Beer in the Evening

I like pubs. Well that's an understatement. I love pubs. Can't get enough of them in fact.

I love the atmosphere, the feel, the architecture, the bar stools....oh the bar stools...

Which is why I spend a fair amount of time on Beer In The Evening just reading reviews of pubs I know and have been to, but also just reading reviews of random pubs.

This is, admittedly, probably a bit weird, but as I said I love pubs. I really could talk, daydream and read about them all day.

Anyway, this being the case, I naturally keep up with the reviews of Taps, which aren’t, in the main, all that favourable.

(This is an understatement)

Now it’s easy to react badly to things like this, because when you love something it’s hard to take criticism, but you’ve got to at least try and be objective (or realistic) about this kind of thing, no?

I mean, let’s be honest, if your only experience of the place was a Friday and Saturday night it wouldn’t be unreasonable for you to come away with the opinion that the place was jam packed with all manner of horrible scum. Because a. it is jam packed, and b. they are all manner of horrible scum.

Frankly, if I had any other choice I wouldn’t drink there at the weekend at all, and I’m giving serious thought to drinking in the Kings Head on a Friday night as it is.

During the week I think the Taps is a truly great place. Completely and absolutely.

But that which makes any local pub great (the sense of community and feeling that you’re in your own living room) is also that which can sometimes get out of hand.

[I do only mean sometimes. Most of the time it’s the usual groups of regulars having a few pints after work, doing crosswords, swapping recipes, and arguing about who would win in a fight between Bruce Lee and Muhammad Ali]

[Muhammed Ali, by the way]

You’ve got a bunch of people (mainly blokes – and the type of blokes who are regulars in a pub at that) who know each other very well and who are comfortable in one another’s company, and you'll get industrial strength language, shoutey horseplay and pretend loud arguments and all the other stuff that comes along with alcohol and pubs.

But as I said, sometimes it can get out of hand – and embarrassingly so. Really, I’m sometimes honestly embarrassed when some random couple walk in to what they think is going to be a quiet pub during the week for a quiet drink, and are immediately greeted by a couple of blokes loudly calling each other cunts.

Yes, we all know they’re joking, and that in that context it’s often very funny, but what kind of impression are that couple going to take away of the place?

In fact, just think about how it impacts on their enjoyment of their evening.

However, that said, that kind of thing is a rare occurrence, and during the week (and for most of Saturday day), the Taps is a genuinely a lovely and friendly place and frankly anyone who says otherwise is a cunt.

Jumping Ship

It’s probably fair to say that the issue which has been most exercising the minds and conversations of the Taps regulars for the last few weeks has been the question of what to do when the Kings Head reopens. Individually or collectively it’s a question which everyone has, at some point in the last few weeks, asked themselves.

Souls are being searched and loyalties and allegiances questioned - and in many cases found wanting.

Although to be fair, the question of allegiances and loyalties isn’t an entirely straightforward binary loyal/disloyal equation, in that there are undoubtedly many Taps regulars who only started drinking in the Taps because the Kings Head closed. Which is to say that their first, and some might say only, loyalty, understandably, still lies with the Kings Head (KH).

I get that. I really do. I mean I only started drinking in the Taps because of the tragedy which was the demolition of the Enfield Arms; and should the Arms have reopened within only a couple of years of its closing I would undoubtedly still be there now.

It will be interesting to see what those people do. Although I think that for the most part the call of the KH will prove too strong and they’ll relocate back to their first love.

Which, perhaps, is as it should be.

Which leaves another group of regulars who are faced with a more difficult question. Those regulars who are only in the Taps because, as they see it at least, it’s the least bad of all the other possible options. People who, while enjoying the Taps, are fed up with the hideously crowded Friday and Saturday nights. Fed up with the same faces evening after evening. The same beer. The same conversations. The same routine.

I wonder what they’ll do?

Will they jump ship? Will their heads be turned by a passing set of pretty ankles and a whiff of perfume?

Me? Well I’m Taps faithful. Upright and loyal, but, hell, even I’ve thought about it….

We were borne from jealously

Well, what else are you supposed to do when you discover that the Kings Head has a blog (and a very worthy blog it is to and which you will find here), except to haul off and prove that we too have the same commitment and sense of fraternal goodwill for our local as they still hold for their very fine establishment.

And so here we are.

The unofficial Taps blog, where you (dear readers) will be kept updated on all things Taps related.

Which is to say, I will complain a lot about things which really aren’t important, and you will be bored.

Allons y.