Pub Crawl Fallout

Last week I hit you with a post about the art of pub crawling in advance of my first planned pub crawl since Drink it How You Like it began. I realised over the weekend though, that there was something important I forgot to include in my basic guidelines – something that I actually fell foul of this weekend, and that luckily didn’t result in disaster; don’t drink too much on the night before your planned pub crawl.

This is a very easy mistake to make, since excitement can be running quite high as the weekend approaches. As I told you, I had planned to tackle the famous Didsbury Dozen on Saturday, and had selected an experienced and hardy crew. However, being that my fiancée Brenda, would be out of town from Friday it seemed necessary to go out for some drinks on Friday, too. So that led to a mini pub crawl of Manchester’s Oxford Road area. Being all excited, I drank far too much, and didn’t bother having any food, so it all resulted in a fairly severe hangover on Saturday morning. By the time my first group of friends arrived at 11.30 I wasn’t feeling much better and still looked like I’d just woken up, though I’d actually been up since 7 feeling that the house was too hot.

Now some people (future alcoholics) will say, ‘hair of the dog!’ because that’s supposed to work, and I did consider having a can of beer at 9am, but it’s a fine line. Yes, a fine line. So I’m here to tell you: you can’t rely on hair of the dog – it’s still a lottery. Your second drinking session might be a success, or it might turn out that you peaked a day too early, the beers aren’t going to go down nicely that day at all, and you’re going to be tired and grumpy and might carry a headache with you the whole way.

Luckily for me, this weekend the gods of beer were on my side. A couple of cans at my friend Chris’ house for the early afternoon match soon led to three pints of Directors and lunch at The Didsbury, and we were off. We didn’t visit 12 pubs, but given that we did visit 8, had 3 pints in the first one, and 2 cans beforehand, it transpired that we drank enough to have visited 12 pubs.

And we had two meals! This is an unprecedented development in pub crawling for me. I’m notorious for not wanting to eat once I’ve started drinking, but it is essential for prolonging the duration of your crawl. It is useful to have pubs on your route that do decent food so you can take care of the food requirement without taking a break from the drinking. It’s also great if it means you can get the beers brought to you for a couple of rounds instead of having to go to the bar.

The Didsbury is an ideal starting point if you’re intending on trying a dozen Didsbury pubs one day. It’s situated between Didsbury Village and Parrs Wood, so it’s pretty much the first pub in Didsbury (coming from the Stockport side). It has a decent reputation for food, and tends to be very popular on Sunday lunchtimes, but then so are most gastro-pubs in this country. I have to say, the rump steak I had was all right, but given the pub’s reputation, I expected something a bit better. Nevertheless, beer was first class - the Directors was going down very well, and I’m not a food blogger anyway.

I don’t remember the names of all the pubs we visited, but we kept the venues fairly old skool, so it was traditional [read: old man pubs] all the way really. Fletcher Moss was probably the best stocked bar in terms of spirits but generally we didn’t have too much trouble making our various selections. 

I think I took the award for most expensive round with £27.20 when some of us decided to have Sailor Jerrys and some Courvoisiers. I think Gav had the cheapest round - £11, when he stole the round I was in the process of buying at The Didsbury.

Along the way I unveiled The Devils Breath which you can read about in an earlier post, and it proved very popular. Then we almost started a food fight in the Four in Hand before good sense reasserted itself and we finally strayed over the border into Withington with a pub who’s name I can’t remember, but it had a proper tiled floor, and seemed to have been lifted directly from a mining town in the 50s. Nearly everyone was really impressed with that one. Paul declared, “This is brilliant!” (see how I’ve italicised the word ‘brilliant’ there, but left the exclamation mark un-italicised? That’s exactly how he said it).

So I can categorically declare: a good time was had by all. They were probably the two best pub crawls I’ve participated in for a long time, so it was a bonus that they came on consecutive days.

I’m afraid I don’t have any booze porn for you this week, but here’s a picture I found on my camera from the pub crawl on Friday night. I can only assume that’s me silhouetted in there. I probably won’t be able to post again until next week, so until then have fun, and enjoy yer booze.

The Art of the Pub Crawl

Since I learned to drink, I have favoured the pub crawl. Sitting in a bar all night just doesn’t do it for me. I always have to be on the move. Constantly moving maintains the momentum of a drinking session. It is constantly bringing you into contact with new sights, experiences and drinks.

Sometimes you might find yourself drinking with people who would rather stay where they are – because they have a seat – than go out and experience something else. You can always find another seat – maybe not in the next place, but you won’t be there long, so maybe the one after that. If it’s a seat you’re after, you may as well stay at home.

And anyway, it’s a fact: a pub crawl is more fun than sitting in a pub. And it’s more than just drinking. As I am about to show you… it is an art.

It’s not an art; it’s a science. Actually, it’s not a science either, but there are some useful things to know (not rules) for making a good pub crawl. Before I get into those (things, not rules), you should know there are two types of pub crawl. The first (and best) is the Impromptu Piss-up. In this scenario you take whoever you are with, wherever you are, and careen blithely from one pub to another, not a care in the world. You might even call more friends and invite them to join you. And they might. This is truly a beautiful experience, and sadly a rare one. It feels extra special because it’s like you’ve stolen it – this wasn’t supposed to be happening! But it is! Let’s ride this crazy train for as long as it lasts! The Impromptu Piss-up, as its name suggests, requires absolutely no planning.

The other kind of pub crawl does need planning, and also a little bit of technical experience. These are the things you need to know. First you need to invite some dedicated drinkers, people who aren’t afraid to step up to the plate and stay there. People who are ready. You need to make sure they know this is a pub crawl.

Second you need a focus. This can be a theme if you like, but it doesn’t involve dressing up (though you can do that, if you want). More specifically, it should be an area that you intend to drink in, a starting point and an end point with pubs in between that you will drink in, or a selection of pubs with something in common. This could be something as inane as pubs with beer gardens, rock pubs, pubs with an animal in the name, rough pubs – use your imagination. Make sure you have this in your mind before you start, or you may spend too much time not going anywhere, just trying to think of somewhere to go next. Try to visit at least a few pubs that you haven’t been to before.

Third; start early. Any time before 6pm is fine, but earlier is better (noon for the hardcore). There is no feeling to equal the glow you get after a few early afternoon pints when the world’s shining bright and you still have a long way to go.

The final guideline is keep everyone together, but keep moving. The larger the group, the harder it is to synchronise people’s drinking. This is fine, but you need to make sure that people are ready to leave at the same time. This means communication. Make sure people know when you are approaching time to move on. Make sure they know that they need to have finished their drinks by this time. If you’re a fast drinker, and they’re a long way behind, it is acceptable for you to get another drink, but you need to make sure that they don’t – otherwise the cycle will repeat and you’ll never move on. If you do get a second drink, you need to make sure you finish it when everyone else finishes their first. And away you go.

Repeat that last one until it’s time to go home… or for a curry.

That’s it really. It requires a bit of discipline and a strong leader. It helps if you’ve developed a pub crawl team – a crack core of veterans that you’ve done this with before. You should make that your mission.

I got my pub crawl stripes in the Quayside area of Newcastle on Saturday afternoons in the late 90s. A group of us would meet at the Haymarket at noon, walk down to the Head of Steam and begin. Stops along the way included The Bridge Hotel (where I swore I had the best ever pint of John Smith’s), The Cooperage, The Red House, Bonded Warehouse (or Bondage Whorehouse, as we called it) and any others we fancied along the way. Just before 8pm we’d call into Flynn’s to get some cocktails and vodka jellies before happy hour finished, and then we’d be very drunk. 

I don’t remember too much of what would happen after that; we might go up into other parts of town for more drinks, or go to a club, or the Student’s Union, or a party. We had stamina in those days, and we were young enough to laugh in the face of hangovers; we rarely got them. 

I know I won’t see days like those anymore, but I try now to have a pub crawl once a month, just to recapture that glow, to feel young and carefree again.

This weekend sees the first pub crawl since Drink it How You Like it began, and having struggled with crawler’s block (that can happen after you’ve survived a large number of pub crawls in a town) my friends and I have decided to keep it simple; we’ll be doing the famous “Didsbury Dozen” – but in our own way. We may visit 12 pubs or we may not, but it will most likely finish with a curry. If I have anything interesting to say about it, I’ll fill you in next week. Until then, have a great weekend.