Let us continue ......
Trafalgar, South Wimbledon
I'd heard great things about this boozer. Always bad news if the pub doesn't hit the spot 'on the day'. A snoozy Sunday afternoon at this gloomy stand alone survivor, barmaid is pleasant enough but determined to do the bare minimum re smiling / facial movements. Heavy Saturday night perhaps. One of the handpumps has a bad drawing of He-Man on, so I go for that. Lovely and peppery. An airy soulless atmosphere for such an interestingly shaped compact one roomer. Recent refurbishment? I know where I want to sit, amidst the sprightly 9/10 carpet towards the back end. It is being blocked off by three blokes. I smile, not one smiles back. They make zero attempt to move as I edge past them. I discover two of them are cyclists. Twyclists. Stands to reason. They speak with confidence on a wide range of topics they have little knowledge on, "You don't tend to hear Stella being called wife-beater anymore". To add insult to injury, everyone is now entering the pub through the tiny door behind me. And when I move across and smile so they can pass, with the exception of one floppy haired Spaniard legend, they prove just as ignorant as everyone else. Pint 4/5, pub 3/5, people 1/5. Someone on my TwXtter suggested a 'rare off day'. But do truly good pubs have off days? Of course not.
Crown & Sceptre, Shepherd's Bush
Feigning deafness, and plying me with ESB five pints in, when I'd in fact tried to be responsible and order HSB is a great tactic if you are trying to boost your standing in the BRAPA London rankings! For I'd entered the C&S thinking "average flowery West London flounce-hole". But 27.5 minutes later, I'm thinking "this is flippin' insane", "what colourfully drawn characters!" and "quite the ballsy boozer!" I think perhaps the truth was somewhere in the middle, maybe I should've delivered my ultimate assessment around the 13 minute 45 seconds mark. But watching a toddler take her first steps as Kate Bush howls Babooshka like a scorched cat at a volume normally reserved for The Eurythmics was certainly one of the defining moments of my week in t'smoke.
Impossible not to compare it (less favourably) to Camberwell's Sun, from where I'd just come, as both were doing random quiz night's on a Tuesday and whose brain works on a Tuesday night? Not mine. Sort it out Camberwell! But at least here, we had a sleepy atmosphere, an older clientele with only three teams pushing around bits of paper and pretending to be experts on Orkney stone circles and NZ politics. Eight pints in, amazing I remember anything about it as I'm normally struggling by five. Like the sentient angry hand dryer which wouldn't leave me in peace. Or the Bermondsey Bitter which tasted like a tepid cup of coffee, which I strangely enjoy. The clock chimes 10pm, closest I've been to hearing last orders all week, outside of Sutton's Little Windsor which doesn't count because it isn't a current Good Beer Guide pub. As the pub winds down, if someone had wandered around with mop & bucket, I'd have either puked, peed or thrown a few coins in it.
Bishop's Finger, Smithfield
Well this was all a bit embarrassing wasn't it? A triumphant return to the Good Beer Guide for the first time since 1996 and six months prior, but GBG placings already decided, Shepherd Neame decide to stop brewing the eponymous beer on cask. Shocker! "...And I don't know why, it was always really popular!" complains our lively landlady. "You'll have to rename the pub 'The Late Red Tavern'" I say, referring to the autumnal guest I've just ordered. It deserved a laugh. It didn't get one. So I laughed at my own joke, and blamed Colin. This was an important tick for me as it doesn't open weekends in that city slicker way Central London has. You could tell. As some distant church bongs 12 noon, an American quack doctor is enjoying a pint in the sun with a German gynaecologist. A fishmonger nearly bumps into an submarine engineer by the entrance. I like guessing people's jobs based on their faces. I force down my pint served in an imposing flute of a glass, closest to the yard of ale challenge I've done since my student days. Shep Neame love making life difficult don't they?
Craft Beer Co. Hammersmith
"You ARE open aren't you? I'm astonished. I can't believe I'm the first one here!" I tell our barmaid with the young Cilla Black face (not blackface) striding towards the bar, 16:10 at this funky indoor shopping centre location. She tells me not to worry, she expects people will be along soon, as though I have some aversion to being in an empty pub, which of course I don't, it is one of my favourite parts of BRAPA cos people are generally disappointing bastards. To be fair, they had only been open ten minutes, but such was the swarmy swill of Hammersmithonians in the street and up the escalators, it surprised me. "There ya go, you've set a trend!" she says with a sweet and definitely not patronising smile as the door swings open and a bunch of geeky students in oversized floral cardigans arrive and make a joke that references Tolkein and Taylor Swift, but I don't understand either part. I don't understand the drunk 3D flooring either, don't get up drunk quickly here to go to the loo, you'll think you've wandered into a reboot of ITV kids classic 'Knightmare'. Honeycomb mirrored ceiling interesting too, a headachey pub this, trying a bit hard to do 'quirky'? Amazing pint of 'Cruel Brat Summer 360', yup, I had to respect this tick.
Sambrook Brewery Tap, Wandsworth
In the stormy dark and wet of my opening night, I complete a surprisingly successful mini-crawl of Wandsworth by finally finding the entrance door to this place. Power move against Young's? Bit of a Black Sheep v Theakstons, Beak v Harveys kinda thing? Who knows, all I do know is when I think of Sambrooks, I think of flabby tired ales in London pubs that aren't very good at keeping them. Surely they couldn't fuck it up on their own premises could they? They couldn't. Best pint of Sambo's (probably can't call it that) I've had by a cuntry mile. Fluffy perky staff too seem eager to ensure I was happy. That's nice, I feel the sense of isolation more keenly in SW London. Too much REM, not enough Eurythmics. I'm peering across the room as some American guy with George W. Bush eyes is retelling British and American history, though his table seem more engrossed in their phones and pies. So imagine my surprise when the young lad on that table appears at my shoulder, saying he follows BRAPA, recommends me a pre-emptive, and I only just get a handshake out of him before he disappears back into the gloom. Love meeting shiny BRAPPY people. It was the end of the night, as I knew it. Thanks.
We've entered the 'Spoons part of the countdown, and I can put my hand on my heart (as Jason Donavon once did) and report they were a decent bunch this week. I rank this lowest for two reasons. It was moody as sin, you could say 'hushed sinister' - something I might find amusingly thrilling in certain circs, but here we were tightly packed in like sardines on this Sunday afternoon, I had my full luggage with me, and old lady with stick man on adjacent table kept silently staring at me and mainly Colin. I nearly crack and scream "JUST SAY SOMETHING!" but every time I caught her eye, some hobbling old crone meanders past and temporarily distracts her. She knew everyone here. Finally she pinches my spare chair and the tension is broken. At the bar, I'd had the most reluctant "try before you buy" offer ever as I deliberate over a 5% porter, but it was laced with "I'll slit your throat if you waste our time by saying yes". Of course I'd say no anyway. Great pint. It is black, tough and brooding, like the Tooting massive. All that was left was to sup stoically whilst listening to the phlegm being hacked up from under hoods and peaked caps of the shady locals.
18. Watchman, New Malden
We end the blog as we started it. At a pub that had been talked up to such levels, I was expecting too much. Strange thing to say about a New Malden Wetherspoons only making its second GBG appearance you might think, but my old mate Hitchin John purposefully travels to London just to chew the fat with the staff n punters here. Left me expecting to walk into the Spoons equivalent of York's Blue Bell or Preston's Black Horse. Newsflash - it isn't really like that! Great to see John though, bought Colin a third, and three bags of Mini Cheddars for me to keep me sustained for the day, plus a random book on red wine. I'd give his GBG highlighting skills 7/10, comprehensive but he pressed far too hard on the map, meaning New Malden is now the greenest place in London, which it definitely isn't in reality. Anyway, pint was real quality, and staff were lovely in a bonkers way. Erling Haaland lad. The nice bloke fixing the problematic gas (not Bristol Rovers) who doesn't work here. And mainly, the crazy lady who calls you "luvvie" and "darling" and "sweetheart". She didn't think my 50p off voucher would work today, the beer being already discounted, but to our immense surprise the till said yes, so I get my pint for 99p or summat Rochdale-esque. Good stuff.
See you Sunday as we get into some reet good stuff. Eight or nine more! Gotta get London blogs banged out before the month ender / I turn into a pumpkin.
Good night, Si
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