British country pubs still offer a great local drop, discovers Don Kavanagh.
IT’S ALWAYS fun to observe cultural differences when you’re overseas and I certainly managed that this week as I set foot back in England for the first time in ages.
I was staying in Essex so my partner and I could surprise a friend on her birthday, and we booked into a charming little seafront hotel in a place called Southend-on-Sea.
Lovely it was, too, despite having a room so small that I had to step out of the shower to turn around. The sun was shining, I was on holiday, all was well with the world. A few pints were called for, so off we went to check out the delights of downtown Southend, or “Saarfend”, to give it the local pronunciation.
The first difference I noted was that people liked to take off their shirts, a lot. Older men, with bellies hanging over their belts and closely shaven heads paraded their saggy boobs for the delectation of holidaymakers, and many of the women appeared to have been baked in some kind of oven, rendering them wizened, dried up and very much like the tobacco in their ever-present cigarettes.
Still, at least the beer was good. Well, mostly. After years of taunts about drinking warm beer, our former colonial overlords now seem determined to drink beer-flavoured slushies. Almost every beer offers itself as being super-cold, extra-cold or, in one memorable case, “the coldest pint ever!”
Lager chilled to the point of insipidness has never been my cup of tea, so I stuck to the ales as much as possible. There is, after all, something marvellous about strolling into an English country pub and supping a pint of something tasty and local.
And the country pubs were much as I remember, offering good food, decent beer and sharp pricing as the recession still grinds its teeth on the industry’s leg over here. The range of real ales available has grown too, with excellent beers on offer and even the big breweries making room for guest taps in their pubs.
That’s something we could do with more of in New Zealand, but my passing observations of the pub trade here suggest that we can hold our own, especially when it comes to service.
The top-end bars in London have cracked the service aspect, but further down the food-chain there is still an almost endearing element of either rudeness or incompetence on show, like the woman who, after repeatedly being asked for a pint of Wychwood Ale by a customer with a broad Essex accent, replied in the strongest Polish accent I’ve heard outside Krakow, that if the customer couldn’t speak English then maybe he should try drinking in another country.
At least I’ve never heard that in an Auckland bar.