I apologize in advance to the people of Swansea, I’m sure you like living in there and that’s good for you, I on the other hand have quite a different view of your town. Also, for anyone who can’t be bothered to read all this, it can be summarised as Swansea: ugh! The Celt Experience: mmmm!
I’ve just got back from doing a job in Swansea. I didn’t really enjoy it. I’m not talking about the job particularly, that was about the same as ever, it was everything else. The weather wasn’t great, but what should I expect, this is Wales in October. The hotel was mediocre, again, what was I expecting, it’s a Premier Inn, they’re all the same: clean and dull (the only difference between the Premier Inn’s are the welcome from the receptionist at check in and how powerfully the shower delivers water). The city itself is, and I’m not going to beat around the bush here, an eyesore. From every angle you look at the littre flowing in the breeze, the grot and dirt building up in the gutters, the boarded up pubs with the sign “under new management” clearly they didn’t stay managed for long, and the huge office block which towers over the north east of the city where the drivers and vehicles licensing agency looms over everything.
All of the above things can be said of many of Britain’s large towns, they can be dirty and they are all suffering from High Street decline thanks to the internet age and out of town shopping centres. I can’t really blame a government department responsible for every driver and every vehicle in the land to need a large building either. Swansea, however, is one of those places where you feel you just don’t belong. Being there, you have a great sense of urgency to do what you have to do as fast as you can, then, run for the border and leave the locals to it. The little things like having three upturned trolleys blocking the drop off point in an Asda car park. What’s worse is that returning the following day you find that no one has done anything about it. Surely this falls under the authority of the bloke who pushes the trolleys around the car park? Inside the supermarket they feel the need to attach security tags to the baskets so that they can’t be stolen. Why would anyone want to in the first place?!
The thing which really got me about Swansea was the restaurant attached to the hotel (and don’t worry I will be getting to beer in a bit). Only in places like Swansea can you get away with a restaurant like this. Well, I call it a restaurant, what it actually calls itself is “Taybarns – The ultimate eatery“. EATERY! In one word I think they really do some the place up. Let’s just look at the word first of all. Eatery. In a brewery, you brew beer. In a bakery, you bake bread. In a tannery, you tan leather, and in a robbery, you rob someone of their goods and chattels. So it follows then that an eatery is somewhere that you go and eat. You don’t go there for the a good time, or polite conversation, a drink with the lads or a romantic evening with the wife. You don’t go there for the ambiance or the dining experience. You’re just there to eat and eat cheaply too. Most pub restaurants have some background piped music to help people relax and enjoy themselves. Not at Taybarns. Instead you get the soundtrack of a bunch of sixth-formers who have no idea about civility or manners and therefore no consideration for their fellow diners. At most restaurants you are served by a waiter or waitress usually wearing black or some other uniform. Not at Taybarns. Here you serve yourself as often as you want to as much as you want all at low low prices. And the staff? They are just there to take your money as you walk in and then clean up after you. The group of youths mentioned before left utter carnage on their table when they had gone and it is the job of the staff to clear it all before the next group devastate the place again.
On the plus side you do get a fill at dinner. Often you’re out and about and ordered some food at a restaurant and you’re given a plate which wouldn’t feed a mouse. Not so at Taybarns. If after a full roast dinner you still feel hungry, then have another! Also it is cheap. For £7.99 you have the complete run of the place gorging on as much as you like. These are the only plus points about this restaurant. There certainly isn’t anything good to be found in the drinks menu.
After work I want to sit down and eat dinner with a nice pint of beer. That’s nice pint of beer. I’m not expecting there to be a large selection of Belgian specialties or quadruple hopped turbo-charged American pale ales. Just a decent pint of ale. The only thing which even comes close is Tetley’s smooth flow which, as I’m sure you know, is one of the most bland and uninteresting beers in the known universe. I did, on the first night, try a Strongbow, just to go for something with more flavour. It turned out that the flavour in question was somewhere between vinegar and drain cleaner. After that horrific incident, the following night I went back to Tetleys.
I’m not really a big fan of lager, but there was at least a choice in this department, which makes sense given the type of place we are talking about and the oversized clientele that they attract. However, even here they are cheaping out. Stella Artois is 5.2%, but not in Taybarns it’s not. There it’s only 4.5%. I didn’t really inspect any of the other taps. I just ate my food as quickly as possible and went back to the hotel room.
In the hotel room was where the best beer was to be found because we’d been to Asda. The usual supermarket range of Greene King IPA and old Speckled Hen was available as well as some regional varieties. The highlight of which for me was a new The Celt Experience, more specifically, their Bleddyn 1075. This is a beer worth trying. Even warm, and it was very warm having been on a supermarket shelf and then in a warm hotel room, it was fully of juice grapefruit flavours which really popped in the mouth. A smooth thick mouthfeel which, compared to the Tetleys earlier, was just heavenly. My only regret was not buying any of the other beers from the range. If I go to Wales again, someone please, remind me!
Just one more quick bitch about Swansea. After being told by a local that he wants to “get out of this shit-hole”, his words – not mine, we went to Burger King at Swansea motorway services. I know but I just can’t get enough of these classy and sophisticated diners. There were five people in the queue and it took 20 minutes to get served by a man from whom you got the impression that it was against company policy to show and sort of emotion bar contempt. After this, like I said before, we ran for the border.