Pubs: My First Real Pint

Pubs in England showed one face to me at first contact, like the “oldest pub in Oxford” where I went back in 2009–that had to be authentic, right? With its low ceilings and timbers so shellacked over the years by smoke and skin and paint to the point they looked plastic.

We had ducked our heads through the door and made it to a counter in the front room, where the barman pulled me my first real English pint. Having grown up on Coors Light (admitting this, child of the Midwestern 80s that I am), it was more like a flat, yeasty broth than a beer. But it grew on me as the night wore on…it didn’t make me belch up a song like a beer-flavored Diet Coke. A warm welcome to my first pub.

But was it? Flash forward five years and I’m in London, wandering, thirsty, and step into a Rose & Crown, pulling up for a cider at the bar–a refreshing counterpoint to the pints I now love but sometimes don’t slake one’s thirst. A tub on the bar collects money for a charity row across some daunting stretch of water (the Atlantic)…people gather watching the rugby match…it feels local.

But was it? Flash forward three more years, and my new English extended family have helped me understand how the pub system works in Britain…often masquerading as “locals” but really chain restaurants abound that are more the gastronomic equivalent of Applebee’s or Olive Garden than a homemade experience. Only the tourists think those signs, artificially aged and swinging free, harken back truly to Ye Jolly Olde England.