Have not been there for years . It used to have a nice disco in the back room on a Friday lunchtime during the 80' s .
I worked in Trog Bar for a couple of years in the mid seventies - they had a team of about 4 or 5 doormen so at that time unless some mob decided they were going to take on the doorstaff any trouble ended with them being thrown out very quickly - I remember some lot from East Hull had a go at them and two doormen ended up with broken noses - never known a pub with such a sticky floor
I used to have to collect the half used small Britvic tonic and ginger bottles off the tables and make full ones and put tops on them to resell, also pour the slops out of the trays into pint glasses ready to top the off for the next punter - I used to have to check the huge metal casks in the cellar which held hundreds of pints with a glass window in the top so you could keep an eye on the condition - the mild was about half full but going off and frothy so all the bitter and lager pumps were shut down and everyone was told we were waiting a delivery so only the off mild was sold until it was all gone - I've no idea how many ended up with gut-ache from that lot
I used to work in Baileys before that - the Tartan was definitely watered down - I also worked for a pub that will remain nameless - I had to de-gas the 11 gallon barrels when they were about three quarters full - take the top off - pour a load of water in - re-gas them and out of the pumps it went - the best pint was after a barrel ran out because the new barrel was always 100%
Tartan! If that was the only beer available Ineould have no difficulty being teetotal. Was there ever a worse period for booze than the early 1970s? Unless you could get the likes of John Smiths or Tetleys you had awful fizzy keg stuff like Tartan, Double Diamond and abominations called lager which bore no resemblance to their continental counterparts.
That would have been unusual, Watneys actually tasting of something. It wouldn't have taken much of a reduction in strength for Watneys and some others much to be classified as shandy they were that weak. No wonder the toilets always had a queue for them, people could drink gallons of the stuff in an effort to get drunk.
According to my father, the bad British lager beginnings were helped along their way by the hot, dry summers that the 70s had - combined with no air conditioning in pubs/clubs with water not yet being a 'normal' adult drink etc. People were drinking gallons of the stuff along with whisky shorts - why weak Heineken appeared - was it 3,5%? and Carlsberg 68 etc. It might as well have been fizzy water. ESSEX GULL
3.5% was strong then. The cut off point for the duty altering and being higher was 3.4%. That was the strength for the likes of Tetleys and John Smiths. Newcastle Brown was considered strong stuff at 4.3%. The likes of Watneys and some others, such as some IPA beers was about 2.1%.
Always seemed to be Hull Brewery or Bass( Stones) when I was drinking. A pub with Tetley was like drinking nectar for me then.
Used to love that place for bands on a Tuesdays and Thursdays. Saw Vinegar Joe several times but they were notorious for not turning up. A mate of mine was related to Elkie Brooks and he tried speaking to her but she was too stoned to understand. She was quite a raunchy act in those days. I used to get pissed and get home late but still get up for school the next day.
