I am asked to leave...

There is nothing large or smart about being barred from a public house. I was once told never to darken the doors ever again of a certain pub in Lancashire after I mistakenly disputed a bar bill which contained apparent evidence of the consumption of a number of pints of ale, not to mention single malt whisky chasers and fine Cuban cigars. Even now, I'm not entirely sure who had consumed all those drinks and smokes, but there certainly was a collection of empty glasses on our table and a number of cellophane cigar wrappers in our ashtray. And I think we were smoking cigars. Either way, I was a youth, roaring drunk, and certain of my case. In short, I was being an arse. I had to leave. There is nothing big or clever about being barred from a public house.

I imagine that most of the people who are barred from pubs fully deserve their sanction.

I'm thinking of the sort of wiry fellows who like to fill their veins with super-lunatic lager on match days before stripping to the waist and throwing metal shop signs through a high street window. I saw that happen once. Or the sort of lethal fool who throws glasses. A New Labour politician might say something like: "These people have no place in the pubs of our dreams, only the inns of our nightmares." I can, for once, only agree.

Anyway, I was asked to leave a pub the other night.

Not because I was violent or abusive or so shot I couldn't breathe properly. No. I was asked to leave a pub for...

...training!

That's right: training.

I was in the beer garden of the Tarka Inn, which is on the main road between Braunton and Barnstaple, one fine recent Sunday evening having a pint with my father; I only see him about once a year because he lives "upcountry", as they say around here.

The beer was good at the Tarka, the sun was still beaming away and I had only just started to explain my intensely fascinating architectural analysis of the Tarka Inn's castle-like squat dominance by the Taw estuary and the relative merits of a benignly-neglected country local compared to a corporate tourist pub when a young lad in a smart shirt came outside and said we had time for a quick last pint because they were closing. It was about 9pm. I asked the barman why they were closing and he said: "For staff training".

We weren't bovvered about being asked to leave the pub restaurant (which is owned by the chain Vintage Inns), even if it was "for training", it was just a new experience. Superb pint of Timothy Taylor, by the way.

The Tarka Inn, Heanton, North Devon

Adam's Ale Rating: 2 out of 5

Drink This: Timothy Taylor (if it's on)

Tributes for North Devon landlord

Tributes have been paid to a former Torrington landlord and community stalwart. John Boyd, known as Jack in the town, died on Monday May 18 aged 80. You can read an obituary here: http://www.thisisnorthdevon.co.uk/news/Death-landlord-Admiral-Vernon/article-1044773-detail/article.html

I am mysteriously rewarded after attending a bingo night

I was only half-concentrating on my bingo sheet when I felt an urgent little tug on my shirt sleeve.

I glanced away from the tugger and looked at the next table, where a burly fellow with a Midlands accent and a girly drink (Barcadi Breezer) lifted his eyes from his bingo sheet, which seemed tragically bereft of crossed-out numbers, and looked at me as if I had kicked his favourite springer spaniel in the face.

Dangling my Biro of fate in my hot hand, I realised the whole packed-out holiday camp hall had stopped its tense muttering and was basking in a shared semi-drunken state of nervous silence. The melancholic remains of a blown dandelion clock hung in the late-evening air by the doorway, buffeted to stillness by the heat of contest rising from the bingo tribe.

Another tug on my shirt sleeve. Yes, yes, yes, I muttered...I had...won, won, won my companion was telling me. Here! A winner! Then she was waving my bingo sheet in the air and screaming "over here! over here!" at the young girl who was calling out the numbers on the stage.

The harassed girl walked down from behind her digital number machine to assess my claim of victory. Feeling I was an unworthy winner, partly because of my lack of love for the game of bingo and partly because I wasn't actually on holiday at the camp, I drained the final mouthful of a very average pint of Guinness.

Yes, there was bingo, a woman dressed as a giant beachball, and lots of screaming, running-about children, but no real ale on offer at the bar of the Golden Coast holiday camp near Woolacombe that day. Everyone was enjoying themselves, of course, and it's a splendid place to go on holiday, but I needed to celebrate my win with something reeking of the green growth of North Devon hedgerows, of hops, malt and, perhaps, the finest brewing genius known to the modern age. So, after collecting my £30 bingo winnings, and checking over my shoulder for bitter losers, I repaired to the nearby pub.

It was good to get away from the blaring disco in to the cooling North Devon early summer dusk and it was only a few minutes stroll to The Old Mill, which is in the peculiar position of being a bone fide 17th century pub all but inside a modern holiday camp on the Butlin's model. I couldn't resist walking a bit further up the lane first, just to look at the hedgerows exploding with complex life. I briefly contemplated fleeing to Benidorm with my bingo winnings, but thought better of it.

The Old Mill, large and rambling, is pleasingly ordinary inside; no signs of anxious modernisation or domestication (silly bits of twigs in designer vases were absent, praise be). It is certainly a Tourism Pub, but that isn't always a Bad Thing, although we had eaten at the pub the previous day and the food, I have to say, was lacking in quality or inspiration. What about the beer?

I took my pint of Lundy Gold, made by the Wizard Brewery in Ilfracombe, up to the "top" beer garden, away from the monkey enclosure (or "children's play area" as some people insist on calling it), all the better to take in the sun dappled pastures on the horizon. I wasn't desperate for peace and quiet, like some kind of No Ball Games killjoy, which is a good job because I was sat under a tree bristling with a large and precarious-looking nest of young squawky birds (tell me if this gets too technical, any naturalists among you). Meanwhile, down in the "lower" beer garden a smart woman was crooning along to a backing CD, but not in an offensive "I'm Whitney Houston" way, so I was mostly able to ignore her.

At first, the boy stayed asleep in his pram. It had been a manic day, what with all the swimming, dancing, trying to leap down stairs-ing and frightening parents-ing, and then the unforgiving pride of having a bingo winner for a father. But as I took my second sip of Lundy Gold the boy started to make the time honoured "Father, are you enjoying a moment of reflection with a pint of fine ale?" pram moan.

I don't think it was just the sunshine making me think that that Lundy Gold was one of the best pints of beer I have ever tasted. Wizard are punching well above their weight when it comes to quality and taste inspiration; the brew was light, bitter, refreshing, and clean tasting; it had just enough bite but didn't feel too tangy, knockout and lager-y like some similar beers. I immediately wanted to drink at least three more pints and wait for the bats to come out, but the "Father, are you enjoying a moment of reflection with a pint of fine ale?" pram moan became insistent and we had to leave.

Back at the camp hall, my bingo companions were enjoying a nightcap and the disco was in a full handclap mania, but the boy needed to go to bed so we couldn't stay and listen to the Gummy Bear Song again (is the excuse I used to flee the hideous clatter).

All the noise overload started me thinking about the noises of pubs in general: the "shhh, your bloody drink is coming" of the pump, the swish of a man escaping his duty to replace a spilled three-quarter full pint, the harumph of the real ale snob...

I want the pub to be an ageless refuge from the hum and humdrum of work and duty, a place where we can watch the sky and wait for the bats, or have a pointless argument about politics or cricket or what counts as a "girly drink", because, in the end, I claim, we all need space, man. Which is why I'm writing this blog post in the front passenger seat of my car, in my garage.

The Old Mill, Woolacombe

Adam's Ale Rating: 3 out of 5 (loses a point for average food)

Drink This: Anything by the Wizard brewery or Exmoor Ale

ALE FLASH! Country Pub Re-Opens...

A 12th Century pub near Bideford has re-opened after being closed for two years. The Bell Inn in Monkleigh has opened under the new management of Jackie Daniels, 45, the former owner of the Green Dragon in Langtree.

I visit a Devon pub with a Thai flavour and the Beer Spill Rule (BSR) is ignored

We cycled home on the footpath next to the River Taw in the late-May dusk with bats circling overhead and moths flickering past our ears. What finer way to end an evening of serious journalism than with a straight empty path unfolding before you at speed under the powerful glare of a bicycle headlight in the North Devon countryside?

And the salty estuary breeze drying the spilled beer on your clothes....

A couple of hours earlier, we had arrived at the George Hotel in Braunton, where it had been a pleasant surprise to find half-a-dozen people who were originally from Thailand standing in the airy bar. In fact, it was a pleasant surprise to find a half-a-dozen people standing at a bar in North Devon on a midweek night, full stop, given some of the "Mary Celeste" alehouses I have visited and walked by during my odyssey in recent months.

But the Thais were workers, not customers; in common with a number of public houses, the George, which dominates a corner on the main road through the centre of Braunton, is heavily marketing its food, in this case, from Thailand, and it has clearly decided to do so as authentically as possible.

And this seems to be the trend at the moment: it's either "traditional English grub" or Asian cooking, and quite often a mixture of the two. (A smartypants - don't know any of them! - would here point out that what we call "Indian" food in England is in fact an English version of some types of Indian food which would be unrecognizable to the majority of the millions of people in that nation. Yes, but so what? My belly is still not convinced that real ale and curry are the best of companions, no matter how "authentic" it is).

I do love the spicy complexities, and subtleties, of Thai food and living in one of the least ethnically-diverse corners of the wild westcountry, it is always good to see and meet people from other countries and cultures. Unfortunately, we had already eaten, so did not sample the menu, although I am told by a reliable source it is good and also includes traditional English dishes, or examples of "fayre", as pubs will insist on calling them.

Apart from the Thai kitchen and bar staff, there were only four other punters and because the George is a big pub, it did feel a bit empty. I ordered a pint of the ubiquitous Tribute (very good) and we played a game of pool.

The George, an elegant inn which was built in 1929, has been recently refurbished. There are cushions on leathery sofas, a large screen showing sport, and those large-stems-in-vases things (you know, twigs and stuff) which seem so popular these days.

The bar room at the corner of the pub still has a pleasantly wooden old-fashioned feel, but there is a certain feeling of the place being modernised. I guess the pub is partly in line with the Victorian pub era, when homely chintz was the order of the day. I love those chaotic-looking Victorian pubs, with their collections of moths in frames and pictures of cricket players sporting handlebar moustaches; few of them have survived the corporate onslaught of the pubcos since the 1960s, even if bad facsimiles seem to be on every high street in the queendom. The men's lavs at the George, however, were pleasingly chipped and tatty, and very RED. I am disappointed to say there were plastic windowframes at the rear of the building.

Every now and then one of the Thai kitchen staff would emerge from the back room and anxiously check the football scores on the big screen. My friend sparked up a conversation; the chef didn't seem to speak much English but he knew which team he wanted to win (I'll give you a clue: they're from Manchester and they win everything).

While my friend and I were deciding once and for all that test cricket was the best sport because it is the most absurd sport, someone accidentally knocked over my friend's almost-full pint. The spiller apologised, not least for soaking me, but then did not offer to buy a replacement.

Now. I could write you 500 words on the finer details of pub culture and behaviour and the rights and wrongs of beer spillage, apologies, replacement pints and so on, but I always thought it was a given that you at least offer to buy a replacement, even if that offer is graciously refused.

But there was no offer. And that's just not cricket.

The George Hotel, Braunton

Adam's Ales rating: 3 out of 5

Drink this: Tribute

A pub with a "reward card"

I hear that Lacey's Ale and Cider House in Bridge Street, Bideford, North Devon, is offering a type of reward card to drinkers of the Country Life microbrewery's real ales (which are brewed by Mr Lacey). I haven't had chance to take part yet myself, or indeed to write about Lacey's, but I understand that the card is stamped each time you buy a pint of the real ale and a certain number of stamps means a reward. This sounds like a splendid idea and should help persuade people to sample the Country Life beers (brewed at the Big Sheep tourist attraction near Bideford) which I have found to be among the best beers I have tasted anywhere; the brews were star performers at the recent Ilfracombe beer festival and are becoming firm favourites at pubs in North Devon.

Landlords go to parliament for a "fair pint"

At a time when a revolt is seething over the MP expenses scandal, it seems appropriate that another system which seems to be designed to benefit distant men and women in suits, rather than local communities, is under the spotlight: the tied pub sector.

The landlord or landlady of a tied pub, of which there are many in North Devon, is in some ways similar to the franchisee of an American fast food chain; they work for a corporation who controls their everyday business from afar, purely for profit.

Yes, a tied landlord might have more freedom than a McDonald's manager to change some aspects of their business, such as decor for example, but, crucially, they cannot buy stock direct from wholesalers. And there is the rub: if you are in charge of a tied house, you are forced to buy your beer via the pubco you work for, who charge you a higher rate, and that will be on top of the "rent" which always seems to be rising well above inflation. And that's before we get on to the "pub" firms who, entirely legally, apply to have pubs demolished or turned in to flats.

Well, the system might seem ludicrous and unfair, but many businesses are like that and remain highly profitable and popular. But the tied sector does not seem to be working. Pubs are closing at record rates. A national institution seems in peril. Landlords are quitting because they can't make a decent living and local people are losing something which should be their birthright, not an optional extra. Not an extra because proper local pubs are much more than businesses; they are community centres, historical gems, nourishment for the soul and icons of English history: they are too precious and imperfect and invaluable (in all senses of that word) to be left to certain decisions by certain philistine corporations.

Publicans, usually a conservative tribe by nature, are so fed up they are planning to take their battle to parliament this week, to meet MPs and lobby for an end to the tie system. Brian Jacobs, a founder member of the Fair Pint Campaign, has said: "For too long the voice of tenants hasn’t been heard at Westminster." Well it will be now, and our luxury-loving MPs should find themselves in a listening frame of mind.

Strange times, but this problem is not a new one. By the mid-1970s, a contemporary book reveals, when the current tied house system was cemented, the number of brewers in the UK had shrank from thousands in the Victorian era to a mere dozens, following the natural business tendency to concentrate, rather than proliferate, variety. This is when the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) (I am not a member) started to fight back. It is only in the past five or ten years that the microbrewery boom has begun to significantly redress the imbalance which had been in favour of the giant brewers and pubcos; I think it is fair to say we are living in the best time for beer for many, many decades, while, paradoxically, many of our pubs are in crisis, for a variety of reasons, not just the pubcos.

Landlords of tied houses in North Devon have told me that they are being squeezed by the pubcos until the bottle corks squeak. Of course, the pubco suits wheeled on to national radio programmes disagree with the complaints and claim they provide the opportunity for landlords to make a decent living, and without taking on 100% of the risk of any business. I'm sure some pub managers do well out of the deal. There is disagreement about how badly tied landlords are paid; they claim it can be £12,000 a year for a 100-hour week, while the pubcos say it is usually more than double that amount, excluding free accommodation at the pub.

Other people connected with the pub trade have told me a fair-enough "shake out" is going on in the industry and some of the landlords who fail will deserve to fail, perhaps a small minority were incompetent, or even lazy, or simply providing a service nobody wanted to use, no matter how much they strained their sinews to succeed. I think it is fair to say we do not have an overall shortage of pubs in England; we do, however, in my ever-growing experience have a shortage of top drawer pubs. 

In the end I find it hard to argue with the landlords who say they should have the choice not to be tied to a pubco's every demand and whim. Why should they? And, after all, when it comes to fairness, and who owes who what, what have the pubcos ever done for us? Yes, I agree with the pubcos when they say they are not the entire cause of the woes of the English pub, but they are hardly the fountains of joy either. There are too many medicore or downright godawful pubs in all corners of the country, and the causes of their unpleasantness might well be many, but I can't remember the last time I went in to a free house that deserved to close.