Pub review
They say:
"Excellent selection of dead-eyed, red-faced booze gollums. If you like anecdotes about GBH and Cardi B, you're quids in." --Adam 'RedOcelot' Berthiaume
1/5
I say:
The streets are a shiny shade of blue, of green, red or whatever is the predominant colour of the lit signs of the takeaways I pass in the rain. Alas my destination is dim, the only upmarket bar in town is google-maps-open but real world closed. Perhaps they've given up on this damp Wednesday night. So I walk, drawn back to the cosy warmth of the hotel but soldiering onwards to the task of these reviews. I don't quite believe myself when I tell people, as I have done lately, that Bridgwater has over 30 pubs and bars within 15 minutes walk of the centre as defined by the church (and my hotel). And yet here they are. 1, 2, 3 within a short stroll of my sad and deserted original choice. 6 within 100 meters or 5 within three quarters of a furlong as the government now requires me to say. They are uniformly empty, bright, and unappealing from the outside. But I must choose lest I find myself a year from now still working at the grim coalface (ironic pun) of a distressed project, recently single and wearily eyeing the barmaid whom I reason must be old enough cause she works in a bar. And all this just to complete my tour of Bridgwater's pubs.
The Old Market is quiet but not so much that I am a curiousity. there's enough people here to make it feel drank in. Why drink here though and not, what I take to be, the fairly identical pubs I previously mentioned? You get comfortable with a place I suppose and maybe it's just closer on a rainy midweek night, it's teeming down outside now and any pub feels welcoming in a storm. Why did I drink at the Shakepeare so, so many nights of my life? Location, location, relaxed-attitude-to-inebriation. The prices in here also bring back memories of those days. A large glass of red wine sets me back £3.25. It was twice the price in the hotel with dinner. Twice as good, yes but this feels like a reasonable and rational cost-to-value relationship. I take up a large corner table equidistant to the two main groups of people in the lounge. Half an hour passes as I write this and people begin to bustle in from the street. The music starts to pump though the reverberations are barely absorbed by the soft furnishings and softer bodies. Yet more people join us and I start to feel a little self-conscious about occupying an 8-seater table. Maybe they'll just assume I've been cruelly stood up by 7 of my so-called friends after doubting the benefits of brexit or joining Extinction Rebellion or something like that. Maybe it was just the dark mustard jumper I'm wearing. I don't occupy a view of the TVs showing the football at least, that's circumstances in which I'd have to watch it or move. So profundity eludes me as I have a second glass of wine, a mere £2.50 for this Jack Rabbit. This definately takes me back to warm nights stood outside the Shakespeare, and to cold nights stood outside the Shakespeare. Ninety nine pence wine, it seemed to rhyme back then. Or was it one pound nine? That seems more likely. The wine was for the birds back then though, I'd be on the carling or strongbow depending on mood. Food pairing was not relevant as we did our drinking on empty stomaches for efficiency. I take a sip of the Jack Rabbit expecting the worst. I don't think I could finish a carling or a strongbow these days except in direst circumstances and I expect the same of this wine. It's...not awful. Plain, flat, no offence. Slightly smokey aftertaste. This is 99p (£1.36 inflation-adjusted) wine I could drink in a pinch. 6.5 marks out of 10....wait, hmm the second sip wasn't quite so good unweighted by negative expectation. The third sip tickles my tummy. I hate being tickled. The fourth....I heave a little. 6.5 marks out of 100. The whole group of people in front of me executes an Olympics-worthy synchronised smoke break. Eight blokes rise simutaneously on a imperceptible signal and depart the multiple small tables they are arranged around leaving only the coasters and the faint whiff of the previous break. I have the unusual thought that I'd like a cigarette. They feel like the ideal accoutrement to a pub like this, well a town like this really. I momentarily yearn to join their endless cycle of drink and smoke, drink and smoke (though both of those pleasures ensure that it is anything but endless). What else can a person do in Bridgwater? Or any place with off-shored hope? The rain beats down still and 'Up where we belong' booms down from the speaker a metre or so above my head. I have to to go before I lose myself in this unquiet corner of a noisy bar in a most curious nook of my life.
2/5
They say:
"Excellent selection of dead-eyed, red-faced booze gollums. If you like anecdotes about GBH and Cardi B, you're quids in." --Adam 'RedOcelot' Berthiaume
1/5
I say:
The streets are a shiny shade of blue, of green, red or whatever is the predominant colour of the lit signs of the takeaways I pass in the rain. Alas my destination is dim, the only upmarket bar in town is google-maps-open but real world closed. Perhaps they've given up on this damp Wednesday night. So I walk, drawn back to the cosy warmth of the hotel but soldiering onwards to the task of these reviews. I don't quite believe myself when I tell people, as I have done lately, that Bridgwater has over 30 pubs and bars within 15 minutes walk of the centre as defined by the church (and my hotel). And yet here they are. 1, 2, 3 within a short stroll of my sad and deserted original choice. 6 within 100 meters or 5 within three quarters of a furlong as the government now requires me to say. They are uniformly empty, bright, and unappealing from the outside. But I must choose lest I find myself a year from now still working at the grim coalface (ironic pun) of a distressed project, recently single and wearily eyeing the barmaid whom I reason must be old enough cause she works in a bar. And all this just to complete my tour of Bridgwater's pubs.
The Old Market is quiet but not so much that I am a curiousity. there's enough people here to make it feel drank in. Why drink here though and not, what I take to be, the fairly identical pubs I previously mentioned? You get comfortable with a place I suppose and maybe it's just closer on a rainy midweek night, it's teeming down outside now and any pub feels welcoming in a storm. Why did I drink at the Shakepeare so, so many nights of my life? Location, location, relaxed-attitude-to-inebriation. The prices in here also bring back memories of those days. A large glass of red wine sets me back £3.25. It was twice the price in the hotel with dinner. Twice as good, yes but this feels like a reasonable and rational cost-to-value relationship. I take up a large corner table equidistant to the two main groups of people in the lounge. Half an hour passes as I write this and people begin to bustle in from the street. The music starts to pump though the reverberations are barely absorbed by the soft furnishings and softer bodies. Yet more people join us and I start to feel a little self-conscious about occupying an 8-seater table. Maybe they'll just assume I've been cruelly stood up by 7 of my so-called friends after doubting the benefits of brexit or joining Extinction Rebellion or something like that. Maybe it was just the dark mustard jumper I'm wearing. I don't occupy a view of the TVs showing the football at least, that's circumstances in which I'd have to watch it or move. So profundity eludes me as I have a second glass of wine, a mere £2.50 for this Jack Rabbit. This definately takes me back to warm nights stood outside the Shakespeare, and to cold nights stood outside the Shakespeare. Ninety nine pence wine, it seemed to rhyme back then. Or was it one pound nine? That seems more likely. The wine was for the birds back then though, I'd be on the carling or strongbow depending on mood. Food pairing was not relevant as we did our drinking on empty stomaches for efficiency. I take a sip of the Jack Rabbit expecting the worst. I don't think I could finish a carling or a strongbow these days except in direst circumstances and I expect the same of this wine. It's...not awful. Plain, flat, no offence. Slightly smokey aftertaste. This is 99p (£1.36 inflation-adjusted) wine I could drink in a pinch. 6.5 marks out of 10....wait, hmm the second sip wasn't quite so good unweighted by negative expectation. The third sip tickles my tummy. I hate being tickled. The fourth....I heave a little. 6.5 marks out of 100. The whole group of people in front of me executes an Olympics-worthy synchronised smoke break. Eight blokes rise simutaneously on a imperceptible signal and depart the multiple small tables they are arranged around leaving only the coasters and the faint whiff of the previous break. I have the unusual thought that I'd like a cigarette. They feel like the ideal accoutrement to a pub like this, well a town like this really. I momentarily yearn to join their endless cycle of drink and smoke, drink and smoke (though both of those pleasures ensure that it is anything but endless). What else can a person do in Bridgwater? Or any place with off-shored hope? The rain beats down still and 'Up where we belong' booms down from the speaker a metre or so above my head. I have to to go before I lose myself in this unquiet corner of a noisy bar in a most curious nook of my life.
2/5
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