TMT Day 1: You can't beat cheap beer
On my trip to English flavo(u)r town.
You're damn right I went to a Wetherspoons.
Listen, I just got off the plane not 8 hours ago, so this isn’t a day for complicated decisions. My brain is currently sitting in a squishy, delirious, jet-lagged state where the only decision that can be made with true certainty is to put one foot in front of the other. So, since I'm just faking my own consciousness throughout the day, I figured it would be fitting to start at a Wetherspoons.
For the uninitiated, Wetherspoon (also known colloquially as 'Spoons) is a national chain of pubs with locations littered all over the United Kingdom. Their shtick is to essentially buy up old historic buildings, retrofit them to look vaguely like pubs, and use economies of scale to sell food and beer at a low cost.
Whatever you're imagining in your head right now is probably spot on.
I'm trying to think of the closest thing to a 'Spoons we have in the U.S. - Hard Rock Cafe? Texas Roadhouse? Walmart, even? For my friends in the Pacific Northwest, maybe McMenamins is a decent approximation, though I think McMenamins is a bit farther on the hipster scale. When I originally talked to Greg Mulholland from Campaign for Pubs, he likened them to the “fast food of pubs,” so let’s go with that.
During my initial chatting with folks, it felt like opinions about Wetherspoons varied quite a bit - some didn't like them, others thought they were fine, but everyone agreed that the beer was cheap. This probably explains why there were three Wetherspoons within a 15-minute walk from my hostel, and all of them were crowded around 6 pm. It's hard to beat cheap beer!
And damn, it was pretty cheap. A pint will run you about $5.61, compared to $7.69 at another pub I tried tonight. The food is reasonable as well. You can add a cheeseburger to that beer for a meager $7 extra. All told you're out of there for under $13 - where else does that happen in downtown London in 2023???
The not-too-surprising downside is that you leave feeling a little hollow inside, wondering if it was worth saving that $2? The decor was a little soulless, the food was meh (the menu is wayyy too big for any capable kitchen), and I had this nagging sense that Guy Fieri was about to pop out from behind the bar telling me he was taking me to English flavo(u)r town.
But hey, the beer was good, and is that what it all comes down to? Maybe 'Spoons exist for those three-beer nights, you know? At that rate, you'll have saved enough for a fourth beer! A fifth? Alright, alright, maybe there is something to this...
The real advantage for Wetherspoons, and the reason they can sell cheap beer, is that they're technically “free houses," meaning they own the buildings they operate in. Conversely, many pubs in England and Wales are "tied houses," renting or leasing the space from a brewery (or corporation) and required to sell that brewery's beer at a specified price.
The tied system is genuinely fascinating, going back centuries. It’s not quite as common for new breweries and pubs these days, but for those old pubs that are tied houses, the model has become problematic over the last few years.
And this is where it all starts to get a little spicy. But more on that later.
Right now, I’m tired, my brain is mushy, and my ability to compose coherent sentences is falling by the minute.
See ya tomorrow.
-Skylar
It will be very interesting to see what you learn from all these pubs. I remember being disappointed that every pub seemed to have the same beers- which I was told was corporate’s fault. Only one stout anywhere- Guinness; I had looked forward to trying other stouts. The only unusual beers I found were “ Speckled Red Hen “, which I had in the cafe in Winston Churchill’s underground bunker complex. Also had “Old Peculiar” , which was a good dark beer.
I can already tell I’ll be learning a lot from this pop up stack :)