Absolute disgrace. Was in there just after 7pm, to say Wetherspoons were supposed to be having a real ale festival it was shambolic, half of the 8 pumps were off, 1 other went during the evening and wasn't replaced. It didn't even get busy til about 8 yet the bar area looked like a bomb had dropped, the fridges were only half stocked as well I noticed. Tried to engage the barman on it but he kept wandering off. I'm assuming he wasn't the manager and given the state of the place I'm guessing the manager was off. Email on it's way to Wetherspoons. Was planning to stay in there all evening, eventually went up to the White Bear but left straight away when we saw both hand pumps were off there and went down to the Courthouse and the vast selection of Magnet!
Don't happen to be in London next weekend do you? If you want a proper beer festival. Just put the finishing touches to my pub's 25th Old Ale Festival with some of the best cask ales known to man. Even got some Sierra Nevada Porter and Stout coming over from America, plus there Harvest Ale which has never been served outside the United States. Fullers Vintage in cask, Gales Old Prize Ale in cask, Traquair Stewart Ale and Froach Heather Ale. Plus another 30-40 too.
You are plugging American beer at a real ale festival? Just come back from a week in Austin Texas and drinking John Smiths would have seemed like nectar compared with most of the rubbish I had to put up with Only decent beer I found was in the Airport Marriott which had 4 beers from a microbrewery - the 2 I tried were both very drinkable.
RE: You are plugging American beer at a real ale festival? They do some excellent microbrews - and to be fair most bars I go in there have at least 1 decent brew, can't even say the same about going out in town! Sierra Nevada - I've only had their Pale Ale which is nice
RE: No Do you fancy bringing back a couple of the big bags of Andy Capp "hot fries" Crisps?
6th Street Austin is where most of the downtown bars are and we didnt find one with microbrewery beer on tap all bud and millar (+ light) etc least bad was the Sam Adams Got to laugh though Austin bills itself as "The live music capital of the World" proper proper PMSL though Some of the bars did have decent bands in
American is starting to produce some fantastic real ale As I'm sure Garratt Oliver would tell you. Cask ale is getting bigger and bigger over there. If you sidestep the water-flavoured lagers and try many of the microbreweries, examples been Road Dog or Smuttynose, or the main ones like Sierra Nevada, Liberty and Brooklyn, you'll find ample beer to drink till your hearts content.
RE: 6th Street Austin You should have tried The Ginger Man on 4th street....been in the one in NY and it's a cracking place. http://beeradvocate.com/beerfly/city/30
As it seems i am the only Bramah employee on here i feel duty bound to respond. Yes we have a beer festival but all it means is that we get a slightly better range of beers in and they are 10p cheaper not much of a festival i agree. As for the state of the pub i was in there from 4 til 6 with some friends before going to wakey for the evening and it was busy then and since we extremely short staffed i can understand the state of the pub. Now can i ask a question why does everyone hold us to a much higher standard than every other pub in town? We are one of the busiest pubs in town and yet people walk in and see 150 to 200 people at the bar and expect to get served in under 5 minutes or complain that they aren't served next, here is a point for you when you are behind that bar you all look the same just another face and while it is possible to keep track of certain areas of the bar and who comes first it isn't possible to keep track of it all, so don't scream out your next or that you have been there for a hour cause you will be ignored until you go away because we have the right to work with out being verbally abused every friday and saturday night.
But normally the 8 hand pumps are all in operation - why then were only 4 or 5 operational and when another went off it wasn't replaced? That is bad enough at the best of times, but is compounded when advertised as a beer festival serving 50 different beers over the course of it i didn't make comment upon getting served, that was fine.
Sorry i missed that bit when one ale goes the line has to be cleaned in order to put another ale on and this process takes 45 minutes and we can only do 2 trad lines at a time so that is a draw back but means all ales are at their best when we serve them and since there are only 8 people in the pub that are trained to do this and at least 4 of them weren't on last night myself included it can lead to a delay especially when morer than 1 ale runs out at the same time. Btw we only had 24 out of the 50 possible ales, we have no control over this head office look at the amounts each pub sells and then assigns an amount to each pub.
Last time i went in bramahs there were two staff and three people at the bar waiting to get served. I was totally polite and waited my turn...and waited...and waited while everyone got served about me. It took about 10 minutes less than the previous time prior. I now go to the gatehouse.
speed of service is rubbish that's the fault of the management and lack of urgency of the staff. It's an endemic problem in weatherspoons establishments. Its no more a busy bar than elsewhere yet it takes twice as long to get served. A lot of people simply give up and go elsewhere.
Might not be you mate, but when it is busy it doesn't half get on punters nerves when barstaff seem to find time to flirt with each other for five minutes at the till before reluctantly serving someone - who usually happens to be one of their mates or someone they know from college. And no, that's not just Bramah's.
Bugger - wish I'd known a week ago Actually walked past that place and didnt give it a second thought