Pint pot price poser

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oldmanonabike
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Re: Pint pot price poser

Post by oldmanonabike »

I don't know how much it is in my area. When I started drinking it was one shilling and four pence for a pint of John Smiths I think it was cheaper in the workingmens club but someone was always trying to sell you raffle tickets or Domino cards in there. My drinking pals reckon it was half a crown a pint the last time I bought a round. It's not my fault that that there are four of us in company and I always seem to find the first one' in the chair' when I get to the pub and I always have to leave after drinking three pints :roll:
I'm not getting older,just gaining more experience
thirdcrank
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Re: Pint pot price poser

Post by thirdcrank »

Birmingham beer glasses seized for being too small
An investigation, launched by Birmingham Trading Standards following a "significant complaint", found the glasses were 8.1ml too shallow.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-b ... m-44683757

There hardly seems to be much point fussing over the size of a pint pot when you're lucky if the froth reaches the top of the glass.
pete75
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Re: Pint pot price poser

Post by pete75 »

thirdcrank wrote: Tab set up and two pints ordered and pulled. The one whose treat it was politely suggested that their glasses might be topped up but was knocked back by a youthful barperson who said that they looked Ok, with "traditional Yorkshire heads." :roll: What a load of cobblers. Anyway, I was rather surprised when the customers accepted the situation and took their drinks into the garden. A few minutes later, the one who was buying was back at the bar settling the tab for two pints and off they went without eating. The barperson then snarled to a regular at the bar, "I can't stand people like that."

Mmmm. Remind me: how many pubs close each week in England?


When I was a student in Leeds 78 - 82 almost all Tetley pubs used electric pumps which served full pints in lined glasses with the head above the line. Leeds brewed Tetley was a fine pint be it the bitter or either of the milds. Didn't taste right if it was served flat though.
Tetley had about nine out of every ten pubs in Leeds back then.
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
Flinders
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Re: Pint pot price poser

Post by Flinders »

RogerThat wrote:I worked in Edinburgh a few years ago. Around festival time there was a pub opened 24/7 it was called Black Jacks. As the night wears on and punters get fewer and fewer into the wee small hours drink gets cheaper. So much so that around 4am it's a £1 for a pint and 75p a shot.

I've only been in the once at this ungodly hour. Dyou remember that bar scene from the original Star Wars? The one with the two headed aliens playing saxophone?

It's a lot like that. Only worse.

Many years ago I worked on the festival as a techie. We went to the Fringe Club after the set-up on cards borrowed from the other staff, and it was packed, though the middle of the night- not sure it ever closed. As you walked across the floor you stuck to it- the result of beer that had (I was told) been chucked in the general direction of comedians who the audience felt had not reached the requisite professional standards. :mrgreen:
Flinders
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Re: Pint pot price poser

Post by Flinders »

thirdcrank wrote:I don't think anybody has mentioned how much beer you get in a pint pot these days - rarely a full pint. :evil:

There was a time when weights and measures inspectors enforced this rigorously. Around 1970, in the heyday of cask beer, a point was reached where pint beer glasses were marked with a line and certified that that marked the measure "One pint to line" IIRC. The point being that the froth was in the space above the line. Somewhere along the way, there was a decided case involving draught Guinness where it was held that a pint of Guinness included the head and that's where the rot set in as the other major breweries law the advantages of "perfectly legal" short measure. There was some sort of enquiry in which the breweries lobbied for this. "Paterson's" - the liquor licensing bible published annually, had this all in detail and that's where I've got the info, probably at 0200 on a quiet night. It was reported that Tetley's evidence was that their customers liked a nice tight head on their beer. :roll: I also remember from my mis-spent youth, a dour book of dour Yorkshiremen's dour jokes including one where a drinker asked the landlord if he'd be able to top up his pint with a double whisky and on being assured that it would indeed be easily done invited the landlord to top up the glass with beer. At some point a Labour (?) govt., passed the "Beer Order" which decreed that a pint of beer should be a full pint, but no commencement date was set and it was never introduced; at some stage it was quietly dropped. I'm neither a big boozer nor a regular one, but I don't like being ripped off. My tactic is to order draught beer first, then everything else by which time, the draught beer should have settled. If it wasn't topped up automatically, a glare used to be sufficient in most cases, but not anymore. An inch of froth represents 10%+ of a pint.


Ah, a man with The Glare.
Glares are great. I find they stop small children being stupid, pull students a foot taller than me into line, and terrify the bejesus out of nearly everyone else, including colleagues and close friends. I've always been able to do it, don't know how I do it, don't always know when I'm doing it (until people start backing away or wriggling as they stand there), and have no idea why other people can't. :lol:
pete75
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Re: Pint pot price poser

Post by pete75 »

Flinders wrote:
Ah, a man with The Glare.
Glares are great. I find they stop small children being stupid, pull students a foot taller than me into line, and terrify the bejesus out of nearly everyone else, including colleagues and close friends. I've always been able to do it, don't know how I do it, don't always know when I'm doing it (until people start backing away or wriggling as they stand there), and have no idea why other people can't. :lol:


When I was a young man glaring at someone in these parts was considered an invitation to a fight. The reaction you'd get from the glared at was quite the opposite of backing away.
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
thirdcrank
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Re: Pint pot price poser

Post by thirdcrank »

Re the head on draught Guinness, at some point I posted about this on another forum and somebody else backed me up with a newspaper cutting reporting the case where a licensee had been prosecuted by the local weights and measures (more recently known as trading standards) for selling short measure. The Guinness company sent along their experts and convinced the magistrates that a pint of Guinness should include the head. I don't post on many forums so I'm a bit miffed I can't find it, but that case was when the rot set in.

It seems that a pint of beer consisting of 19 fl. oz liquid and I fluid oz froth is now the "industry standard." ie They all do it. A couple of years ago I was talking to a newly-appointed Sam Smith's manager, prompted by the sign saying you could have a top up but the pint included a head. She explained that the brewery audited sales and stocks on the basis that a pint was 95% beer.

I suppose this is a matter of what you are used to. My student days were in the early sixties and beer wasn't sold with an inch of froth. Re the froth rather than beer measure, Newcastle Brown Ale seemed a popular students' drink in my neck of the woods. In those days the skill used to be in pouring a pint bottle - which they were then - into a glass with no froth. That meant slowly trickling it down the inside of a tilted glass and straightening up the glass as it filled. I've known bar staff hand over the bottle and glass to avoid pouring it wrongly. Times change, and last time I had any Newcastle Brown there were instructions on the label about how to create a head.

If it isn't obvious, I don't like froth but I'm past fretting over short measure. With type 2 diabetes I get enough lectures about my weight not to stand on ceremony over this. And pubs are still closing at a rate.
pete75
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Re: Pint pot price poser

Post by pete75 »

Newcastle Brown - don't you mean Zoeterwoude Brown? It's now brewed at Zoeterwoude in the Netherlands :roll:
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
thirdcrank
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Re: Pint pot price poser

Post by thirdcrank »

pete75 wrote:Newcastle Brown - don't you mean Zoeterwoude Brown? It's now brewed at Zoeterwoude in the Netherlands :roll:

I didn't know that but it doesn't surprise me. Another favourite from my student days was Younger's No 3 but that was dropped years ago AIUI. Successive governments have faffed about with legislation trying to reduce the power of the breweries etc but the big money just reorganises.

I'm not a boozer. Unless I'm staying overnight I never have more than a pint, but it annoys me to be ripped off with short measure. I like to try guest beers although some have weird names. A couple of months ago a fairly local pub had Black IPA, which seemes like a contradiction in terms. Then they had something whose name I can't remember but "water" was prominent. If I don't have to drive home, then it's usually wine these days.
pete75
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Re: Pint pot price poser

Post by pete75 »

thirdcrank wrote:
pete75 wrote:Newcastle Brown - don't you mean Zoeterwoude Brown? It's now brewed at Zoeterwoude in the Netherlands :roll:

I didn't know that but it doesn't surprise me. Another favourite from my student days was Younger's No 3 but that was dropped years ago AIUI. Successive governments have faffed about with legislation trying to reduce the power of the breweries etc but the big money just reorganises.


No 3 - I sorely miss that - one of the best dark beers in my opinion. Whitelocks in Leeds served a good pint of it.
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
thirdcrank
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Re: Pint pot price poser

Post by thirdcrank »

pete75 wrote: ... Whitelocks in Leeds served a good pint of it.


Still there, but not the same. For anybody unfamilar with it (and still reading) it's in Turk's Head Yard, off Briggate, one of the once numerous yards off the main roads in the city centre. In my student days it had two quite separate sets of customers. At lunchtime it was mainly businessmen/ professional men (sic) of the bank manager, building society manager, solicitor type and served elegant grub from an earlier age. eg Ham carved from the bone while you waited, by a chap in a long white apron and all the rest of it. And packed out.
http://www.leodis.net/display.aspx?reso ... SPLAY=FULL
In the evening, regularly packed out again but by young people, especially students boozing. I don't remember any food at all. The rather grim looking yard outside which is little more than a narrow alley was also packed in a way it's hard to describe.
http://www.leodis.net/display.aspx?reso ... SPLAY=FULL
Like many pubs, mixed fortunes since then but city centre drinking was severely hit by the reign of fear created by the so-called Yorkshire Ripper and this is one of the places that never seemed to recover. I've not been in for years, but the last time I went in for a bite to eat at lunchtime, it was empty, and the only grub was a single pork pie under one of those glass bowls. Depressing
pete75
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Re: Pint pot price poser

Post by pete75 »

I seem to remember it said luncheon bar in stained glass over the bar. Not changed much inside if this is anything to go by

Image

Got a review by Jay Rayner in the Observer. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... ant-review He mentions a few places from my time but not the best/worst of all Terry's All Time on Woodhouse Lane. You could get a chip butty served with a plate of chips 24 hours a day. A common after party venue for us. Brilliant description here https://www.winealchemy.co.uk/terrys-all-time/
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
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Sweep
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Re: Pint pot price poser

Post by Sweep »

wirral_cyclist wrote:Wetherspoon have real ale from about £1.75 to around £2.25 here in Merseyside depending on which hostelry you're in. Lager is generally dearer, as are most imports.

Yes it's kinda odd that the worse beer (in my opinion) costs more. Some folk seem to feel more comfortable with "brands".
In my london local it's £2.15, £1.99 on mondays. And great beer.
Sweep
thirdcrank
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Re: Pint pot price poser

Post by thirdcrank »

pete75 wrote: ... Got a review by Jay Rayner in the Observer. ...


... It has been through rough times recently, owned by various concerns which didn't care for its heritage ...


That sums up what I was trying to say above. The building itself is probably subject to all sorts of preservation listings but somebody still has to run it at a profit. Apart from all the pressures faced by most pubs over the last forty years, there are a couple of more specific ones. The old lunchtime trade must have been badly hit when banks, building societies insurance companies and the like sacked so many local branch managers. Fear of the Yorkshire Ripper had a big effect on what passed as nightlife in Leeds in those days with restrictive licensing hours. Women stopped going out unaccompanied in Leeds in the evening and if there are no women, fewer men go out hoping to meet them. Once a place like this loses its regular trade, it's not easily recovered. You could walk up Briggate and never know it was there.

There was a time when most city centre pubs were dodgy because the only people not working a forty-eight hour week were up to no good, as they say. Whitelocks had a conventionally respectable clientele.
Sir, your wife under pretence of keeping a bawdy-house, is a receiver of stolen goods.

Boswell: Life of Johnson
====================================
More recently, Leeds has thrived as a commercial centre, particularly when compared with Bradford but the geographic focus of places shifts around. eg There's been a lot of redevelopment of the area immediately south of the river which is now increasingly trendy. Although Briggate is the natural backbone of the pedestrian precinct, it was designated as part of the route of the failed Supertram so it was blighted with uncertainty for some years. There's a lot of retail space competing for a dwindling number of retailers.
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al_yrpal
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Re: Pint pot price poser

Post by al_yrpal »

Around here one local turned into a 'Gastropub', Worral Thompson already mucked up another great local turning it into a Gastropub, another rebuilt as a private house. That leaves only a few and guess what, the remainder all stick up the beer prices which now average £4.50 a pint!

If you cycle off into the hinterland you can find pubs with significantly lower beer prices, or into Reading or Henley where you can find those Jewels… Weatherspoons.

Al
Reuse, recycle, thus do your bit to save the planet.... Get stuff at auctions, Dump, Charity Shops, Facebook Marketplace, Ebay, Car Boots. Choose an Old House, and a Banger ..... And cycle as often as you can......
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