As I was up in London the other day I made a point of popping into a Sam Smith's pub, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. Run by a famously bonkers boss Sam Smith's pubs are unlike any others. Just about everything on sale is own brand and the prices very reasonable. Sadly the only cask beer they sell is very dull but on the plus side they do a good keg wheat beer and stout.
One of their eccentricities is that they have no internet presence at all. Fortunately others have put a lot of information about them online. There's a map of their London pubs here. They're well worth visiting as many are fantastic old pubs that have had a fortune spent on very sympathetic renovation.
I've drank in a lot of the Sam Smith's pubs, especially around that Holborn/Chancery Lane/Fleet Street area. I kinda like the cask OBB, plus it's proper cheap! They are great old pubs in many cases.
ReplyDeleteOBB is too sweet for my liking. Samuel Smith's Museum was possibly the best cask conditioned beer in England at one time. I cannot understand why they do not still brew this beer.
ReplyDeleteI just find OBB boring but I do sometimes work my way through the beer colours at the bar: wheat, OBB, stout.
ReplyDeleteReal shame about Museum ale, but Sam Smith's business decisions are not known for using any logic.
I've heard that Museum is their bottled Pale Ale? If that's the case, it's still being made, but just not put into casks. Why in the &^%$ not??!!
ReplyDeleteAs I said, the guy who runs the company is bonkers. Check out the forums on http://www.samsmiths.info/ if you want to be depressed.
ReplyDeleteNo cask in all my local Sam Smith's seems odd when the cask revolution is riding high.the swearing ban is odd as ladies I know will not drink in his pubs in any case as they don't like his top shelf and wines.
ReplyDeleteSeems to swim against the tide.
His pubs are getting done up(not modernised) ln my area but seem even emptier than before.
I was a Sam Smith fan before he took cask out ,now I won't bother going in
The brewery seems to be reducing its
Range and scope of customers whilst spending huge sums re decorating pubs
Can't see what he is trying to achieve
More room for Witherspoon's to dominate I suppose.they actually increase their age range of customers and keep prices low whilst weirdly giving their customers what they require,what a strange conception?
Sam Smith's seem to have a strange idea
Of their core customer base.
I would hate to see more pubs shut just because of bloody mindedness.