When you have over half
and hour to wait for something you need to do to open, what do you
do?
I'll tell you what I
did. After walking up and down Mare St in Hackney, London, I noticed
the hands on my watch face had barely moved. I needed something else,
hopefully more enjoyable to allow the time to pass by unnoticed.
A bunch of tramps were
drinking strong cider and loitering on the steps of the Hackney
Empire Theatre, I'd already walked passed them a few times and made
eye contact on this one approach. It was getting silly, there was
still a little under half an hour to go and nothing to help ease it
by.
Becoming increasingly
aware of how stupid I must have looked, and not wanting to pass the
tramps yet again, in such a short space of time. I made an on the
spot decision to go into the 'Stage 3' theatre bar/café.
I walked in, went
straight up to the bar and was about to order a coffee. That was
until I noticed directly in front of me some Crate Brewery beer
pumps. This completely threw me off my game, causing me in panic to
pause, dead still, for a few moments which seemed to last an
eternity.
It seems that I had
justified to myself that 11:37am was appropriate as 'Beer O'clock'. I
ordered a half pint of Crate Brewery IPA. This whole ordeal made me
feel very anxious and the situation wasn't helped by the fact that
ordering and paying for it seemed to be an ordeal, a most awkward
process that I don't every remember going through.
It was a strange
introduction to one of the tastiest IPA's I've had. From an onlookers
perspective I'm sure the whole thing looked as if nothing odd had
happened and was a perfectly normal experience. Fear had reared its
ugly head and manifested itself in my mind, causing me to panic!
Normality was restored
after reading a chapter of my book and helped by finishing off the
half. I looked down at my wrist and was happy to see my watch read
12:05pm. It's an analogue watch so obviously in reality it had the
minute hand at the 1 O'clock position with the hour hand at the 12
O'clock position, making it five past twelve.
I'm looking to venture
into brewing myself and get some much required and desired work
experience so visited a couple of breweries in the morning. I had one
more to go, it was a brew pub called 'The Cock Tavern', which I'd
been told great things about and was waiting until it opened at
midday to find out for myself.
As far as pubs go, it
looked great. Dark, dingy, battered and bruised bar, scratched wooden
floorboards and non matching furniture. Perfect, just perfect. No
Fosters or Guinness to be seen, the pub was going from strength to
strength. As for beers, they had pump after pump of the stuff, along
with a selection of their own small batch brews. Downstairs in the
basement was the HQ for the in house micro brewery 'Howling Hops'. If
I remember correctly, I may have even seen a plaque on the wall
saying the pub won Cider Pub of the Year 2013, or was it 2014, I'm
not sure, whatever the case it won one of those years.
I tried their 'Smoked
Porter' and 'Pale Ale batch no.10'. I'd gone and done it a bit arse
about face, instead of starting with a lighter beer going to
something heavy, the first one I tried was a Brown Ale from the guys
over at the 'Pressure Drop Brewery'. It was a smooth, rich
flavoursome beer that one might even have said was almost creamy.
From that I then tried the Howling Hops, Smoked Porter which was
gorgeous, with all the burnt toast and chocolate notes you would
expect. I fancied something else, something lighter and fruitier, I
had a sample of two pales, the no.3 batch and the no.10, I went for
the latter as it suited my taste better. I was hungry and took my
leave. To return again in the near future, in fact I've arranged to
visit them again next week.
Another reason for me
to be in the area was that I was going to a gig in the evening. An
artist I'd heard on BBC Radio 6 Music earlier in the week, it was
mentioned they were playing at Rough Trade East, a record shop/venue
off London's Brick Lane. All I knew of 'Ghost Culture' was that it
was one guy and I liked what I'd heard off the album. The music was
what I would call an slightly more evolved version of the kind of
electronic music I was listening to about ten years ago.
He had a very
interesting set up. Some synthesizer looking devices, other weird
boxes, a couple of electronic drum pads, a guitar, lots of wires all
over the place and surrounded by lamps with and without shades that
seemed to react to the sound, flashing on and off in time with the
music.
The whole performance
was a spectacle, exciting to watch and verging on annoyingly
confusing trying to figure out how he was making the sounds he was.
Especially when he drummed as hard as he could on the pads.
Ghost Culture is
definitely one to watch out for, I think I may see him again... soon
I hope.
Here's a link to his stream on SoundCloud
For up and coming shows or general music related stuff.
The good guys at Pressure Drop.
Howling Hops and The Cock Tavern.
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