 2023. Alsager.

No (zero) Guide entries in Alsager this year, though the Lodge had just been named “South Cheshire CAMRA Pub of the Year”. Go figure*.

Not exactly overpubbed, by the look of What Pub;

Reader, we did all four of those. Just for you.

A few yards from the Lodge, just past a cafe called Ey Up Duck, was this place;

Now, if I haven’t kept up with Brunning & Price, I certainly lost track of Joules houses a while ago.

Fortunately, there’s a list of them** on the wall. One or two on here you might know;

Alsager lost track of contemporary music about 1983, based on the soundtrack as we enter.

Mrs RM takes a seat by the window;

while I have to make the decisions at the bar again. See, there’s that casual sexism again, the man assumed to be the one who’ll buy the beers.

There must have be a darker beer on as that’s what Mrs RM asked for (“Only a half ? Sexist !“), but I’ve know idea what it was.

Not much cask being drunk, again, mainly Carling and keg cider. Never mind, I’m sure there’s been plenty drunk at Olympia this week and that’s all that matters.

The Pale was just fine though (NBSS 3), and those lovely handpumps take centre stage on the bar so I’m not sure what the latest whine on Discourse about real ale “not being visible” is about.

As for the Mere, it’s just typical Joules. Stafford Paul will be along shortly to tell us it’s all fake, Mrs RM tells me it’s comfy, I sit in the middle.

Round the corner, it gets more modern.

But most of the trade is outside in the beer garden, and nearly all young (20s) lads. Where have they all come from ?

At the bar, floral dresses rule. Yes, Alsager folk dress up to go to the pub on a Saturday.

Mysteriously, the soundtrack then leaps from 1983 to 1987 (Hue & Cry), almost certainly the year our new arrivals were last eighteen.

*New management, I guess

**Where’s the Bridgnorth one ?

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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.

13 thoughts on “MORE ALSAGER JOULES”

  1. “Stafford Paul will be along shortly to tell us it’s all fake” and to add that their pub list is out of date ( 39 now not 23 ) and their New inn was NOT one of the Newport pubs I used two days ago.

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      1. Dave,
        “Closed, undergone major refurbishment. Re-opened on June 5th 2013” so “worn in” in less than two months !

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    1. T’other Paul,
      39 is well short of Black Country Ale’s 50 but, yes, they must be doing something right.
      Most people I know locally like their pubs but not their beer. I’m the opposite.

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      1. And I understand why, Paul, honestly. I guess I’m in the middle. Have you been to their Market Drayton pubs ? I remember at least one unfussy pub there (not the Tap) though that was in 2016.

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      2. I’ve been in the Red Lion at Market Drayton and think they put more money and effort into it as the actual brewery tap. Of about ten I’ve been in the Glebe was probably the best. There’s about another dozen I went in before Steve Nutall got them.

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  3. “There must have be a darker beer on”. Slumbering Monk? I had a pint of it in the Shakespeare, Bridgnorth, yesterday. It was awful (NBSS YUCK) tasted of sweetened wheat beer verging on the bananay, flavours I usually associate with yeast infected plastic.

    Of course I didn’t take it back. D’oh!

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    1. It probably was Slumbering Monk, Andy, as I don’t think it was the old ale we had in Stafford in winter.

      I’m not sure I’ve ever had really poor Joules anywhere, though cask turnover looks increasingly lightweight in their pubs to me.

      Oh, NEVER take a beer back (except in Spoons). It’s not your job !

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