In Brighton, June 2026. From beer & a tribute to Dark Star brewer Rob Jones to a publicly owned train service
I’ve been a regular visitor to Brighton for the best part of fifty years. Usually either politics or pubs were involved and sometimes both. On one occasion being the organiser of a coachload of protesters from North London, on the arrival the police served me with a notice underlining that if I had not left Brighton by sunset I’d be arrested. Surveillance techniques were not then what they are now, so I didn’t leave by sunset and I wasn’t arrested.
I’ve been in Brighton again over the last few days, and while politics and beer were in the mix, I was attending my Union’s national conference at the Brighton Centre on the seafront.
Long a conference venue, indeed I was there for the TUC on September 11th 2001 when Tony Blair made a brief appearance and then returned to London as the dreadful events of the Twin Towers played out.
Despite what might be thought Union Conferences are primarily about the conference business and the scope for things like beer is limited and often in a context where you need to be with colleagues who may have limited or no interest in beer.
Even so beer there was. I stopped off at the Evening Star (Surrey St by the station) the original Dark Star pub, and raised a glass to Rob Jones, who died very recently, and brewed the beers in the pubs cellar
Rob Jones, Dark Star Brewery founder, dies
There were no Dark Star beers available, although there was a Downlands tribute APA. I had a glass of Iron Pier 1940s style Burton Ale.
My hotel was on the sea front, Queens Hotel, Kings Rd, and unusually for a hotel bar it had a drinkable beer on a 4.8% Meantime pale at a reasonable (for residents) £5.58 a pint.
Literally adjacent was the Star pub (formerly Dr Brightons) which specialised in selling local beers from Beak and UnBarred. A 4.5% Beak pale was £6.80 a pint.
I expected even with the constraints of my main focus, attending the conference, to find decent beer in Brighton. The prices were a little surprising in such a tourist focused area. That is to say not £10 a pint but quite reasonable.
I returned home on a GBR publicly owned train service, the first I had travelled on for over 30 years. It was on time but the wifi didn’t work. Far from all was great about British Rail but at least public money wasn’t being siphoned off into the pockets of privateering shareholders. The trains btw are still leased. Thanks to all those who pointed that out.
