{"id":705,"date":"2020-01-22T16:51:39","date_gmt":"2020-01-22T16:51:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/?p=705"},"modified":"2020-01-22T16:51:41","modified_gmt":"2020-01-22T16:51:41","slug":"letters-january-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/2020\/01\/22\/letters-january-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Letters – January 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

CHANGE OF NAME<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I fully agree with Ray Palin in that the magazine deserves a more fitting name. \u2018Drinker\u2019 is rather non-specific and does have some generally negative connotations. I suggest London Pub Life as a far more suitable title.
David C Arnoff<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

SERVING TEMPERATURES<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My under-age drinking was done decades ago in a number of\ncountry pubs. One of them was the Prince of Wales in Newney Green near Chelmsford, but was\nalways known as either the Kickin\u2019 Dickey or the Drum & Monkey. Back then,\nit was a converted \u2018two-up two-down\u2019 cottage. Open the front door and across\nthe public bar was what had been the back door but was now a door-wide bar\nbehind which was a lean-to with barrels on stillage. To the right was the\nsaloon, which was a Victorian parlour with a dining table and chintz and Mrs\nPorter would carry the round in on a tray. Out the back was a shed which is\npart of my history of pub loos. The beer was Truman\u2019s, so we drank halves of\nmild and bitter (in those days Truman\u2019s bitter could be like drinking razor\nblades) but we only did it in the spring or autumn because room temperature\nbeer was either too warm in summer or too cold in winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More recently, the Approach Gallery, upstairs at the pub of\nthe same name in Bethnal Green, found a home movie of the pub back in the early\n1960s. The bar was virtually clear, having only a couple of handpumps, while\nbehind the bar were racks of room temperature bottles of beer and mixers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue of beer temperature cropped up again recently. A\npub on my circuit had new lager providers. They thought the coolers weren\u2019t\ncool enough so popped down to the cellar to sort it out. Unfortunately they\nadjusted the wrong bit of kit. The real, cask ales were made colder. Before the\nlicensee spotted this, a Cask Marque inspector made an inspection and reported\nthat the real ales were too cold so the pub\u2019s accreditation was due to be\nwithdrawn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The steady reduction in serving temperature of all beers over my lifetime is something I\u2019ve noticed. At the risk of sounding like I support the whimsical Mr Wetherspoon, I blame cheap flights to Lanzarote. Doubt we\u2019ll ever see it reversed.
Nik Wood<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHANGE OF NAME I fully agree with Ray Palin in that the magazine deserves a more fitting name. \u2018Drinker\u2019 is rather non-specific and does have some generally negative connotations. I… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":434,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705","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=705"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":706,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705\/revisions\/706"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}