I visited a Wetherspoons real ale festival
Sunday 2nd April was the last day of Wetherspoons Spring real ale festival. It featured, notionally,30 beers, although only in the largest Spoons would you find most of those over the 10 days or so of the festival.
Before craft beer these Spoons fests were often one of the few ways you could get to sample a range of beers that you were very unlikely to see in your local pubs. The world of course has changed but Spoons hasn’t. It cant really run craft keg fests because most of its keg taps are tied (see the current Spoons v ABI Court case).
Even so as a CAMRA member since 1975 I have no issue at all with drinking cask
Of course I do have an issue with Spoons. It should recognise a union. Its figurehead Tim Martin who I knew from his early Haringey days is at best an eccentric and idiosyncratic figure. That said Spoons is no worse, and arguably slightly better, than a number of other PubCos. Brewdog it is not.
Anyway being in Cardiff on Sunday I stopped by the Ernest Willows in City Rd (for those unfamiliar with Cardiff that’s on the edge of the city centre). It was moderately busy but there were ample seats. The toilets btw are impressive in themselves and award winning.
I stopped by because you can check on the Spoons app which pub has which beers on at any particular time. I noted Adnams Extra and Cambridge Flowerchild IPA (US brewery, brewed at Hook Norton).
Service was prompt and both pints were in good condition. The IPA while it had an impressive hop bill tasted more like an ESB (fine with me). The price? £2.35 a pint. Partly this is festival economies of scale across Spoons 800+ pub estate. Partly it’s just silly and not really helping cask producing breweries.
That said if I was someone on a limited income (I’m not-if you haven’t already, joining a union may help here) who fancied a decent pint would I be complaining about that?
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