It was the best of times ...

Life goes on, innit

Faith, what else?

Sometimes it takes an extreme event to make you appreciate what you have.  Here we are, in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, with most of us confined to our homes, and understandably people are complaining. They are also ignoring instructions to stay home and instead are carrying on as if nothing is wrong.

But that’s enough about Dominic Cummings. Let’s just think for a moment about this world we live in. We now have 24/7 news coverage as well as an information platform called the internet where you can find anything you want - and sometimes buy it - and on it folks have developed networks of social gatherings where you can hook up with friends, family, even total strangers and talk to them any time you damn well please. And with a beer in your hand you could almost be in the pub!

How have you all been coping with the lockdown? I've been surprised at how little I have missed the outside world. I realise that I am luckier than many. I don't live alone. I'm able to do my job without leaving the house and, by not travelling to work, I'm saving a substantial amount of money. My local micropub, the Foghorn, delivers beer to my door and the weather is pretty good. It's the future, not the present, that is the problem as far as I'm concerned. One of the highlights of the year for Charita and I has traditionally been our holiday, sometimes to the States, sometimes to Europe. When are we going to be able to travel safely and what mode of transportation will we be using to reach our destination?

Deliver us from sobriety

My beer drinking habits may have changed but I have managed to keep my consumption level roughly the same. Yes, I do miss proper cask beer, and the stronger keg beers, but I've always supplemented pub visits with a selection of cans and bottles kept in the fridge. Now all I have to do is make sure that that selection is replenished once a week, and instead of buying a pint at my friendly local micro, I now order a selection from them online. 

In fact I'm spending far more at my local micropub than I ever did when my visits

Charita's lockdown choice

were a couple of times, on my way home from work. I would rarely have more than a pint; very occasionally I would follow it up with a half but then I'd jump on the bus for home. I did also visit other pubs and off-licences, in different parts of Brighton and Hove. Now the bulk of my weekly beer purchases come from the Foghorn. I hope it helps them survive this seemingly never-ending lockdown.

Something that has changed in the short term is the range of beers that I've been drinking. Understandably, for a pub suddenly required to operate as an off-licence, the Foghorn's range is not large. But it does include two of my favourite brews, Faith and Heathen, from Leeds stars Northern Monk and they also offer a rotating selection of pales and IPAs from Burning Sky, as well as the excellent stouts from Sussex Small Batch.

I have researched what other options there are that don't include leaving the house. Locally, it's micros like the Foghorn, the Old Star in Shoreham and Worthing's Brooksteed Alehouse that seem to offer the best service, alongside independents such as the Evening Star and the Brighton Bierhaus. The problem is that many operate to the same principles as food delivery apps; in other words they only deliver to certain postcodes. Another often cheaper option is to order direct from the brewery. The larger microbrewers - Cloudwater, Northern Monk, Arbor, the Kernel, Siren - all offer national delivery.

It wasn't difficult to find all this out with a little bit of internet research, which rather makes CAMRA's well-intentioned  Brew2You app seem unnecessary. It does list a huge number of breweries, with details of where they deliver to, how quickly and whether they also offer collection. But there are a lot of key breweries not featured including all of the ones I mentioned in the previous paragraph. Hopefully, that will change. At the moment its only advantage seems to be to slightly speed up your search time!

We'll drink again, don't know where ...

Hey, guess what - Wetherspoons are re-opening soon!

The young Tim Martin?

Yeah, I thought that would cheer you up. Not. But seriously, notwithstanding the government's claims to be supporting small businesses, it's pretty obvious that some pubs are never going to re-open and those that do survive are going to look very different. It's hard to imagine how the average micropub will cope - social distancing is going to be with us for some time and halving the number of customers is going to be the first change for those that do survive.

Reading the runes, it seems to me that between July, when the Government are considering the possible opening of pubs and restaurants, and, say, October we will see, apart from the return of  'spoons, the pubcos opening as many of their pubs as they can. Whether they sell the remainder will probably depend on the value of the sites themselves. The more enterprising independents will have a crack at opening at limited capacity while continuing to grow their off-sales. The rest, especially the micros, will delay re-opening as long as they can afford to. Some will close for good.

It doesn't look great, does it? But hey, Zoom has made virtual pub meet-ups a thing, and the growth of the virtual off-sales market is one of the few plusses to come out of this pandemic. Things could be a lot worse. They could still get a lot worse. But as long as we can afford to buy a decent selection of ales from a range of breweries life will still be worth living.

You just gotta have Faith!

Phil's Lockdown Lovelies

Northern Monk - Faith Pale
Northern Monk - Heathen NEIPA
Sussex Small Batch - Zucotto Stout

Arundel - Maple Syrup Chocolate and Coffee Stout

Burning Sky - Out of Vogue West Coast Pale

Left-Handed Giant - New Best Friend IPA

Thornbridge - The river knows: blueberry and passion fruit sour