Bring the lights down – The Barnsbury, N1

It must have been, oh, about five years ago. CrowsFeet, his missus and I had contorted ourselves into a corner of the Charles Lamb and were contemplating food from a tight menu that, tellingly, had sold through on its stand-out dish. The lady had just joined us from work, I think, and it was all a bit hectic. We weren’t feeling it so we left.

Diverting along Liverpool Road, we were thinking Drapers, maybe, but came to The Barnsbury first. They were smashed out and, on enquiring tentatively as whether they had room for three, we were shown to the only available table, a round, squeezed just inside the door. It was about as comfortable a fit as we’d relinquished at the Lamb but, having been made feel very much as though they’d prefer it if we stayed, and despite the warning that food would most likely be a while, we hunkered the hell in. Food was a while. When it did come though, in line with how popular the place appeared, it was really decent. I had a confit duck leg with cassoulet, as I remember, and we had a good night.

Fast forward to last evening and the cut of the Barnsbury’s jib is decidedly different. They’re using the door on the opposite side as the main entrance now, creating a more natural angle from which to channel punters in toward the bar. The other notable difference is that, relatively speaking, there’s no one here. The unwelcoming glare of blinding light from those customised, upturned-glass chandeliers may have something do with that. There’s no attempt here to generate anything approaching an ambience despite, as I say, the thoughtful, quirky fittings. It feels very much as though they’ve just called time, even though it’s still only 10pm. They don’t just carry any old thing in the way of product here either. I mean, it’s not the most cutting-edge concept, but there’s great condition Brew Dog on draft, one or two unpredictable guest ales, stuff a beer snob wouldn’t sniff at by the bottle, and an attractive display of premium, top shelf spirits. They just don’t seem given to selling any of it up or to keeping people there once they have them in. The guys behind the bar would appear capable, but also bored, distracted, and not to give a rat’s arse, particularly, about the quality of customer experience. Weird.

I haven’t looked into it but if I was to venture a guess as to whether the Barnsbury’s undergone a change of administration since last we were there, I’d have to go with ‘yes’. Last night Liverpool Road felt like a village high street that’s recently been by-passed, its pub like a local that’s presided over by someone who’s in it just for giggles and spends most of his or her time on the golf course. A few tweaks and it could be canny. Just now it’s about good enough for a swift one.

Hackney Ding Dong – Duke of Wellington, The Talbot, The Royal Oak

I started writing this thing, as much as anything, because I had too much time on my hands. Too much time and no money which, where opportunities to tear one off were two-a-penny, meant also that it was difficult to maximise on every site visit or put food-led pubs properly through their paces. These days I have a job. Not a particularly serious job, but a job. Hence, although I still have no money, I have increasingly few windows to get out into the field, and even less then to catalogue just how smashed or sick I subsequently get. Where this is pertinent in Hymnal terms is in regard to the assertion in the Ethos page here that boozers can stand up on the strength of a single redeeming feature. While I absolutely maintain that to be true, I’d also have had to be blind, now pastime is at a premium, not to notice how infrequently, from the point of view of venue, product and service – to name but three of the criteria by which one would invariably rate somewhere – a place ticks more than a couple of boxes. All of a sudden I’m concerned not only that the general public are way too tolerant of iffy standards, but that altered perspective has, God forbid, raised my own expectations of how far my resources need go.

If last Saturday’s crawl around Dalston and Hackney proved one thing it’s that it’s miles easier to look cool than it is to look discerning. Imagine Balls Pond Road, if you will, to be a literal pool of test(es) personnel, and you should find yourself a step closer to figuring out how certain pubs in the area succeed, by lackadaisically lollygagging around their theme, in taking the piss out of their punters on a day-to-day basis. Not that the one venue we visited on that specific thoroughfare was necessarily guilty here, but if I hadn’t already known Bethnal Green’s Mason & Taylor sprang from its midst, I’d never have put The Duke of Wellington in the same ball park. They’re two different models, of course, which will go some way to accounting for that, but there wasn’t anything like the pervasive professionalism here as greeted me at its craft beer-orientated off-shoot. And I’ll grant you there’s very often an air, when someone opens somewhere new, of a fresh, more ‘at it’ attitude to appearances, to creating an impression, as well as a determination to do right this time what perhaps they did wrong the last. Still, they shouldn’t need me to tell them their bottled stuff’s going to get warm if they don’t pull the fridge door to.

Given how fucking fashionable this part of town is, too, I’m often surprised its locals haven’t graduated from or, in the spirit of the now, revolted against the whole mismatched furniture, Bloody Mary, comfy sofas, Sunday papers thing. (Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but one should incorporate these things consciously, not just because one has had a look around and ascertained that’s what everybody does). The Scolt Head, on an apex of residential roads in delightful De Beauvoir Town (as ever, I’m clueless as to where this stops and Dalston starts or whether if you’re in one you’re in the other..) is just an exponent. A tall, tatty building with a sprawling interior, it rather lacks a soul. This being a charge usually levelled at pubs that don’t play music, I’m here to contend pubs that do can be just as culpable. Ones that also televise live sports and allow the noise from each to come together and then dissipate high above confused chatter about precisely what feel, if any, this pub is trying for.  Ones that are too big and have very little sense of self. My pint of the reduxed Truman brewery’s Summer Runner was served in a glass emblazoned with Greene King IPA. Enough said.

The Talbot, on Mortimer Road, with its exposed brick and fairy lights, does its level best to mask what’s a pretty unattractive building in a not terribly appealing spot. Here, leather Chesterfield chairs butt heads with dog-eared, not-quite-design-classics underneath a menu which, though outwardly appealing, I just wouldn’t want want to stick around to eat from. Why? My pint of Landlord was moody and credible alternatives were at a real premium. Which is kind of my beef. Just to look sharp ain’t enough. You’ve got to back it up. Humouring this sort of shit in places that think more (though not for very long) about appearance than good bar product creates a breeding ground for like undesirables. Vote with your Vans.

By the time we’d consumed cut-price pizza at Stingray and landed at The Royal Oak on Columbia Road, I was proper screwing. Packed and shit. Not unlike its sister, Spurstowe, who either got me on a good day or vice versa when I wrote this. Admittedly by this point there was the sense very much we were now drinking for the sake of it. Two or three bottles taken Off Broadway had eradicated the after-taste of ‘dicky’ Tim Taylor but also served to provide context to the unforgivably flat Meantime Pale Ale on cask here. It was awful, on the turn, and with the place awash with laughing painted faces (true), I left feeling like someone might have spiked me with Absinthe.

What did I start by saying? Oh, yeah; I don’t have time for this. Maybe I’m getting old but I need more substance, more genuine thought and less ‘imagination’ than perhaps these operators seem prepared to invest. And so should the kids spilling out on to their pavements, if nothing else because their permissiveness of bad product is just exacerbating the situation. In this part of town, anyway. And maybe that’s it. Maybe they can or will not be converted and we chose poorly when opting to freestyle from a more bankable, pre-determined path.  I’d rather not believe that but, hey, it’s already 2.30pm on Sunday. My Sunday. At least I know where not to go when next the chance arises.

Safe.

York (Disg-)Races – The House of the Trembling Madness, Pivni and others, York

Despite having arguably the worst name of any hostelry featured by the Hymnal – a name which smacks of an Edgar Allan Poe-m that was later adapted and made into a movie starring Vincent Price – York’s The House of the Trembling Madness is, in the best possible sense, a right hole in the wall. Set toward the Minster end of the city’s Stonegate and serving as a sort of Tap for the specialist bottled beer business it resides above, THotTM offers a range of craft beer from keg and one from cask, as well, as I say, as a cross-section of the many available from The Bottle below. From Brooklyn to Thornbridge, the concept is not dissimilar in principle to a number already covered here, only delivered on a smaller scale and with a degree more taste afforded mainly by the character cottage it’s been crowbarred into the eaves of. It serves predominantly small plates of delicious smelling food and, on the strength of two visits, appears not to be too widely known about. Little surprise, I guess, since you really need to be looking for it to find it. 

Just around the corner is The Guy Fawkes, a hotel and bar with a rep for real ale. This, apparently, was the wrong day to catch it on, not least because the subdued, candlelit vibe inside did not become the light of a warm day. But also because half the hand pumps were turned around and what was left was about as inspiring as the prospect of the real cider that completed the line-up. We turned about, reticent to judge it on this appearance, and resolving to return in Winter.

Just off The Shambles, Pivni is parent to London’s Euston Tap. Occupying more practical, not so novel premises and with less precarious means to access the upstairs, the set-up here is more of the smart-arsed same; a lot of German beers on the bottled list, Brighton and Brew Dog well represented on draft. A fragrant, not massively enjoyable elderflower infusion from Dark Star was followed hard by a few Anchor Porters and a Brooklyn Brown Ale. The Fox, having so far eschewed most things that’d have been of interest to the beer boffin, got tucked into some Camden Pale Ale and a couple of Punk IPA’s. I see they’ve reigned in the abv. of the keg version to correspond with the cask. Still, couldn’t prevent my partner in piss later confessing to the cumulative effects of all this and the Blue Moon we’d cyphened at Oscar’s in between. ‘Why, that stuff was strong…’, he said. There were no drunk dials this time though, and no other mishaps, which represents progress.

We wound up at Oscar’s for food, which was pretty forgettable in terms of both that and the serving of. The Malbec I’d been the ringleader in procuring was almost certainly surplus to requirements – we left about a third of it – although that, given the extent to which one’s ‘requirements’ had been satisfied the day before, is probably a moot point to be making in the mist/midst of yet another unnecessary skinful. We’re old friends though, The Fox and I, there’s invariably stuff to talk about that goes better with booze and, just as a few days earlier and in a fit of pre-gig pique I’d spaffed a oner on some new threads at the Folk sale, this shit’s never about whether or not you need it, is it?

Pictures papped and pilfered from http://www.travelswithbeer.com/2011/02/28/pivni-york/  (although the same pics show up accredited to someone else) and flickr.

Neither The Bottle nor The House of the Trembling Madness seem to have official homepages. Which is a shame.