By
Rob
Leaving
The Hermitage, we were in the sort of good spirits that only the
unexpected discovery of free alcohol can muster up. However, the
unbeatable value of £0 per pint meant that we'd lingered there for
much too long and, as such, we needed to pick up the pace.
'Why
the rush?' I hear you ask.
Well,
what Andy so recklessly omitted to mention in his otherwise
brilliantly penned blog was that we were due to meet some friends of
ours on the nearby (and recently visited)
Ecclesall Road. However, we were determined to squeeze a few more
pints in beforehand.
'Why?'
I hear you cry out again.
Because,
ladies and gents, it was time to finally cross London Road off the
list.
The
insalubrious home of Pubquest fame; the avenue where dreams and
nightmares were forged; the birthplace of legends and the domain of
lunatics; it was all these things and more. London Road would forever hold a special place in our hearts, but four years on from our first visit, we
knew the time was nigh.
According
to our calculations, after The Hermitage there was just one pub left
to visit: The Old Crown Inn.
Knowing
that we had just enough time to knock back one more drink, we strode
down the pavement like the oblivious, cocksure fools that we were.
After all, the last time we'd visited London Road we were still
newcomers to the Pubquest enterprise. Now, however, we were
experienced professionals. No longer the naive wanderers; nowadays we
did our research beforehand, scoping out the venues, planning the
route, estimating the times, carefully scrutinising --
--
Andy stopped dead in his tracks, dragging me from my thoughts.
"What
the hell is this?" he said, staring at the building on our left.
I
followed his gaze and found myself standing face-to-face with
something called The Albion.
What
was this place? It hadn't appeared on our map and it didn't
look much like a pub. In fact, if we hadn't walked directly past the
entrance, we probably wouldn't have noticed it.
"Is
it a pub?" Andy asked.
Looking
up, I pointed to the shiny, plastic sign above the doorway, upon
which were the words 'FREE HOUSE' and 'CASK ALES'.
No
question there, then.
We
stepped through the door and found ourselves in a small, well-lit
room. While Andy went to the bar to handle the drink situation, I
moved to secure us some seats.
Sitting
there alone at the table, I looked around at my surroundings.
Now,
excuse my language, but: what a fucking mess.
It
wasn't that the place was grotty, or grimy, or dirty, or disheveled,
or worn, or rough, or nasty, or scary, or any of the other horrible
adjectives that you could readily affix to many of the city's less
agreeable venues. No, this pub certainly hadn't suffered from a lack
of attention. On the contrary, the pub seemed to be afflicted with a
serious case of trying-too-hard.
The
first thing to say is that I'm not an interior designer, which in
this instance is perhaps a good thing. Somebody with a refined,
critical eye for decoration would no doubt find something amiss in
most rooms in most buildings. I, on the other hand, am solidly
average when it comes to matters of style and taste. Therefore, for
me to be so thoroughly offended by the decor of this public house,
you know it must have been bad.
And
bad it was.
It
looked as if the place had been put together by a trio of owners,
none of whom could agree on what the pub ought to look like. One of
them clearly wanted to run an American bar, and so had put an
enormous blue neon sign up on the wall (which looked strikingly like
one of those fly-catchers you see hanging up in chip shops).
The
second co-owner obviously had something much more old-fashioned in
mind, which would account for the series of eerie black-and-white,
Victorian-style portraits that lined the other wall. The faded,
creepy pictures might have looked perfectly at home on the corridors
of some creaky, 19th-century lunatic asylum, but they fared
markedly less well in a 21st-century Sheffield pub.
The
third, and final, of the stakeholders had evidently been hoping for
something much more restrained and contemporary. The hardwood floor,
the plain wooden furniture, and the fairy lights that were strung up
on the ceiling all suited a trendy student cocktail bar. But in
between the electric signage and the Dickensian portrait gallery,
they just looked odd.
Oh, and the uncoordinated-style-assault wasn't confined to the visual senses. No, sir. Amidst the American neon adverts, Victorian portraiture, and strings of fairy lights, the sound of repetitive and tuneless reggae music tickled the ears.
Andy
arrived back at the table and set the drinks down. He'd elected to
purchase us each a pint of Summer Sunshine. Despite my preference for darker beers over paler ales, this particular drink went
down very nicely. Light, slightly fruity, and refreshing: I was
impressed.
I
relayed my thoughts to Andy about the surrounding decor, and he
replied with a non-committal shrug, simply saying, "Looks like
you've volunteered to write this blog then."
As
we made our way towards the bottom of the glasses, we were acutely
aware of the fact that the appearance of an unexpected pub had put a
serious squeeze on our timescales. It also raised some troubling
questions about whether we were quite as clued-up on the Sheffield
pub scene as we'd initially thought.
Little
did we know there more surprises yet to come.
Glancing
at our watches, we knew it was going to be very difficult to drink a
pint in The Old Crown Inn and make it to Ecclesall Road for the
appointed time.
But
Lord knows, we were going to try...
Pub:
The Albion (75 London Road, S2 4LE)
Rating:
5.5/10
Pint:
Summer Sunshine
Brewery:
Old Mill Brewery
(Snaith, East Yorkshire)
NEXT UP: The countdown begins, at The Old Crown Inn...
NEXT UP: The countdown begins, at The Old Crown Inn...
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