Otis Redding
Try A Little Tenderness
I think I'd sooner drink dishwasher then f*cking Ruddles.
The World Famous City Ground - Home of the PROPER WORLD‘S OLDEST LEAGUE CLUB
- Thread starter donny
- Start date
The BC car park accommodates many of the visitors to the corporate boxes which is financially lucrative to the Club. They cannot be relocated to the East Park which is already hugely stretched to accommodate broadcast trucks, broadcasters cars, away coaches, police, press, disabled fans vehicles, and other supporters cars.
The area for disabled supporters cars has massively reduced, seasonal concessions removed without notice and replaced by a tedious application process for every game with no guarantee of a place. Manoeuvring into tight parking spaces is often incredibly difficult especially after lengthy journeys for some supporters.
If the Fan Zone was extended which group would you exclude from the reduced car park?
Loughborough_red
Jack Armstrong
Hope the link works. This came up on my feed this morning- photos of West Brom fans being marched to the station in 1981 (I originally thought it might be the late 70s but only just noticed the year in the title). Some great pictures of the CG in here.
On that note, I’ve just read that Brighton sell more pints of Harvey’s Sussex Best (very good bitter) on match day than all of the pubs in Lewes combined (21 pubs there as well as the Harvey’s brewery).
So, it can be done and profitably in the case of Brighton at the Amex.
Colin Addison
First Team Squad
It's certainly not the beer it used to be Otis but then again not many of them are.
valspoodle
Ian Bowyer
I'm afraid that was my thought as I typed it, the bar has to be in an area used regularly between matches.
Otis Redding
Try A Little Tenderness
I'm inclined to argue that there are plenty of good traditional cask beers still around Colin, but the so-called "Ruddles" that Wetherspoons dispense has no connection at all to the original brewery that closed in the eighties. It's just some cheaply produced piss from Greene King.
Agree: you have to put the effort in to find the best pubs which serve the best cask ale, research it really, as they are still around but need effort to find.
Wetherspoons are a mix of good and bad - fantastic range but the quality of the cask ale is often dreadful: curates egg, really.
Captain Sinister
Senior doom Monger
Isn't the Wetherspoon's business model based on buying barrels nearing their sell by date on the cheap, and selling it as quickly as possible?
Urban myth really: Wetherspoons strongly deny buying beer near their sell by date and no evidence has come to light of this.
Main reason for the uneven quality of the cask ale - as some branches are excellent and others very poor - is the amount of care (or lack of it depending on the particular pub) put into looking after the cask ale as it’s a live product rather than homogeneous corporate lager.
Also, as cask ale is live, if no one in that pub drinks it, and I order a pint a week later from the same opened barrel, it won’t be a brilliant tip top pint.
Conversely, if they are all avid bitter drinkers, and get through barrels of the stuff per week, it will taste much, much, better as it will be fresher.
Finally, if the publican doesn’t care, and doesn’t clean the beer lines, and keeps the beer at the wrong temperature, it will never be a good pint.
At its peak, cask ale is sublime and of much higher quality and taste than homogenised beer but it takes a lot of effort, love, and care to get to that stage.
P.s- reason why Wetherspoons is so cheap is the sheer volume of beer they buy and sell. They buy and sell more beer from 350 brewers than anyone else in the country - their bulk buying power and economies of scale are enormous.
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Statto
Free Kick Specialist
Tbf it would be a very spoons thing to do that knowing how they would get it much cheaper that way, provided they could sell it, it means they would sell it cheaper and/or increase their margins - probably it does happen but they wouldn't say that it does because it could mean either a lot of wastage or people might think their pints aren't going to be very good because there's a chance it could be near or past date.
I think the scale of it is obviously going to be the reason. They have basically the same menu and same drinks offering wherever you are, so you know what you are getting even if it's microwaved meals similar quality to what you could get in a supermarket. It's all centrally cooked and sent out and all the pubs do is warm it up and serve it, which is fairly simple and probably quite difficult to get wrong, the model works (though I remember when it was always cheap and not too bad to eat but it's neither of those now really) and to supply the amount of pubs they have with drinks would be a massive contract for any of the suppliers. But that would also mean that they would know spoons would be able to shift the stuff so they could send them cheaper barrels etc which are nearer the date when other customers would prefer ones with a longer shelf life knowing they aren't going to be able to shift them as easily. It works several ways.
But it has been a story for almost as long as spoons has been in existence so it wouldn't be surprising if it turned out to be somewhere near the truth, maybe something they did in the early days but not so now. I remember when they were serving zebu steaks instead of beef.
Gyros Peter
Sauce salad?
Wetherspoons are the Tesco of the beer world: 'competitive bulk pricing' arseholes.
Eddie Yates
Ian Bowyer
The reason I can't be doing with Spoonz is because the bogs are always about a 3 mile hike from the bar
sammy the snake
Jack Burkitt
I love spoons. You know what you’re getting. Also Tim Wetherspoon is a top bloke
valspoodle
Ian Bowyer
I always look for the "Cask Marque" sign on a pub doorway. Shows the pub tries hard to give you top beer quality.
Rubics
Bin VAR!
Wes' Organ
Biggles
Bellyache.
Statto
Free Kick Specialist
It's not uncommon in general to have the bogs away from the bar, sometimes even you need to go into a corner and then upstairs or downstairs.
I've found that kind of arrangement in a lot of places and not just Spoons, Toby do it a fair amount as do other places. Though I think the Spoons in Mapperley just has the bogs at the back.
What I hate more about bogs is when they have that stupid bog roll which pulls off in single sheets as you pull it out of the dispenser. So you need to pull a whole load to wipe with... which wastes time and bog roll really
Statto
Free Kick Specialist
I thought this was Spoons not Taco Bell, although the food in spoons is crap it's probably been microwaved enough to kill the nasties.
Eddie Yates
Ian Bowyer
Really, why is that?
Eddie Yates
Ian Bowyer
Or crabs
Colin Addison
First Team Squad
I agree there are plenty of cask beers around but the more famous ones are a pale (sorry for the pun) shadow of their former selves. Here's one for you Otis how come you don't see the landlord's (or licence holder) name above the door?