[email protected] wrote: > [email protected] wrote: >> 2009/2/19 Adrian Stott >> <[email protected]> >>> Surely the problem can't be that boaters don't drink enough these >>> days? >>> >> I think in some respects it's true. In the past on the cut, if you >> drunk at all, you drunk at pubs. You might, God forbid, have a >> Watneys Party Seven on board; > > Steve's mention of Watneys canned beer leads me to wonder if that's a > clue to a couple of things that have changed: > > If I remember rightly, 30ish years ago most beer available from most > off licences was rather undistinguished national brands (such as Long > Life, Worthington E etc), and mostly sold at not that much less than > draught beer in pubs. > > Once I'd been drinking long enough to tell the difference, and once > the decline in pubs selling real ale had gone into reverse, it was > often a choice between a decent pint in nice convivial surroundings > in a canalside pub or a tin of very mediocre pale ale on the boat - > for not far short of the same price. > > Now, the choice is between the same decent pint of ale in a canalside > pub or paying half as much for an almost-as-good 500ml bottle of > decent (if not technically 'real') ale.
There are Shirley may people that first boated in the 1970's who did it just as much for the discovering little gems of waterside pubs, with interesting and "exotic" real ale than did it for the boating. -- Neil Arlidge NB Earnest - Out of it. Wildernii Mini Me - Now back to being wheely good fun. Follow the travels of TNC, now in Ireland http://www.tuesdaynightclub.co.uk/tour.html
