Sunday 21st January, 2007

Drinkers: Jon (Young Members Contact), Robert, Georgie, Nigel, Josie, Ted Ted, Pete

Well welcome to my next report and I am so sorry to those who could not make it. I must add that you missed a great day out in the Capital, while sampling some fine beers in great establishments.

The day began with a modest 10.30am meet at North Station, where we departed on our onward journey to London Liverpool Street. We arrived at 12ish in time for pub opening GO (Game On), where we walked towards the day’s first watering hole. This was to be the Paternoster at St Pauls. This was a modern style Young’s pub but with great décor and a great choice of Young’s beers from both hand pumps and bottles. The majority vote was to have a pint of Winter Warmer at a modest 5%abv. It was too early for lunch but this establishment had a great food range, so for those of you venturing to this part of London then give it a try.

After our first pint we headed 5 minutes down the road to watering hole two, the Cockpit, which is situated at Blackfriars. This pub offered a respectable range of beer including Pedigree and Adnams Bitter. While supping on a fine pint we could all take in the unusual historic features of this small back street pub. As the pubs name suggests, it used to house legal cock fights, with this being depicted in the pubs decor of oil paintings. The history also states it was the last legal venue to house cock fighting. Setting that sad history aside, the pub has a fantastic/unusual curved entrance with a friendly welcome and was packed with locals.

From here we left and headed towards watering hole number three, the Seven Stars in Chancery Lane. This pub is located near the Royal Courts, so the décor stays with this theme, with pictures of judges on the walls and law related film memorabilia. This is a great old style pub, which was offering a fantastic champion beer from our very own Crouch Vale Brewery. If you have not already guessed, it was Brewers Gold and what a wonderful and refreshing beer this was. By now we had 3 pints and no food so the conversation was getting a little strange/funny. Some how and probably due to the pubs resident cat, we got on to discussing pet lampshades and how funny a budgie would look wearing a mini one. We discussed this in great detail, with having advertising around them and starting our own website petshades.co.uk. Isn’t beer wonderful and what it does to sane minds after a while? Any how after some weird chat in a great pub, over a great pint we headed off to find food and more beer.

From here we ended up at watering hole four which was Pendrills Oak in Holborn which is a Wetherspoons establishment but none the less is GBG listed (Good Beer Guide). He we opted to have some of thier fine and reasonably priced food with the majority opting for a traditional Sunday roast and a pint.
As you would expect, this venue was modern but with an interesting décor and a fine selection of beer with two great guest ales. Here we spent our time eating and resting before heading off but before we left we could not help but wind up our honorary young member Pete Whybrow who is constantly trying to use his OAP citizen card for discount. I told him the blackboard stated an OAP discount on food, so off he trotted to investigate but to his disappointment it was not to be. Sorry Pete but could not resist.

Watering hole five was the Princess Louise in High Holborn. Here we took in the beauty of the pub while supping a fine pint of Pedigree. The ceiling in this pub was wonderful and that is why this pub can be found in CAMRA’s national inventory. Here we met up with some fellow branch members from Colchester who were in London for the evening to spend the night running in to each other which they call moshing, as they were here for a gig. The guys then left to cover some of the pubs we already had done, whilst we finished up and headed to watering hole number six the Doric Arch, which is situated at Euston.

This pub is ideally situated for rail travel and is very close to a rare Fire Station (SCRATCH). For those that don’t know I am a fire fighting enthusiast (Geek), sad I know but someone has to be. This pub is upstairs with an open plan environment, which is home to a great selection of beer and surprisingly with this selection and quality it’s a wonder why they are not present in the GBG. The only strange feature of this pub is that you need to ask the staff for the door lock code for the toilet so if you are desperate and drunk then you could end up peeing yourself. After a fine pint we headed off to watering hole seven and the last of the day (Boo!). We headed towards Mabels Tavern at St Pancras, which is a Shepherd Neame pub where the majority vote was for a pint of porter which was the first dark beer seen all day. It was slightly intimidating as the pub was full of Man Utd fans as they played Arsenal that day but we found a nice quiet corner and discussed our day. This pub is not to be missed and well worth a visit.

After this we headed back to Liverpool Street to get our trains home and rest after a long but great day of drinking. There is one more thing to mention about our journey back and that is Pete decided to surprise us all with his vintage lunch box made of Tupperwear. This looked like a first edition and would not look out of place on the antiques road show. We asked Pete where his purchase was made and he said he could not remember if it was at a Tupperwear party or an Ann Summers Party (See the day’s photos for Pete’s famous lunchbox).

A big thanks to all those who came along and for there help in organising a great day. Special thanks go to Ted who is better that any sat nav/tom tom out there. Our very own Ted Ted knows London better than any London A-Z and we all agreed that he must be the author of this book. Watch this space for future signings of the London A-Z by the main man Ted Ted.

Cheers
Jon Boy
(Young Person Committee Contact)