Pub 115, Day 44 – Noah's Ark

By Rob

I almost dropped the phone in shock.

For a moment I was frozen, staring at the device in my hand with utter disbelief, the gentle glow of the screen continuing its gradual erosion of my circadian rhythm. But it didn’t matter. Few things that had ever happened could truly be considered meaningful compared to this.

A local pub had just messaged us on Twitter.

It was finally happening. The Twitter account we had established to promote this blog, which we had roundly neglected for months, had attracted the attention of the Noah’s Ark in Crookes.

You may remember this had happened once before with The Head of Steam, and it all turned out to be a big anti-climax. However, on that occasion we had tweeted them first, and they had merely been polite enough to reply.
 

We had spent more than one stout-soaked evening dreaming of the moment when, unprompted, they would come to us – a point at which the public appeal and impact of our online writings would draw the gaze of Sheffield’s publicans, who would ultimately recognise the boundless advertising potential of a mention by the boys at Sheffield Pubquest. Eventually, we knew, they would beg us to come and drink their beer. Seats would be reserved, pints would be poured pro gratis, and the air would be thick with the sounds of flattery.

Fingers trembling, I began to compose a message to Andy.

“You won’t believe what the fu—”

I was cut short as a message flashed up on my phone. He had pre-empted me.

“You’ll never guess what’s just happened,” he said.

As Andy was living in Leeds, we quickly made arrangements on Twitter with the landlord regarding the logistics of our appearance. We scheduled ourselves in to visit the pub during their quiz night the following week.

The expected freebies soon materialised: free ‘Yorkshire tapas’ and free pints, declared the landlord. Admittedly the former was available to anybody attending the quiz, and the latter only to those who won it, but only we had been approached on Twitter to attend (probably). We were in no doubt they were out to impress us.

Celebrity beckoned.

A week later, Andy and I stood outside the Noah’s Ark. I hadn’t been this excited since I’d discovered that post-graduate education would allow me stay at university until almost the age of thirty.

The exterior of the building was palpably unremarkable. It lacked the stone-built, old-world feel that imbued some of the other pubs in Crookes, but was otherwise perfectly inoffensive.

Stepping inside, I confess to being worried that the landlord might make too much of a fuss. It was quiz night, with free tapas, in a student area – we were expecting the place to be busy. I didn’t want the staff gushing over us in front of all the other punters, clearing away tables and kicking people out of their seats to make room for these two hard hitters. I had even styled my hair, just in case a selfie was requested.

Bracing ourselves, we entered the main taproom and stepped into silence.

Now, to be clear, this wasn’t the sort of silence that ensues when the music suddenly cuts out, chatter ceases, and all heads turn to appraise the newcomers. No, this was the sort of silence you might experience if you were to bury yourself in a tomb several feet below the earth, or gently slip into a coma somewhere in the middle of the Siberian tundra. It was, in fact, the sort of silence one might experience if they were to walk into a pub with almost nobody in it.

Andy, with characteristic optimism, pointed out that fewer people equalled greater quantities of free tapas to eat. It also meant a better shot at winning those free pints in the quiz. At this, I looked around at those few people who were in attendance. None were students. Two old blokes sat at the bar, looking like they couldn’t quite decide between ordering another drink and throwing themselves in front of the 52 bus. Meanwhile, two women with shaven heads and tattooed arms were playing pool in the far corner. Maybe we would win the quiz after all, I thought. With all the usual caveats about books, judgement, and covers: none of these people screamed ‘egghead’.

We spotted a guy standing behind the bar who, we assumed, was the landlord. We gingerly approached, waiting for the inevitable excited greeting.

As I’m sure you’ve come to expect by this point, such an excited greeting never materialised. Not even slightly. Not one bit. In fact, he had absolutely no idea who we were. Any interest he exhibited was solely centred upon having two more living people in the pub, rather than the recognition of celebrity reviewers.

Crestfallen, but undeterred from enjoying ourselves, we each ordered a pint of 40 Days & 40 Nights, an aptly named beer for the pub. From the Port Huron Brewing Company in the States, this beer had travelled some distance to tickle our taste buds. A wheat beer, it was slightly too sweet for either of us, but would certainly have been nice as a half pint.

"What time is the quiz?" Andy asked the landlord.

"Depends if it picks up," came the reply. He beckoned to the assembled army of empty chairs and tables. "Can’t really do the quiz if it’s like this."

It was hard to argue with that. With a creeping sense of dread as to what the answer would be, we asked the next question.

"And the Yorkshire tapas?"

The landlord proffered a grim shake of the head. "Not looking likely."

OK, we thought; maybe he hadn’t realised who we were. My goodness was he about to be mortified when he found out who he was disappointing!

"We spoke to you on Twitter about coming to the quiz," Andy pointed out, waiting for the penny to drop.

"Yeah I know," he said. By this time his attention had turned almost entirely to his laptop, upon which he appeared to be putting together a music playlist.

"OK cool," we said, through gritted teeth.

A sharp feeling pierced my stomach, leaving an acrid taste in my mouth, which I recognised from days gone by. It was the flavour of deep, bitter disappointment. As a child, I had once craved nothing so much as a Sega Megadrive. One fateful Christmas day, I discovered that my parents had opted to ignore my request for a games console and had instead decided to purchase me a bingo set – complete with balls, rotating cage, and cards.

This was worse than that.

Looking around the pub, it was every inch the standard old man venue. This is a lazy description, for sure, but you all know what I mean: dark wooden chairs and tables, a patterned carpet nobody would ever have in their home, and red upholstery.

Before I could truly air my rage, one of the two women approached us from the pool table. She challenged us to a 2v2 match and we simply couldn’t refuse (partially because, in the absence of quiz questions and tapas, we needed something to occupy ourselves; and partially because she looked ready to break the pool cue across our faces if we replied in anything other than the affirmative).

They were both good, but we were better. We sank the black and claimed the first frame. They didn’t quite take this in a sportsmanlike manner and angrily challenged us to a rematch. We obliged and the result was the same. For a moment I thought we’d be flung through the window before getting a chance to finish our pints, but in the end we received a begrudging handshake and curt nod.

The women then vacated the table, leaving us to play three frames between us. I won two, while Andy claimed the third and final. 

By the time we’d finished, the pub was even emptier than when we’d arrived. No quiz. No tapas. And the landlord could not have been more disinterested in us.

In the course of one pint, we had come crashing down to earth with all the force of that enormous slab of space rock that screwed over the dinosaurs.

Evidently, we were not celebrities yet. Although we were about to be in the presence of an actual celebrity at the very next pub...

Noah's Ark pool score: Andy 1-2 Rob  
Pubquest pool score: Andy 46-32 Rob
 

Noah's Ark pool score: Pubquest 2-0 Rest of World 
Pubquest pool score: Pubquest 6-2 Rest of World

Pub: Noah’s Ark (94 Crookes, S10 1UG)

Pint: 40 Days & 40 Nights

Brewery: Port Huron Brewing Company (based in Wisconsin Dells, USA) 

Rating: 5.5/10

 

NEXT UP: In the presence of a celebrity, at The Milestone...