{"id":2589,"date":"2022-03-25T13:38:08","date_gmt":"2022-03-25T13:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/?p=2589"},"modified":"2022-03-25T13:38:10","modified_gmt":"2022-03-25T13:38:10","slug":"return-to-wc1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/2022\/03\/25\/return-to-wc1\/","title":{"rendered":"Return to WC1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It seems a world ago since I last pottered around WC1 to see how the pubs were faring. What a lot has happened in the eighteen months since and what a palaver! Opening, then restrictions, then lockdown and then opening again! As most pub goers will have observed, this to-ing and fro-ing has made it difficult for pubs but last autumn the trade seemed to be recovering and looking forward to Christmas. As we know, things did not quite go as planned, with many pints, once again, being poured down the drain. Industry news is not encouraging. Recently, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Pubs produced a report which said that early indications are that 5% of pub businesses (2,500) closed in 2020 alone and almost 400 have been lost or redeveloped, averaging a loss of six per week. Furthermore, the British Bar and Pub Association (BBPA) reported a drop of 38% in beer sales in 2021, compared to pre-pandemic levels (\u00a35.7 billion).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I decided to take a little walk from King\u2019s Cross to Holborn one Thursday afternoon to see what was going on and see for myself the impact on a few pubs. There is no doubt that the green shoots seen in July 2020 are still there but in many cases they haven\u2019t grown very much and many are struggling to get going above the turf. Not surprisingly, the impact on cask beer has been detrimental. The first visit was to the Queen\u2019s Head in Acton Street where there were two real ales on, including Redemption Trinity (a regular). It is never the busiest pub in the afternoons but there was only one other customer and it had a forlorn atmosphere, although the barman was welcoming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The Queens Head<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

After a little walk down Grays Inn Road, I popped into the Calthorpe Arms, where a group of locals were comfortably ensconced in the corner, braving the cold while a window was being replaced. This traditional corner pub was formerly a Young\u2019s tenancy, sold to Punch Pubs last summer. Sadly, the new owners have decided to discard one of the branded Young\u2019s windows in favour of clear glass. It was explained that it was \u2018to allow people to see in\u2019. It had been in CAMRA\u2019s Good Beer Guide for decades, especially for the quality of its Young\u2019s Ordinary. Now the single handpump was London Pride (down from four in November with the previous Young\u2019s tenant) because of the lack of trade). John Young would turn in his grave!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across the road is the warm and comfortable Blue Lion, which too has seen a reduction in its range and had just one beer on, in this case Dark Star Hophead. It was in excellent quality but the pub was as quiet as had been the Queen\u2019s Head. Local custom from local offices has clearly dried up, not helped by the building opposite being up for rent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found a similar situation in the Duke in Roger Street. Amazingly, there were still two beers on and the Black Sheep Best was very drinkable. It was such a shame there were no other customers to enjoy this hidden backstreet heritage pub. The pub dates back to the 1930s and is very much in a time warp, although an attractive one. If you have never been there, make it a must for 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Then, around the corner, passing another Queen\u2019s Head (no cask beer), into Red Lion Street and, at last, a pub with some people in, although it was by no means packed. Owned by Punch Pubs, the Enterprise is a warm, welcoming pub with some interesting features; they seem to have kept up some of their Christmas fairy lights, which adds to the atmosphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Again, the beer range has been very much depleted, leaving it with the ubiquitous single handpump, this time Doom Bar, which had run out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I moved on to visit one of my favourite pubs in the area, the Dolphin. This tiny one bar corner pub is independently owned and a chat to the manager mirrored what had been seen elsewhere in WC1. \u201cI only have enough custom for one cask<\/em>,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were finally picking up in November and were looking forward to a good Christmas to make up low sales for earlier in the year. Then Boris did his \u2018work from home\u2019 announcements and it just died<\/em>\u201d. The pub has also significantly reduced its opening hours. It always closed at the weekend but now it only opens at 4pm Wednesday to Friday. The beer is usually from independent regional brewers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

It was interesting that, at the other end of Red Lion Street, the pubs were faring better, probably as a consequence of more offices being open. The Old Nick in Sandland Street had a few people in, clearly from work and mainly in their thirties and younger. This is a Hall & Woodhouse pub and Tanglefoot was the only beer on. The number of customers was exceeded by the Penderel\u2019s Oak (Wetherspoon\u2019s in High Holborn), where students were very prevalent. This younger bias was a contrast to the Old Red Lion, with its older, clearly working clientele who were drinking St Austell\u2019s Tribute and Taylor\u2019s Landlord. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interestingly, there was a theme throughout these three pubs: all of them had reduced the area available to customers by closing and roping off areas, creating a busier and more atmospheric feel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what about those green shoots? I came away from the afternoon with what I can only describe as a happy depression. I was pleased that all the pubs were open and a few, at least, seem to be faring well and ecstatic that all of the beers tried were of good quality. Depressed though, because the majority of pubs were almost empty and that the cask beer was mostly hanging on by a thread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With working from home for at least part of the week still being the order of the day, we still have a big hurdle to encourage people back to the pub and drink real ale in many of our city pubs.
Christine Cryne<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It seems a world ago since I last pottered around WC1 to see how the pubs were faring. What a lot has happened in the eighteen months since and what… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2594,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pub-crawl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2589"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2595,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2589\/revisions\/2595"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}