484. Fri 21/9/18: The Brewery Tap, Luton

Beer: Skinners Knocker 4.5%

Sneaky post-work pint at the BT as I contemplate an early evening solo trip to Markyate, again, to try out The Local micropub. The Tap is a far better prospect at this time of day than it seems at night (see episode #446): no bouncers on the door – possibly busier (there’s probably around a dozen folk in the place) – and extremely helpful bar lady. Would I like to taste the different beers (there are two…can’t remember the other one)? Yes, thank you very much… mmm… I’ll have a pint of [the above] thank you”.

Bar lady is very careful over the pouring, and keeps the pint behind the bar as she accepts the money – so as to be certain it’s a full pint once fully settled. Fine. Good service. She’s then called away, before giving me the pint… leading me with a dilemma. Do I wait for her to return? Do I lean over and grab it? Luckily another colleague wanders past, and I ask her.

That’s the highlight of a one-pint visit. I play on the quizzer, I bemoan the fact that the music is a bit too loud – Billie bloody Jean… “the kid is not my son”… who’d have thought? I decide that, yes, I will attempt a trip to Markyate (do I get there though, dear reader? see episode #485… “The White House”).

261. Wed 13/12/17: The Brewery Tap, Luton

Beer: Hardy & Hansons Rocking Rudolph 4.2%

Toss a coin in the gym changing room. Its heads – so I ditch fitness and go down pub.

Since reading the blog, up there on the internet, I have changed the way I’ve written – and the pubs I’ve visited. My decision to go to The Tap was based on not having written it up thus far, and that I’ve gone and thunk up “an angle”.

This visit, nay this whole enterprise, is informed by Orwell’s 1946 essay The Moon Under Water, about the perfect pub. The boozer of this Orwellian utopia - TMUW (spoiler alert) doesn’t exist.

The brewery to which this pub recalls was demolished in 1977 – so both Orwell's essay, and Luton’s Brewery Tap pub recall things that are lost to time.

Who, one wonders, was the last whimsical toper who sat in this pub fondly recalling foaming pints of JWGreen’s Dragon’s Blood? Who can tell? Maybe he/she is in here now… they’ll be getting on mind.

Green’s was bought out by Whitbread – who lost interest in brewing years ago (not before everyone lost interest in their lousy beer). Hardy and Hansons were bought up and closed down by Greene King a decade ago – but Rocking Rudolph is, though possibly not what it was, perfectly decent.