31. Friday evening tour of some college bars, Friday 6th June 2003

After a taxing week at work and even more taxing time in front of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Dave and I decided to have a quick crawl of some important colleges and have a few well earned beers. Kicking off at the Department of Earth Sciences }{appy }{our we found out about the impending closure of Halifax House and so us and Caedmon Marriott decided to go there for old times' sake. It looked a little run down already as most of the chairs had reverted to plastic ones and there was no draught beer, so we had some Kronenbourg in order to get the place done, though we were plied with free sarnies at the end which was just as well as I'd had no solids. Traipsing up the road we noted that the Mansfield Road cricket pavilion was demolished, so elected to give Mansfield College a go. And we were not disappointed! It was a fine bar in a cellar, very small and we were not questioned even though we paid in cash. Unfortunately we all had to have Carlsberg as there was no beer on, not even the Double Diamond pump.

Lapping up the wonders of Mansfield, we decided to give Wadham a whirl, and again were welcomed with extremely cheap though vile tasting halves of keg Ansell’s. The bar was also modern, a bit like a new sports pavilion, but pleasant nonetheless. A quick jump into Exeter's cellar bar, which was rather empty, for a half of Carlsberg was also good, and it was nice to see our first girl server of the evening.

Normally we get to Jesus OK, but they were being jobsworth on our visit so we tried Lincoln instead, a place which I thought was like Fort Knox. Not so on our visit, as there was also some merchant banker’s recruitment party or similar so they weren't tight on who was who. Foolishly we tried the Owzat instead of Tetley, but on this occasion it tasted of vinegar, so we forced a half down before leaving. If you ever get to Lincoln, it's yet another cellar bar, but has quite a lively atmosphere.

With 45 minutes to go, we went to St Edmund Hall, where Mike and Clive are still serving and recognised us. Unfortunately beer has gone downhill since my last visit and we had to drink Caffreys [they used to have John Bull], though the bar is still as lively as ever and full of rugby tossers, so we sat outside. Highlight of the stop was a piss in the all-metal omnisex toilet. Final call was University College just over the road - yet another reasonably busy cellar bar. At first we were refused service [poor marks there then], but just as we were leaving a couple of geology Undergrads walked in and we persuaded them to make a purchase for us of Greene King IPA which unsurprisingly for a college bar was substandard but dirt cheap.

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Dan Lovegrove
dan@doctor-lovegrove.com

Last updated 8th June 2003.