I want to be entertained

As a bit of local news, The Highwayman in Rainow has just been awarded the title of Casual Dining place of the year at Cheshire Life’s Food and Wine Awards. The pub which has been gathering awards and praise ever since the current owners took over has also been awarded an AA rosette for their food.. One of only 2 pubs in Cheshire to be awarded one.

Kristiane Harrison, the pubs landlady said:

“This award means so much to us because we know how well regarded they are within the industry and, to the food conscious public.”

She also mentioned that they were not going to rest on their laurels and strive further for the best pub food possible. Good luck to them

There was an interesting article posted on the BBC the other day about how little effort the beer industry is putting into innovation and experiment. As a matter of fact, I would love to see a few more innovative and interesting beers around. The article talked about blue beer, beer where the froth settled in the middle and even beer that glows in the dark (achieved with some phosphor that emits light apparently)

I would love to see some of these beers hit the shelves (and bars). I think beer brewers are only just beginning to experiment with beer and lemon, beer and lime (and the brilliant Guinness Red). After all… who wouldn’t want a glow-in-the-dark pint of John Smiths?

I really dislike Chicago rock cafe’s. Every single one I have ever been to is pretty much exactly the same. They all have blue walls, circular dance floor (that no-one ever uses) and a pretty rubbish DJ that only shuts up for the Queen songs that blare out far too loud to talk over.

Unless you are on beer all night, you are going to be spending a lot of money in CR, you may as well get used to it. Its not like I am comparing them to dirt cheap Wetherspoons, but when local pubs are charging less and have fresher beer, better music and less chavvy atmosphere, there is simply no way anybody should go to Chicago Rock.

I can live with expensive drinks if the atmosphere is right, but the truth is Chicago Rock Cafe’s are rubbish in every single way.

My nephew (6 years old) was invited to a birthday party last weekend, his parents were off doing something else, so (being the nice guy that I am) I decided to give him a lift down there and pick him up afterwards. After all, it would be fun to see what kids do for their parties nowadays. I only seem to remember the McDonalds Parties for some reason.

I was surprised to learn that his party was in a pub. It turned out that this was one of those wacky warehouse style places with the ball pits and everything. The basic idea is that you (the parents) sit around in the pub and have fun chatting and whiling away the hours, while the children can go as crazy as they like, throwing them selves around a padded room. There were, of course a few bumps on the head and other minor incidents, but on the whole both me and my nephew had a really fun time. We even got a couple of party bags to take home with us.

Strikes me as a brilliant idea to me… They should do the same thing with clubs and bars. Chuck the kids in a ball pit for the night, and let the adults go off for drinks and dancing. I can’t see what the down side would be…

So I’m going to see Frank Turner at the weekend after I was introduced to his music whilst watching Glastonbury on TV (not enough money for tickets last year) Frank used to be in the Punk band Million Dead, but since then has been singing the most brilliant Folky songs about his previous life as a punk rocker. You are fresh out of luck if you want tickets for this weekend though, He has recently been played a fair bit on Radio 1 and as such his tickets are selling like hot cakes.

Would definitely recommend you check out Photosynthesis on YouTube (or similar service).

There was recently a survey of spirit measures done by a branch of the Trading Standards group that discovered that just 19 percent of measurements were completely accurate.

Trading standards officer David Roderick said that most of the discrepancies were small, but the figure should be higher accuracy.

“It is a matter of concern that only 19 per cent of purchases tested were completely accurate.”

The survey is due to be repeated at some point in the coming weeks. I would not like to be a repeat offender, those chaps at trading standards are likely to come down hard on any more discrepancies.

The Soft drinks manufacturer Britvic has seen a slowdown in the decline of its sales in the past few months.

The company must have been getting a little worried when they started seeing the whopping 7.3% decline in sales and are relieved to see that the decline has slowed to 4.3%. Experts say that this is probably due to an increase in pub food sales (apparently no one likes beer with pub food anymore..)

I would hate to see the company go under, as the do make a great selection of drinks that I love (Gatorade, 7up, J2O, Pepsi etc..)

So long story short.. Go out and buy a crate of Britvic 55 and keep their sales up.

Being the only time I really drink ale, I am really looking foreword to the Real Ale Festival coming up at the end of this month. The Wetherspoons sponsored event is the largest in the world and a great chance to taste and sample as much ale as possible.

The great thing about ale is that, like wine, each one is very different to another. I would definitely recommend going for the smaller local brands, as the larger ones can be really boring.

Stay away from the usual (Carling, Fosters, Stella..) try something new for a change, You may discover that you really like Ale

Barracudas (one of the major bars in Macclesfield) has recently been re-designed to be a much less night lifey atmosphere. Not too sure if it is only half finished, but it seems they have split the bar in half, and left the dance floor completely unused. Its a bit of a pity, as Barracudas used to be a pretty fun night out, having the great mix of sit-down bar and night club feel to it later on.

Now, the place looks and feels like any normal Litten Tree or Yates.. It would definitely be a better venue if they re-opened the dance floor as soon as possible, so I can get back to having an amazing Thursday night drink off.

I found an interesting story the other day about a woman’s local pub with a very similar name to a local Oldfellows pub that she lived near to.

The local, much smaller pub kept getting calls from various delivery companies trying to deliver beer and other pub supplies to the pub, only to realise she was only a local resident. Mrs Goodchild has been receiving deliveries dumped at her door for kegs of beer, wine, boxes of food and other regular pub supplies for the past 5 years.

Mrs Goodchild’s pub also received a complaint from the police (who mistook her for larger pub 8 miles away) about the amount of noise they made on a Friday night.

Both the venues were members of a The Oddfellows Friendly Society, That’s where they think the confusion stemmed from.