In praise of the 99p Pint (From Watford Observer)

In praise of the 99p Pint

11:34am Wednesday 7th January 2009

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I bet that surprised you, in case you hadn`t heard JD Wetherspoon have reduced the price of a pint to 99p followed by the inevitable calls for the nanny state to step in before the streets are awash with binge drinkers. Now I don`t wish to appear irresponsible, irreverent possibly but if we examine the small print of the offer we establish that the 99p pint in question is for Greene King IPA and an extremely fine ale it is, I should know as we`ve sold over 25,000 pints of the stuff since I first pulled a pint at The Three Crowns. Apart from being the official ale of the England Rugby Team, and a particularly nice pint, one of the reasons our customers choose it is for its low alcohol content ie they drink it so as not to get drunk, which sort of defeats the binge drinking credentials.

I can also tell you that in the same way that Pimms & lemonade conjures up images of a warm summers day and pink gin is usually found alongside crusty retired colonels boring at the bar in Agatha Christie novels, a pint of Greene King IPA is seldom the tipple of choice of your average binge drinker, for a start it`s not fizzy enough nor is it served in a shot glass and downed in a oner, so I`m going to put a positive slant on this and congratulate Wetherspoons for doing their bit to bring people back into pubs at a particularly quiet time of the year The 99p pint does put community locals such as ourselves and many others in the area at a little bit of a disadvantage as we can`t possibly compete, we can`t even buy the stuff for 99p a pint let alone sell it, perhaps on another occasion ( and, if you`re at all interested ) I`ll explain the “Beer Tie” to you Delighted to report that our New Years Eve Quiz Night and Buffet sold out with over 70 attending, we actually ended up turning people away, and the raffle raised a few quid for Great Ormond Street Hospital as well. Chris & Chris did us proud with Chris the quizmaster controlling front of house whilst young Chris in the kitchen churned out platter after platter of king prawns, duck spring rolls & fiddly little smoked salmon blinis. Next event we`re planning ( apart from our regular Tuesday night quiz ) is a Burns Supper where we have the services of Colin & Les, 2 kilted Scots and stalwarts of Bushey Round Table to lead the evening.

Back down to earth with a bump as the first Monday in January lived up to expectations ie nothing doing, which is just as well as I had taken to my bed with my first day off sick in over 5 years, a little touch of self inflicted man flu brought on by watching my youngest play rugby in sub zero temperatures. He has been playing for his team for 2 years now and has still to score a try though to put that into perspective the entire team haven`t scored a point for just over a month, still he enjoys it particularly the free hot dogs after a game. Mind you so speaks the footballer who has only scored 3 goals in the last 5 seasons……but what beauties they were