Pub 49, Day 18 – Three Tuns

By Andy

Architecturally speaking, the Three Tuns is surely the finest pub in the city. Triangular in shape, it was built in 1840 and designated as a Grade II listed building in 1974. Reminiscent of the Flatiron Building in New York, it refused to let the confines of the street prevent its construction.

The Flatiron Building (Flickr: FromTheNorth)

The Three Tuns (Flickr: Jose M Vazquez)  

If you're lucky enough to get the table which juts out into the road, it feels like being the lookout on a pirate ship, able to observe all around from your elevated position.

On this occasion though, seating was at a premium – we had unwittingly turned up on pub quiz night. With no free tables, we grabbed a pen and paper and stood by the bar. It was time to shine.

There was no denying that we had embarrassed ourselves at pub quizzes on Pubquest so far. To our eternal shame, we had picked up the wooden spoon prize at The Shakey, and despite a significant improvement, we were still off the pace at the Hollin Bush. Although we were at a natural disadvantage due to our two-man team, we knew we had to prove ourselves.

“Question One: sport. Which two countries will contest tomorrow's Cricket World Cup final?”

Rob turned to me. He had a nasty habit of doing that. Because I possess a Sheffield United season ticket, he assumes I can answer any question about any sport. As it was, because the Cricket World Cup was hosted by Australia, the entire thing had taken place at 6am, and as such had completely passed me by.

“We'll come back to that one,” I optimistically declared.

“Question Two: general knowledge. Who was the first person to fly over the English Channel?”

We exchanged blank looks, each willing the other to excitedly pick up the pen from its dormant position on the bar.

“This is a waste of time, I can't be bothered to do an entire quiz stood up,” announced Rob, tactfully avoiding the fact that we hadn't known either of the answers so far.

I could see his point. We had no idea how many questions there were going to be, and so could be in for a long shift on our feet. Besides, it was already apparent that we wouldn't win first prize.

Just then, the non-quizzing occupants of a nearby table began putting their coats on.

“Are you leaving?” I asked, eyeing up their table.

“Yeah, we're getting up early to watch the cricket final,” came the reply.

“Oh really, who's playing?” I enquired, always one for idle chit-chat.

“Australia vs New Zealand. Australia are obviously favourites because they have home advantage, but I think New Zealand...”

At some point my facial expression must have betrayed the fact that I cared not one iota for his prediction. Slowly realising he had been used and discarded like a teenage boy's sock, he tailed off.

Now I'm not a big believer in fate. Is there a divine power that strives to bring soulmates together, all the while masquerading as mere coincidence? Probably not. But did an omnipotent force just take a break from match-making to provide us with a pub quiz answer? Almost certainly.

From this I could draw only one conclusion: we were destined to win the quiz.

Unfortunately, it was going to take more than one stolen answer to bring us up to par. With a pitiful 9/20, we scored exactly half the winning score. Thankfully, there was no wooden spoon prize, sparing us the embarrassment which befell us at The Shakey.

However, our mood soon improved when we realised that all quiz participants received free chip butties! I have always hated the phrase “it's not the winning, it's the taking part”, but after my third chip butty the finer details of who won and who lost seemed insignificant.

To complement our chip butties we were drinking Maori Red from the Blue Bee Brewery – an intriguing scarlet beer which is brewed in Sheffield using New Zealand hops.

Free food and good beer, what's not to like? Other than our own intelligence...

UPDATE: The Maori Red beer has since been discontinued by the brewery and replaced by a suspiciously similar-tasting ale entitled Oceanic Red. Presumably this is connected to the fact that King Tuheitia of the Maori people accused an American brewery called Funkwerks of inflicting “another form of oppression and abuse that indigenous peoples have faced for decades” when they named their beer Maori King. Read more about the controversy here. Luckily, it appears King Tuheitia never visited the Three Tuns...

Pub: Three Tuns (39 Silver Street Head, S1 2DD)
Rating: 8.5/10
Pint: Maori Red 
Brewery: Blue Bee Brewery (Sheffield)

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