Monday 6 July 2020

Quote of the Day: Back to the Pub

The Fleece, Cullingworth - a Proper Pub
From the Old Curmudgeon:
Many so-called beer enthusiasts who may in the past have given lip service to supporting pubs seem to have gleefully joined in with both of these tendencies. They may well have found they quite enjoyed staying at home during lockdown enjoying supplies of draft craft beer takeouts from their local micro bar, absolved of any need to actually go out and visit any pubs and mix with the dreaded hoi polloi.
So true, so true. There is an overlap between the beer enthusiast and the pub fan but it's an overlap that exists because pubs sell beer not because the sort of person who buys sample trays or overhopped IPAs in thirds, and take all night drinking them actually likes the pub. The Proper Pub (as Old Mudgie calls them) doesn't sell beer like this and doesn't think that it its business. No, the Proper Pub sells beer in straight pint glasses - as beer writer Pete Brown put it:
"I realise the importance of the pint glass itself. It's the perfect vessel, the ideal amount. You know that there is enough for you to take a long, indulgent pull to clear the dust and cobwebs from the back of your throat and cool you down, and still have a satisfying amount left to savour more slowly after this initial greedy rush."
This comes at the end of Brown's book where, having talked about all sorts of beer, he sits down with a pint of lager. Not special, not expensive, just a pint of lager.

And this, as Old Mudgie describes, is the problem: a certain sort of person sees a middle-aged, working class bloke sitting at a fake wood table in a brightly lit boozer and instantly turn into a raging snob.

....

3 comments:

Simon Fawthrop said...

"And this, as Old Mudgie describes, is the problem: a certain sort of person sees a middle-aged, working class bloke sitting at a fake wood table in a brightly lit boozer and instantly turn into a raging snob."

Some of the sneering comments about the working man and his desire for a pint in a pub seen on Twitter this weekend have been disgusting. There was one about a guy who'd come off night shift, had a quick change and gone for a pint. It was from a Guardian article, I think, and the comments on that thread were particularly egregious.

It seems the Guardian reading middle classes are quite happy for the working man (and woman) to risk Covid to ensure the supermarkets are well stocked, deliver their groceries and Amazon purchases, work at night fixing the roads so they aren't inconvenienced during the day, turn out at all hours and in all weather to restore their power or Internet if it goes down, look after their elderly parents in homes and even at home, and just generally be around to make their lives easier. Yet when the working man decides he's happy to take the risk to go to his favourite pub for a pint and some company they just sneer and virtue signal their commitment to a lockdown which is costing them nothing.

And they wonder why the working man voted Brexit and Tory at the last election.

I have nothing but contempt for them.

Doonhamer said...

Well said.
You get the same tut-tutters at airports in early morning.

They never think that for that "alcohol dependent" person the body clock tells that it evening.
You get it here in the North when rig workers come on shore after a night shift and weeks on a dry rig.

Curmudgeon said...

Thanks for the mention :-)

The snobbery that was unleashed on Saturday really was quite jawdropping.