Man your pumps, Wetherspoons are coming

Mech1

Prices gone up today in Dunlaoire
Thatchers gold up from €2.95 to €3.25

Mech1

2.95 to 3.25

hatrickpatrick

Mech1 wrote: »

Prices gone up today in Dunlaoire
Thatchers gold up from €2.95 to €3.25

Saw that today, will head in later and check it out - assuming everything that was €2.50 went up to €2.75 and everything that was €2.95 went up to €3.25?

Dirty feckers.

hatrickpatrick

Had a look at the Dun Laoghaire menu as I went past. Good news is they still have a selection of draught ales for €2.50, including Adnam's Ghost Ship. Bad news apart from the other price increases is they seem to have dropped a few altogether - Adnam'a Broadside is no longer on the menu, which was my favourite

Caveat here is that I didn't have time to actually go inside and ask, and they do have a section which is "selection of draught ales" from €2.50 - Broadside could still be there, just under this new category.

Muahahaha

Which four pubs are opening- Swords, Blanch and where else?

n97 mini

Muahahaha wrote: »

Which four pubs are opening- Swords, Blanch and where else?

Two in Cork due to open in the short to medium term, one in Waterford and one in Carlow in the medium term, and furthest away is Camden St Hostel.

Muahahaha

That should put the cat amongst the pigeons a bit in Cork. Apart from Camden St are there any others earmarked for Dublin city centre?

Mech1

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Saw that today, will head in later and check it out - assuming everything that was €2.50 went up to €2.75 and everything that was €2.95 went up to €3.25?

Dirty feckers.

Loving it, two of us, one was drinking Staropramen one on Thatchers Gold.

We are both now on Carlsberg so the price of a round has dropped from about €5.90 to €5.50:D.

n97 mini

Muahahaha wrote: »

That should put the cat amongst the pigeons a bit in Cork. Apart from Camden St are there any others earmarked for Dublin city centre?

Not that we know of! I'm sure they're looking around and there are many suitable candidates.

I wouldn't be surprised if Bray (Hollands which is for sale?), Galway, Drogheda and Dundalk were announced next. Maybe Limerick too, but I don't really know the place.

L1011

n97 mini wrote: »

Not that we know of! I'm sure they're looking around and there are many suitable candidates.

Middle Abbey Street.

MonkstownHoop

Prices hadn't changed in Blackrock as of 11.20 this morning, I was having coffee and a sausage bap btw although there were a few having liquid breakfasts, and looked a bit rough.

hatrickpatrick

Mech1 wrote: »

Loving it, two of us, one was drinking Staropramen one on Thatchers Gold.

We are both now on Carlsberg so the price of a round has dropped from about €5.90 to €5.50:D.

So do you know which beers are still available for €2.50? Any of the nice ones?

MonkstownHoop

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

So do you know which beers are still available for €2.50? Any of the nice ones?

All cask afaik, but that's as rare as a dodo in the 40ft :-)

loyatemu

n97 mini wrote:

I wouldn't be surprised if Bray (Hollands which is for sale?)

Wouldn't be big enough I'd say. Somewhere on the seafront seems more likely.

Chelon

So in just about every other pub in the land the cask would be classed as a "craft" offering and offered at a higher price than the regular lagers etc.

Wetherspoons are raising the prices of the keg stuff and keeping the cask pegged at €2.50. Not sure why they're doing that but have to love them for it.

Paz-CCFC

Chelon wrote: »

So in just about every other pub in the land the cask would be classed as a "craft" offering and offered at a higher price than the regular lagers etc.

Wetherspoons are raising the prices of the keg stuff and keeping the cask pegged at €2.50. Not sure why they're doing that but have to love them for it.

The Franciscan Well sell their cask beer for cheaper than keg, generally a euro cheaper (€4 v €5). The Bierhaus sell theirs for €4.20 a pint, but it's €3 if you're a Beoir member. Their regular kegged beers tend to be €4.50-€5 a pint.

I thought the idea of cask beer being cheaper was that it has a much shorter shelf live than kegs, so they give an incentive to get more people drinking and to get through the cask more quickly.

syklops

MonkstownHoop wrote: »

Prices hadn't changed in Blackrock as of 11.20 this morning, I was having coffee and a sausage bap btw although there were a few having liquid breakfasts, and looked a bit rough.

'Cause only rough types have liquid breakfasts. Maybe they were binmen who'd be up since 4.

I got some funny looks in Leixlip a few years ago trying to buy cans at 8am in the morning. They didn't know Id been up since 4pm the previous day doing the night shift at intel.

MonkstownHoop

syklops wrote: »

'Cause only rough types have liquid breakfasts. Maybe they were binmen who'd be up since 4.

I got some funny looks in Leixlip a few years ago trying to buy cans at 8am in the morning. They didn't know Id been up since 4pm the previous day doing the night shift at intel.

No these guys definitely weren't bin men or straight off the night shift at Intel.

BeerNut

Paz-CCFC wrote: »

The Franciscan Well sell their cask beer for cheaper than keg, generally a euro cheaper (€4 v €5). The Bierhaus sell theirs for €4.20 a pint, but it's €3 if you're a Beoir member. Their regular kegged beers tend to be €4.50-€5 a pint.

The Bull & Castle also does cask beer at €4.50 a pint: a fair bit cheaper than the keg options.

hatrickpatrick

MonkstownHoop wrote: »

All cask afaik, but that's as rare as a dodo in the 40ft :-)

Recently they committed to always having at least one of them in stock, out of Broadside, Ghost Ship and Hobgoblin. Not sure if this has changed with the menu revisions this week or if any of those have in fact increased in price.

Will be going there for a pint with a mate later in the week, will update here.

In all honesty I feel that currency issues outside of Wetherspons' control are the main fuelling factors behind these price increases - the most telling signal being the advertisement for the cider festival this July, which changed from offering cider at €1.95 a pint to €2.95.

Why would they bother printing off posters for the €1.95 stuff if that was always planned to go up by a euro? Total waste. That says to me that the price increases aren't on Wetherspoons' end but are the result of unexpected increases in operating costs.

As Wetherspoons are a UK chain this could be down to a number of factors - Euro/GBP exchange rate, supplier / manufacturer price increases, any tax changes over in the UK or even a drop in business in the UK despite a boom in Irish trade.

Given all this, it's incredibly difficult to predict whether they'll increase again, or whether they might cut them back down a bit at some point. Wetherspoons have announced price cuts for UK pubs in the past, so at the very least it's not unheard of for their prices to decrease on occasion as well as just increasing.

Regardless, it's still better value than anywhere else in Dun Laoghaire.

Reputable Rog

Only one Spoons opening in Cork now. The planning application in Douglas has been deemed withdrawn as they didn't respond to the F.I request within the requisite time.

JohnK

Seems odd they'd just drop it; I presume there's nothing to stop them reapplying again? Or has anyone heard anything about it?

Reputable Rog

JohnK wrote: »

Seems odd they'd just drop it; I presume there's nothing to stop them reapplying again? Or has anyone heard anything about it?

They can reapply all they like. The FI was a bit ridiculous and in any event the design of the bar was ****ty enough.
Roll on September 8th, hopefully sub €3 Beamish for the first time in years.

Losty Dublin

Reputable Rog wrote: »

They can reapply all they like. The FI was a bit ridiculous and in any event the design of the bar was ****ty enough.
Roll on September 8th, hopefully sub €3 Beamish for the first time in years.

If they bring back Beamish to their range, that is.

irish_goat

There's an interview with Tim Martin in the CAMRA magazine this month. He mentions the myth behind the Wetherspoon name and says he originally found running a pub very difficult and it reminded him of a student teacher he had in New Zealand who had trouble controlling his class, Mr Wetherspoon. The story then got exaggerated to the teacher telling him he'd never amount to anything.

Reputable Rog

Losty Dublin wrote: »

If they bring back Beamish to their range, that is.

They never took it off albeit for about a week.

n97 mini

Anyone been to the Old Boro?

Been to the Great Wood. Lovely spot, but major teething problems with food especially.

rubadub

40ft facebook shows they got stella, carlsberg, san miguel & tuborg all on tap.

https://www.facebook.com/thefortyfoot

some poster asking why the prices went up and where the ales went.

Uriel.

n97 mini wrote: »

Anyone been to the Old Boro?
.

Yes, was there at the weekend. Busy but not at all mental... no real problems in terms of queues at the bar. Managed to get a "booth" style table when we went in about 21:00.

I had about 4 pints of "Doom Bar" off the cask - they had none of the other casks available, which was disappointing because I was looking forward to trying Hobgoblin, which I like from the bottle.

Doombar is grand, very easy to drink and I find my pint disappearing very fast without really noticing. Moved on to "Shipyard" I think - a quite citrusy IPA, was serve very cold and I have to say I quite liked it and it hit the spot - a real thirst quencher - reminded me of Canterbury Jack (red ale) which I love.

My wife was a bit peckish and ordered a baked potato around 22:30 - wasn't great, was luke warm as well. The food menu has a lot of variety but between my wife's snack and seeing some of the other food served, I wouldn't be too pushed to try anything other than a light snack.

Table/waiting staff were all very pleasant. The bouncer was a little bit much... wandering around the venue, standing around staring at tables - there didn't appear to me to be any rowdy bunches... Mostly an older 30+ clientele.

There was a duty manager behind the bar at one point and she was atrocious... very pleasant but didn't seem like someone who had worked behind a bar before... A customer in front of me asked for a Jameson and White and he was asked "sorry, what's a white?". Prior to that she had told him that they didn't serve Jameson, but he pointed out that he had been drinking it all night. She had then said they ran out so he ordered JD but she came back to say that they had "just" received delivery of a few boxes of Jameson (seemed strange after 23:00 on a Friday night)...

All in all, a fine experience, would go back, but it won't replace my regular(s).

Geuze

Uriel. wrote: »

Doombar is grand, very easy to drink and I find my pint disappearing very fast without really noticing.

I also find that cask ale goes down quickly.

It's sort of creamy.

revz

Update from Blanchardstown last night; was at the steak club:

Pros:
the steak itself is decent. Nothing gourmet, but for €14.50 for a 14oz Angus rump steak with a pint, hard to go wrong.

Good bottle/can selection, had the Rogue mocha porter which I couldn't get last time I was out in Blackrock - also got charged €2.45 for my bottle, but a friend later got charged the €3.25. Had everything on the menu I think (can/bottle-wise), including all the Sixpoint cans.

They have Leann Follain down on the menu as a 330ml bottle (thus €3.25, whereas 500ml bottles are €3.75), but in the fridge they have 500ml bottles . A 500ml bottle of Leann Follain for €3.25 (50c cheaper than O'Hara's stout) - pretty good.

I like the layout. Fairly spacious, and with huge amount of glass/windows and tall ceilings I think it's nicer than TTT (which I'd find a tiny bit cramped) - never been to 40ft.

Cons:
Absolutely no cask ale at all. Considering it's the only thing left on the menu that's supposed to be €2.50, a tad annoying. They did have quite a few cider taps on for the cider festival, but I'm not much of a cider drinker.

Steak was overcooked. Friend asked for medium, I asked for rare. Mine was medium, friend's was well-done (completely cooked through). Also, another friend joined us later on and asked for the same steak, realised he was charged €2 less than we were (which would be for the 8oz steak) - went back to them to correct the order, they said no it was the 14oz steak he was getting, and 20 minutes later he's served up the 8oz steak. At least this one was cooked properly though (thicker steak and was cooked rare as asked).

Service was shocking at one point when (slightly) busy. Was waiting 10 mins to be served, there was a family asking about the food/cider taking up one member of bar staff, grand. There's another staff member dealing with someone else. Then there's one putting glasses away, and two from as far as I could see twiddling their thumbs at the end of the bar, while a small queue is starting to form where we were. I can only assume staff are told to stick to their area and not jump in behind the bar even when needed.
Didn't help that a friend of the staff member serving drinks started talking to them as they were just about to serve me.....and no problem to them at all looked after their friend first after they skipped the queue that was forming.

There was a pretty big fight/commotion at one point too, but this should probably go up in the pros section as the staff/manager dealt with it as best they could, and the Gardai were called fairly quickly.

So yeah - I'd pretty much echo what a lot of people are saying, there's definitely some teething problems, and without the cask ales you're not gonna be saving a massive amount on your drinks, but I do think there's a time and a place for it, so I'll be back, just not as regularly as I would've been had it kept the old pricing model.

Geuze

Uriel. wrote: »

There was a duty manager behind the bar at one point and she was atrocious... very pleasant but didn't seem like someone who had worked behind a bar before... A customer in front of me asked for a Jameson and White and he was asked "sorry, what's a white?". Prior to that she had told him that they didn't serve Jameson, but he pointed out that he had been drinking it all night. She had then said they ran out so he ordered JD but she came back to say that they had "just" received delivery of a few boxes of Jameson (seemed strange after 23:00 on a Friday night)...

I am a fan of JD WS.

But I do hear a lot of stories like this, I'd say it's down to UK-style corporate training?

Min-wage untrained staff, or with little training, maybe.

Imagine saying they don't serve Jameson..........

Still, I will return.

munchkin_utd

Geuze wrote: »

I am a fan of JD WS.

But I do hear a lot of stories like this, I'd say it's down to UK-style corporate training?<snip>

not sure.

I visited their pub in downtown Reading and the lad behind the bar was more than happy to go through their range of beers and give me a sample of any I was interested in.

I was impressed enough (first time in the chain) that I made sure to plan a visit when in London later in the week with the family for lunch.
Also had no problems there, down by tower bridge for a very busy sunday lunchtime.

Ipso

Geuze wrote: »

I am a fan of JD WS.

But I do hear a lot of stories like this, I'd say it's down to UK-style corporate training?

They seem to do ok in the UK, most likely an Irish problem.

testaccount123

Geuze wrote: »

Min-wage untrained staff, or with little training, maybe.

I went into an O'Neills pub in London and asked the barmaid, who was leaning on the Guinness tap, for "three pints of stout please" - only to be informed that they didnt serve stout. OK, I said, Ill have three pints of Guinness then.

Lucena

munchkin_utd wrote: »

not sure.

I visited their pub in downtown Reading and the lad behind the bar was more than happy to go through their range of beers and give me a sample of any I was interested in.

I was impressed enough (first time in the chain) that I made sure to plan a visit when in London later in the week with the family for lunch.
Also had no problems there, down by tower bridge for a very busy sunday lunchtime.

Any pub which has the 'Cask Marque' (which I think most or all Spoons do) label MUST provide free samples for anyone who asks, that's one of the obligations.

anonanymore

Ipso wrote: »

They seem to do ok in the UK, most likely an Irish problem.

Not a Northern Irish problem. Had lunch in The Linen Hall, Enniskillen. Pint of Doombar, hot food, great service, plates were cleared off table when finished.

irish_goat

There was a fella in a manager's shirt with a southern accent working in the Derry spoons this weekend. I reckon he's either a new recruit for a new pub or they've decided to send current managers up north to get them better trained up.

Chelon

Lucena wrote: »

Any pub which has the 'Cask Marque' (which I think most or all Spoons do) label MUST provide free samples for anyone who asks, that's one of the obligations.

Didn't know that, great stuff. Was in the Porterhouse Central at the weekend. An eye watering €6 for their cask, and it was chilled to within an inch of its' life - a flavourless rip-off.

Say what you like about JDW, but they generally have some available (I've been lucky here, but have been in dozens inc 3 Irish ones and never had a problem) and well kept and all at €2.50 a throw.

symbolic

Chelon wrote: »

Didn't know that, great stuff. Was in the Porterhouse Central at the weekend. An eye watering €6 for their cask, a.

What was it?

Ravelleman

Chelon wrote: »

Was in the Porterhouse Central at the weekend. An eye watering €6 for their cask, and it was chilled to within an inch of its' life - a flavourless rip-off.

I thought they'd more or less given up on casks beers other than TSB and Hop Head.

Chelon

symbolic wrote: »

What was it?

You know I can't recall - the two I tried weren't well known ones and there was no point in remembering them :rolleyes:

They also had Hop Head which I didn't try (not a fan of overly hoppy beers) but point I'm trying to make is you're paying big money for poorly kept stuff. At least JDW in general know what they're doing.

symbolic

Chelon wrote: »

They also had Hop Head which I didn't try (not a fan of overly hoppy beers) but point I'm trying to make is you're paying big money for poorly kept stuff. At least JDW in general know what they're doing.

Ha, it's funny actually, when I see your user name I already know the point your going to make. ☺

Chelon

symbolic wrote: »

Ha, it's funny actually, when I see your user name I already know the point your going to make. ☺

Not with you, but curious now, do tell....

BaZmO*

Lucena wrote: »

Any pub which has the 'Cask Marque' (which I think most or all Spoons do) label MUST provide free samples for anyone who asks, that's one of the obligations.

In fairness though, any decent bar, or least any bar with a decent selection of beers, will do that.

symbolic

Chelon wrote: »

Not with you, but curious now, do tell....

Just that Dublin pubs charge too much for poorly kept cask.

fret_wimp2

symbolic wrote: »

Just that Dublin pubs charge too much for poorly kept cask.

Fixed that for ya!

suicide_circus

Was in the 40 ft earlier in the week. I never really bought into the idea that wetherspoons are soulless but that place really is. No atmosphere at all. And by god they're serving some slop in the guise of food, i know it's cheap but this stuff was fresh out of the microwave. €2.50 pint was Bitburger which is awful swill but good value let's be honest. Staff were kids and utterly clueless about their products or how to work a bar, communication between floor and kitchen was all over the place, wrong/late orders all over the shop. It's a shame because the sun was shining an the harbour and bay looked spectacular out the window. Won't be back in a hurry. I did like the €2.75 cans of Sweet Action though, yum yum!

MonkstownHoop

suicide_circus wrote: »

Was in the 40 ft earlier in the week. I never really bought into the idea that wetherspoons are soulless but that place really is. No atmosphere at all. And by god they're serving some slop in the guise of food, i know it's cheap but this stuff was fresh out of the microwave. €2.50 pint was Bitburger which is awful swill but good value let's be honest. Staff were kids and utterly clueless about their products or how to work a bar, communication between floor and kitchen was all over the place, wrong/late orders all over the shop. It's a shame because the sun was shining an the harbour and bay looked spectacular out the window. Won't be back in a hurry. I did like the €2.75 cans of Sweet Action though, yum yum!

40ft would be the closer spoons to me but I'll only drink in the Tavern

suicide_circus

MonkstownHoop wrote: »

40ft would be the closer spoons to me but I'll only drink in the Tavern

Yeah i enjoyed the tavern far more for some reason