Today I was really egging for a good beer. There a few micro breweries round these parts. Initially I wanted to travel out to Lovibonds Brewery out in Henley-On-Thames (quite literally the name of the town, including dashes) due to the fact that the brewer Jeff Rosenmeier happens to be an expat just like us (recomended by Ed Murray from Shotover Brewing).
However due to short notice, and no idea how far we would have to travel, we chose to head up to Camden Town Brewery. After a bit of an ordeal actually finding the entrance to the place we saw that the entire place had no resemblance to a micro-brewery that was open to the public. After a bit of an internal argument we turned around and started walking back up the street... I then I thought of the song 'Sunscreen' given to the class of 1997 where he says, 'Do something that scares you every day,' and I promptly did an about face to head back in the direction of the brewery where we met the Brewer from Down Under named Nick, who, after we asked him if the brewery had public tastings, offered us a tasting of bottles from the collection of unfinished cases. Thank you Nick, Camden town goes into my breweries of choice in the future.
So totally against my will we end up at Camden Town Brewery and it ends up being a great experience. Their tasting room is currently under constructions, so instead of some tastings they just gave us four bottles of their beer. Totally awesome outcome. We leave our info and head out to the high street where David spots a store with a bunch of beers in the window. We head in and find all sorts of micro-brews from all over the world. David fills up on them and then we have the dilemma of actually carrying the 12 beers he just picked up.
We start heading towards our new neighbourhood (Camden, near Euston station) and find a great spot for lunch. I have "American" pancakes and David indulges on some babyback ribs that don't quite meet his expectations, then we head further south towards our hood.
Eventually we land in what we think is to be our new local pub. There's an old man (check). There's even a pub cat named Sylvester (double check!).
The pub is relatively empty, but has that distinct feeling that there have been some really great times. The only other table filled by other customers has four blokes from unknown origins, but known intoxication, which happens to be high. The locals all crowd around a small corner of the pub and discuss the decision to create a new high speed rail line that will destroy the neighbourhood, and most likely the bar. Luckily for us, that is still a few years off... hopefully.
A few of the guys from the other table get up to have a smoke, leaving one. We start talking, you know about this and that, and he comes over to sit by us, a bit ready to leave the group he is with currently... which we soon find out why.
Soon his friends join us at our table. We are engaged in conversation with our new friends when there seems to be a bit of commotion. The locals start coming over and telling the guys that they can't do "that" in public.
I look over, completely clueless and see a rolled up dollar bill. Wait a second...is that what I think it is. I've only seen this in movies, never real life.
Oh shit...we could lose our visas is my next thought.
Yes... we see some dudes doing cocaine... the table over. WTF Mate... WTF.
For the first time in David's life he considered leaving beers half drunk on the table. I go into hyper-drink-your-beer-and-make-up-lies-to-get-out-of-there-mode.
Nice meeting you dudes. Welcome to the neighborhood. Is pepper spray legal here? Regardless, where do I get some?
The End.
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