Friday, August 24, 2007
Holiday
Went on holiday recently. Had a couple of days in the welsh resort of Llandudno followed by a night in Chester. Llandudno is a lovely place, a bit on the small side, but has a good beach and a pier. It also has the Great Orme, a high mountain looking over the Irish Sea. You could get a tram or cable car up there, I did the former, and have a great view and enjoy some solitude. Typically in the centre that is up there, there is a bar named after the boxer, Randolph Turpin. There were a few nice bars in the main town, The Cottage Loaf, being the pick of them, not only because there was a very nice looking barmaid. It reminded me of a country pub in some ways and a nice way to spend an evening. Besides the pubs and seaside amusements, you could walk down the Great Orme through some very picturesque gardens and look over the West side of the place.
My first impression of Chester was the two big shopping centres. Everyone, and I mean everyone, looked like they could be on Hollyoaks. Sadly this trend did not last through to the evening. The most pleasant pub here I found was the Frog And Nightingale, a music pub that overlooks the canal. As I was exploring Chester’s nightlife I didn’t stay for the music part of the evening. However, they appear to have things on most nights so must be popular.
The majority of pubs I found in Chester seemed to be old-style, and would have been very smoky, pre-ban. This is especially true of the ones round the market in Northgate. However to the east of the town, some trendy pubs have opened, all be it the best one being a Revolution, which had Okocim, on draught.
Another weird lager found was the day after at the Last Orders pub, which had Cains Liverpool Lager on draught. Better than Youngs London but not great!
The train journey home meant I had forty minutes in Crewe meaning I ould go to another pub called Last Orders. This was very much a family place, indeed I gave my £1.80 for my Carlsberg to a eight year old behind the bar as his dad poured it! It did have the cricket on with Anderson and Sidebottom bowling very well without reward.
As soon as I returned home, I was out again, this time to the Camra beer festival at Earls Court. There was a Bowie tribute band providing the entertainment focusing mainly on his seventies highlights, although there were one or two obscure tracks played. Six or seven beers were tried including a South African Pineapple Beer, Samuel Adams Cherry Wheat beer and an ale called Raspberry Belter. Managed to get a couple of new pub guides too, one of which focusing on pubs around Wimbledon Common. The clientele was quite mixed this year with the regular beardy-weirdies to groups of mid-twenty somethings and the odd attractive lady here or there, getting more attractive the longer the evening went on………
My first impression of Chester was the two big shopping centres. Everyone, and I mean everyone, looked like they could be on Hollyoaks. Sadly this trend did not last through to the evening. The most pleasant pub here I found was the Frog And Nightingale, a music pub that overlooks the canal. As I was exploring Chester’s nightlife I didn’t stay for the music part of the evening. However, they appear to have things on most nights so must be popular.
The majority of pubs I found in Chester seemed to be old-style, and would have been very smoky, pre-ban. This is especially true of the ones round the market in Northgate. However to the east of the town, some trendy pubs have opened, all be it the best one being a Revolution, which had Okocim, on draught.
Another weird lager found was the day after at the Last Orders pub, which had Cains Liverpool Lager on draught. Better than Youngs London but not great!
The train journey home meant I had forty minutes in Crewe meaning I ould go to another pub called Last Orders. This was very much a family place, indeed I gave my £1.80 for my Carlsberg to a eight year old behind the bar as his dad poured it! It did have the cricket on with Anderson and Sidebottom bowling very well without reward.
As soon as I returned home, I was out again, this time to the Camra beer festival at Earls Court. There was a Bowie tribute band providing the entertainment focusing mainly on his seventies highlights, although there were one or two obscure tracks played. Six or seven beers were tried including a South African Pineapple Beer, Samuel Adams Cherry Wheat beer and an ale called Raspberry Belter. Managed to get a couple of new pub guides too, one of which focusing on pubs around Wimbledon Common. The clientele was quite mixed this year with the regular beardy-weirdies to groups of mid-twenty somethings and the odd attractive lady here or there, getting more attractive the longer the evening went on………
# posted by Rich @ 12:31 PM 
