Saturday 11 July 2009

Greene King pub disappoints – shock.

My local pub is a Greene King pub. I don't go anywhere near it. It's horrible. It has all the unique charm of a branch of McDonalds. It is very popular with the Daily Mail-reading hordes that populate the area I have the misfortune to call home (for the time being.)

Yesterday my friend rang: "I'm watching the test match on the big screen in the Strawberry – you coming?"

Cricket is the only sport I watch and I'm furious that it now belongs to Murdoch. I'm not remotely tempted to fork out for Sky – so, on the whole, I don't get to see Test Matches.

So, against my better judgement, I trundled round to the 'Berry. Mark was several pints in and rain was threatening to stop play. I don't particularly enjoy afternoon beer so I ordered a diet coke. It came in a nice branded glass with three large ice cubes. Unfortunately it only reached just over half way up the glass. I've consumed enough bottles of beer in my time to be able to make a good estimate of volumes of liquid. I got about 220ml of Diet Coke. I'm not certain but I think it may even have been a metered dispense. How much did they charge? £1.45. That's about £3.70 for a pint of post-mix.

That's nowhere near the £3/half that is charged in a notoriously awful pub that estate agents go to after work in my old stomping ground in South London: even so, I was mightily pissed off.









4 comments:

Unknown said...

We drove past the Strawberry this afternoon. Looked like a tied house from the outside and we commented as such. See, you should have just had beer.

But, at least it would have had some nice-ish beer I presume, OK, handpull anyway. We were on our way back from the Lisdoonie, which had nothing nice to drink at all. I saved my liver and drank coffee.

Why do they insist on putting egg sandwiches in buffets when nobody eats them? - they are always the ones left when everything else has gone.

Jeff Pickthall said...

The Lisdoonie?

Oh my aching sides!

Unknown said...

Yeh, even The Railway was starting to look tempting....

....oh my, what's happening to me? 'Spoons looking tempting? I think I've got some spare caustic, just off for a bath....

Cooking Lager said...

The Greene King boozer near my office has a board outside advertising its beers at £2 or under. Keg Bitter and Cooking Lager. The pub is no worse than any of the others, and in some respects better. Spoons market there value position well, I'm surprised Greene King don't scream "cheap lager" louder.