Lockdown 2.0 - missing the pub

I miss pints.

I miss a table with torn open packs of Sneiders Pretzels.

I miss lacing.

I miss a sarni for snap after early brew shifts.

I miss 4:15 lagers with the team.

I miss the joint acknowledgement that we are, indeed, in rounds.

I miss the pub.

Both mine and Laura's first introduction to beer was in the same restaurant with our respective parents. While they never knew each other, they had a shared knowledge of the best Northern Pakistani food East Sheffield in the early 90s had to offer, in a sadly now closed classic curry house called The Kashmir. Reminiscent of a greasy spoon, but where the sticky tables were accompanied by gilt depictions of Mecca, and the usual glass fridge of uninspiring sandwiches was replaced with a warming cabinet of poppadoms.

While we sat as children with glass tumblers of mango lassi and wooden bowls of saag aloo, large breads and bowls of multi coloured fluffy rice littering the lightly viscid table, all watched over by owner Bsharath (we knew him as Paul), one of the most gentle people you could ever wish to meet, who'd been working there since he was 14 years old - there amongst it all would sit a plastic jug or two of pale ale, carefully brought over from the hostelry across the road.

The East House, somewhat renowned in Sheffield for being the site of a triple murder on New Year's Day in 1960, was an old school boozer which was much loved by many despite having a reputation for being a little rough around the edges. It was warm and welcoming, there was already a friendly greeting from the landlord, and the beer was always well looked after. The pale ale in question was Abbeydale Brewery's flagship, Moonshine - and what turned out to be my first taste of beer in a pub once I was old enough to join my parents in supping a glass, is now a beer that I work in a team to create - pre-lockdown, over 30,000 pints a week.

The Kashmir closed in 2010, followed by the East House in 2013. And in reminiscing about missing the pub in general, I realised how much I still miss both of these two venues - the sense of comfort, familiarity, total lack of pretension, and overall quiet enthusiasm for just getting on with what they do best.

 I miss the pub. 

Jim.