The "Real Thing"

Easter has been and gone.. an early Easter is an interesting one. What will the weather be like? will it be busy with customers and we won't be able to cope? Or will it be too quiet for the number of staff and the preparations we've done? And just how many customers will ask "You got any Lager mate?" or "Just a bitter shandy, please" or "What bitters do you have??"

Now there is the adage that states "The customer is always right", well maybe, but how do you explain to a customer that the quality imported Pilsner is not a standard "Lager" or that we don't have the normal chemical lemonade to put in a standard bitter to make a "bitter shandy" and nor do the cask conditioned ales that we dispense deserve the generic term of bitter?

The one thing that bank holidays do is bring out an extraordinary number of people who seem to think that all pubs should do the same thing......

.....and we don't.

We had a very nice band play on Easter Saturday. Well to call them a band is perhaps a little grand. I always think a band consists of at least 3 people. But, if you consider that a band could also be classed as a group of musicians producing a full musical sound then they definitely qualify.

After setting up and sound checking the lack of background music was commented on by the duo. "We only do things that are real here, real ale, real food and definitely only real music.." That got some agreement..

They are called Blackheart and are really good. See for yourself, Hopefully we'll get them back soon....sorry about the overall quality of the recording, but then we don't have the same equipment as the BBC..