October 2024. Norwich.
There’s a Twitter account called Fesshole where you admit to non-legal crimes such as calling mathematics “math” or asking for a taster of Doom Bar.
Well, along with a grudging respect for micropubs, I’d like to admit that Norwich pubs aren’t all bad.
It’s the self-awareness that’s bugged me, that “City of Ale” nonsense and obsession with handpump count over quality.
BUT I’ve enjoyed the recent new entries, and a night pottering around Norwich’s churches,
Watney heritage and waterways with pub ticks, live music and a forlorn attempt to find a worthwhile curry house is always a joy.
It’s surprising that after 30 years of ticking Norwich there’s still new pubs debuting in the GBG (4 last year); what has suddenly propelled the Weavers, tucked away in corporate office land just above the Wensum, to Guide glory ?
Well, the sort of beer range that attracts Untappd ****** (*), of course.
Yes, I had the Sureshot too, because drinking a can of Pastore doesn’t count as a tick after that motion was rejected at the last GBG tickers convention.
Masterfully murky, but perhaps not quite as crisp and cool as you’d hope at a fiver a pint, and that Harp suddenly seemed appealing. Will Thornbridge be doing a cask version of Harp on the Burton Unions ?
My notes say “Afrojazz, nice staff, dark, classy, all tables reserved, “Butler” steak“, which says it all. We could be in a Farringdon gastropub with me about to knock over a candle and set fire to the menu.
Two chaps who’d have just come from the nearby pricewaterhousecoopers office I used to visit to plead clemency for the NHS accounts, if they hadn’t closed it, discuss Henry**, who has missed his targets and will have to come into the office, and the Butler steak, “Whatever THAT is !“.
Anyhows, never mind me, what did BRAPA make of it 3 days later…
Stuff your Shakespeare and Wilde, BRAPA is the great wordsmith.
“Suffocatingly Norwich” says in two words what I’ve failed to in two hundred.
* enthusiasts
** actual name Henry
retiredmartin 
“Watney heritage” and beer mat heritage.
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For someone who posts long novels each time he blogs he can be incredibly concise at times.
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It’s an art, Dave.
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Thanks both! We were still talking about that place in rural Lincs yesterday #Scarred4Life
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Harp was awful. My search for something better to drink meant that I discovered real ale.
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Obviously only CAMRA is qualified to say which beers are “awful” or “good”, Jon. I’m expecting a motion at the next CAMRA Members Weekend in Torquay to set up a committee to formulate a strategy to seek consensus, once and for all, on what is “good” beer. Any historic awards to beers now considered “not good” will be rescinded.
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I thought that any beer which didn’t pass the CAMRA definition of real ale was automatically classed as awful.
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Have a look at the love-in with Belgian beers Jon !
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Yes I saw your report about Bishops Stortford.
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I suspect suffocatingly Norwich means something completely different to me, so im struggling to get the picture of the place, and having also surprisingly in 30 odd years never actually been to the place either, but a pint of murk isnt selling me on it.
And Norwichians do obsess about weird things like counts of numbers of beers they sell as being important, though on the whole the City of Ale as a thing, I think is a good thing
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