Sailing into calmer waters

It’s the end of November and Mrs PBT’s and I have stopped for an overnight stay at a Southampton hotel in readiness to board our cruise ship, Queen Victoria, the following afternoon. Situated just five miles away from the docks, it’s a Doubletree by Hilton, and after an overnight stay, we shall be setting off for the cruise terminal shortly before midday tomorrow.

We enjoyed a good dinner in the hotel’s restaurant, with both of us opting for the pie option. They were steak and ale pies, from local butcher and pie maker, Upton’s of Bassett, and we both agreed that they were excellent. They had a filling of tender and succulent beef, encased in hot water crust pastry which, according to Mrs PBT’s, who knows about these things, is a rigid type of pastry, similar to the cold-water crust used for pork pies. It is designed to hold its shape, without becoming soggy, unlike the normal short-crust variety. She’s obviously been paying attention to the Great British Bake-Off! The following morning, with a touch of serendipity, our taxi drove us past Upton’s shop, on the way down to the cruise terminal– proof, if it was needed, that you can’t get much more local than that!

Beer-wise, I went for a bottle of Leffe Blonde, the best of a bad choice of exclusively bottled beers. It’s an age since I last drank a Leffe Blonde, as given the choice I would normally go for the darker Bruin, but it was pleasant enough, and was certainly a better choice than the bland international lagers that made up the rest of the range. Still, what else should one expect from a large, multi-national hotel chain?

This was my first experience of a Doubletree hotel, in the UK, although I have stayed at one in the United States – the chain’s home country. The brand isn’t that dissimilar to other hotel chains and having experienced quite a few different ones over the years, there’s really not much to choose between any of them. One thing I didn’t like, was the non-discretionary 10% service charge, added to the bill, especially as this did not appear to be passed on to the staff.

There was also a mix-up with the taxi transfer, booked the following morning, to take us to the cruise terminal. The receptionist had to chase the taxi company, who claimed they hadn’t received the email booking, and to make matters worse, the driver charged us for the journey, even though it was supposed to have been included as part of the booking. It wasn’t the cabbies fault, and he gave me a receipt, so I can take the matter up with Holiday Extras, when we get back, but it wasn’t the best of starts.

Fortunately, the embarkation experience was fairly straight forward this time around, although cruise ships have adopted the same security-screening procedures that make travel by air, such a pain in the proverbial. Fortunately, there was no need for us to take off our shoes, although removing one’s belt is a real nuisance. I suppose it makes sense in the general run of things, as the last thing anyone needs is a crazed lunatic, armed to the teeth, roaming around the vessel.

After attending at our muster station, and having our ship’s cards swiped, we were free to unpack, go for a stroll around the ship, and grab something to eat. Rather than heading up to the buffet, we slipped into the Golden Lion – the ship’s pub. Food is available there at lunchtime, although not in the evening, but meals in the Golden Lion are included as part of the cruise package. Drinks are not – no surprises there, but after managing to grab a table for two, we ordered food and drink for two.

The food offering, amongst others, was a rather nice chicken tikka, which also came with naan bread, as well as saffron rice, and drink wise, I of course went for the excellent Cunard Black, a “breakfast stout,” brewed for the cruise line by Dark Revelation. I’ve enjoyed quite a few glasses of this excellent rich, dark beer on previous cruises, and looking around at some of the other tables, I was no means the only person drinking it. Mrs PBT’s went for a dessert after the main course, but I opted out, having enjoyed a cooked breakfast at the hotel, earlier that morning. We were lucky to have arrived when we did, as the Golden Lion started to get very busy – apparently there is some sort of football tournament going on in a small middle eastern country, and the game between the host nation, and an African team, whose name escapes me, was attracting a lot of attention.

Our boat slipped its moorings, shortly before 5pm, and after turning around, we sailed off down the Solent, and out into the open waters of the English Channel. Sitting in the buffet bar, up on Deck 9, enjoying a spot of dinner, we could feel some slight movement from the ship. Eileen noticed it more than I did, even after clambering into bed, although I was dead to the world, and I slept like the proverbial log. The following morning, we were surprised to see how calm the sea was, with the swell of the previous evening having died right down.

There was some confusion as to what time it was when we woke up, as the ships’ clocks were due to be advanced by one hour, to bring us in line with Central European Time. My phone normally performs this change automatically, as does my Smart Watch, but with no phone signal in the middle of the North Sea, this was unlikely to happen. I worked on the assumption that as our phones and watches weren’t showing any change, it was best to get up, although next time I shall bring an analogue watch along, to make certain.

Soon after, there was a knock on the door, and the room service breakfast that Mrs PBT’s had ordered for us, the night before, was delivered to our room. I normally prefer a walk up to the buffet, or perhaps head for the restaurant, but I do know that the room service breakfast option on Cunard is very good, so on this occasion I enjoyed scrambled eggs, streaky bacon – American style, Cumberland sausage, a couple of hash browns and some toast. In short, the full Monty!

I took a walk afterwards, leaving Eileen to get herself ready, getting several circuits of the promenade deck under my belt. With all the food available on board, it’s important not to let things slip on the exercise front. It was quite bracing up on deck, although the south facing starboard side was quite sheltered. It was also quite sunny, and surprisingly warm, especially for the time of year.

A couple of days before we set sail, I’d received an email from Cunard, with the heading “Important Announcement about Your Upcoming Voyage.” My first thoughts were along the lines of “Oh no, what now?” So, thinking there had been a change of plan, or the voyage had even been cancelled, I was more than a little relieved to discover that whilst there had been an alteration in the travel arrangements, but it was a change to the good. Now, instead of spending one night in Amsterdam as originally advised, we would be staying for two. There would be no change regarding the disembarkation arrangements, meaning we would still be leaving the ship on Tuesday morning, as advised. This was good news as we would now have more time to enjoy the Dutch capital.

 

The sailors - home from the sea

It's been a bit quiet on the blog recently, the reason being Mrs PBT’s and I have been away on a short cruise across the North Sea to the Netherlands. Our destination was the Dutch capital of Amsterdam, and the short two-night stay represented my third visit to this friendly and easy-going city.

We arrived back in the UK yesterday morning and after disembarking from the ship had the joy of calling and waiting for a taxi to take us to the hotel where we had left our car. This was after dropping it off last Thursday evening. Unfortunately, I seem to have picked up a cold whilst on board ship, my first since before Covid, and I’m wondering whether the lack of mask wearing – voluntary, or otherwise, might be to blame. Once consequence of what Mrs PBT’s describes as “man flu” was not sleeping particularly well on Monday consequently, I wasn’t in the best frame of mind to be driving home, and certainly not on the motorway. So, apart from a stretch along the M3 from Southampton, until north of Basingstoke, the rest of the journey home was by "A" roads.

With the unpacking finished, and the suitcases just waiting to be placed back in the loft, I finally got some spare time to catch up with the blog, although not before completing an outstanding task. This related to the new monitor for my desktop PC that I treated myself to in the Black Friday sales. As this was just a few days before we departed for Southampton, I left the installation for our return. This was a good move, given that it's almost twice the size of my previous monitor - coming in at 24”, compared to just 15”, and given the extended footprint of a much larger screen, I had to de-clutter my desk before installation (“plug & play”) could commence.

The night before we went away, news broke of the death of Bob Dockerty, the founder, former Head Brewer and driving force behind Larkin's Brewery. Out of respect to Bob’s family and close friends I didn't post anything at the time, but now that the sad news has become official, I am mentioning it here. I will leave it until the dust has settled some more, before posting an appropriate tribute to Bob. Suffice to say it will be sorely missed. he was quite a character and well known locally, particularly in the part of West Kent where I work.

I'm not returning to work until Monday 5th and so, once I've shaken this cold off, I shall be catching up on jobs both indoors and outdoors. This bout of enthusiasm is unconnected to the major seasonal holiday event looming on the horizon, and although Mrs PBT’s and I have never really gone overboard on Christmas, we were impressed by the efforts made for the crew of the Queen Victoria, to give the ship a real festive look.

Going away at this time of year represents the return of something of a tradition within the Bailey household, namely taking pre-Christmas breaks at the end of November - beginning of December. Between 2013 and 2016, we visited places such as Prague, Salzburg, and Barcelona, during the run-up to Christmas, and the reason for taking holiday at this time was because son Matthew is employed in retail. This meant he was unable to take holiday for the whole of December and for the early part of January as well.

Somewhat ironically, Matthew didn't come with us this time, due to some potentially exciting and rewarding (for him) developments at work. We have promised to take him away with us on a short cruise in the spring, as we are sure he will enjoy it. I do miss the short city breaks we were taking with the likes of EasyJet and Ryanair, although given Mrs PBT’s current mobility issues, travelling by sea does seem a lot easier, and a lot less hassle than flying.

Back to the cruise, where we were really lucky with the weather, given the unpredictability of sailing at this time of year, and whilst there was a bit of a swell in the English Channel, on both the outward and return voyages, the North Sea itself, particularly close to the Dutch coast was calm and serene.  I mentioned Queen Victoria earlier, which of course was the name of the cruise ship, we sailed on. This now completes, for us, voyages on all three of Cunard’s queen ships, (Elizabeth, Mary, and Victoria). These gracious vessel's will be joined next year by a 4th queen - the Queen Anne.

This particular cruise seemed almost exclusively made up of UK residents, unlike last June’s voyage to the Norwegian fjords, where there was a large contingent of passengers from both North America and from Germany. This may have been reflected by the culinary offerings on board Victoria, where roast meats, casserole's, grills, and other British staples figured prominently on the menu, in contrast to the more international cuisine of previous cruises.

To sum up, we had an extended two-night stay in Amsterdam and being berthed within easy walking distance of the city centre gave us the perfect excuse to get off the ship and explore this friendly bustling and easy-going city. I shall be revealing more of my thoughts and observation about the Dutch capital in a later article, so for now it's back to the re-modelling and tiding of my office area.

Another one bites the dust

It's always sad when a brewery closes, and it’s even sadder when the closure is forced upon it by its parent company. I'm sure most readers of this blog will be aware of the imminent closure of Dark Star Brewery, who are based in the West Sussex village of Partridge Green. I don't want to go into the reasons for the closure too much, as they have already been well documented, but what I will say is that the demise of Dark Star follows an all too familiar pattern, that goes like this.

After years of hard slog, and just about getting by, the people who started the brewery, and built the business up, reach a point where the cost of investment in new plant necessary to move the company forward, becomes too much. Then along comes a knight in shining armour in the shape of a much larger brewery, that offers to buy the business, invest in new plant, and claims to have a strategy to grow the current brands. Most importantly, the new owner promises to keep the existing plant open and allows a large degree of autonomy within the new parent company. They also pledge to not tinker with the recipes, and not to compromise quality by using cheaper and probably inferior ingredients.

This all happened in February 2018, when Dark Star sold out to London brewer Fuller’s for an undisclosed sum, after being lured into a buyout following promises to invest in the brewery and increase sales of Dark Star brands, such as Hophead, APA, Dark Star Original and Revelation. Fuller’s stated that they saw strong potential for the company’s brands, particularly Hophead, and insisted Dark Star would continue to operate as a standalone business and carry-on brewing at its Partridge Green site.

Fuller’s may well have been true to their word, if they hadn’t been bought up themselves by a much larger concern, just under two years since their acquisition of Dark Star. Japanese drinks company Asahi, shocked the brewing world by buying Fuller’s brewing business, including its brands, for £250 million, in January 2019. Asahi of course promised to leave things as they were, and they did for a few years. Then, just a couple of weeks ago, the announcement came that as the Partridge Green was operating significantly below capacity, they sadly have no option but to close it.

Production of Dark Star beers is to be switched to the Greenwich based Meantime Brewery, which Asahi had acquired back in 2016. This move could prove problematic, as Meantime hasn't brewed any cask beer for decades, but leaving that issue aside, I do wonder whether it’s the Greenwich brewery that is operating well below capacity, and that this is the real reason behind the closure of Dark Star. I raise the capacity issue because, apart from a few beers in Marks and Spencer, it's quite a few years since I last saw any Meantime brands on sale in either the on trade, or the off.

From a personal point of view, I find the closure of Dark Star rather sad, as it is a brewery I have followed from its early days, back to when its beers first acquired cult status. I have also made two visits to the Partridge Green brewery, as a member of West Kent CAMRA. The first visit took place in 2011 more recently in the spring of 2017. On the last visit in particular, I was impressed not just with the setup, but also with the knowledge and enthusiasm of the brewers, plus the other members of staff we met.

These are the people I feel for, as having experienced redundancy several times, during the course of my career, I know what it’s like to be thrown on the scrapheap through no fault of one’s self. None of us know the real reasons behind the closure, and whilst we can speculate about corporate greed, there’s probably much more to the story than meets the eye. Looking back, it’s interesting to wonder whether the departure of respected head brewer Mark Tranter in 2013, marked some sort of seismic change within the company.

Mark left Dark Star to set up on his own, and Burning Sky, the brewery he founded, seems to have gone from strength to strength, as free from the shackles of a larger company Mark and his team have been able to experiment and explore new possibilities. The statement on Burning Sky’s website, perhaps underlines the difference underlining the philosophies of the two companies and the different paths they were following. “Whilst industrial units are convenient, they seldom inspire, so we chose to locate ourselves within the beautiful and inspirational South Downs, occupying refurbished farm buildings in a slightly quirky village. A true farmhouse brewery.”

If you want a more detailed analysis, then I suggest you click on the link to this excellent article which appeared on the drinks business website, but the statement from CAMRA National Director, Gillian Hough, sums up the concern felt by many drinkers over what appears to be yet another corporate carve-up.

“Moving the production of Dark Star from the brewery’s home in West Sussex is cause for great sorrow and sadness. Dark Star is a brewery that is close to many CAMRA members’ hearts, and this decision is yet another example of global brewers playing chess with their assets.”

“Years of consolidation of large parts of the brewing industry into the hands of a few global players has been to the detriment of our brewing heritage. This worrying trend of further domination of global brewers is putting choice at the bar and the diversity of British beer at risk – and needs constant monitoring by the UK’s Competition authorities.”