Last orders at the pub?

With pubs in serious trouble as the government once again introduces a less than half-arsed lockdown, it was with a degree of apprehension that I arranged an evening with an old friend in the pub last night. Having gone through the rigmarole of booking a table on-line, we arrived to find that they had no record of my booking. In my best ‘Do you know who I am?” voice, I pointed out that I was quite certain I had followed the booking through to its conclusion and had been a regular at this pub for some 28 years. “So, you’re not going to let me in, then?” I asked. “No.”

My friend and I sat by one of the pub tables outside the pub to work out what to do next, whereupon a member of the bar staff immediately appeared saying we could not sit there unless we were buying their drinks. I pointed out that we were trying to work out what to do next and she said something to the effect that we were breaking the law, would probably be arrested, charged and sentenced to life imprisonment. I’m not sure these were the precise words, but you get the drift.  She then told us to “go away”, or was it “get lost”? Given the tone she used, it might as well have been the latter.

I understand the pressure businesses are under and I do not like to be critical of people who work hard in an industry that does not exactly pay top dollar to its workers, but there is an issue for punters, too. I’ve been to a handful of pubs since lockdown was lifted and with the single exception of the one we finally ended up in last night, the experience has not been great. This was, I think, the third or fourth visit to the pub we went to last night and nights out have varied between not very good, through piss poor to last night’s “You can’t come in.”

Of course, going to the pub is, by necessity, very different at the moment. We have a deadly virus which is making an unwelcome comeback and things have to be different in order to limit the chances of our dying. As a member of the Campaign for Real Ale, I feel like I have some kind of moral obligation to support pubs, not least because I thoroughly enjoy much of what they sell. But it has to be enjoyable, too, and mostly sat the moment it just isn’t.

I understand why pubs are often offering reduced lines of beer and food, but if I am then limited to things that I don’t really want, then I have a problem. I recently went into one pub that had no ‘real’ ales and only what we refer to technically as shit lagers and ciders. I swear that if I was condemned to a life of nothing but Carling Lager or Magners Cider, I’d go teetotal. It’s not quite that bad, but with very average beer costing well over £4 – nearly £6 in town – I’m coming to the reluctant view that in most cases the pub experience at the moment is rarely worth the bother.