The Cape of Good Hope

 

The first pub I ever drank in, at the age of fifteen (no ID in those days, boys; illegal though it was - ask your Grandad) was the Cape of Good Hope at the corner of Cape Hill and Grove Lane, Smethwick. It had the usual bar, smoking room (never understood that one as you could smoke anywhere in those days, even in hospital!), snug, beer garden and a hangover from decades before - as far as I can remember the only surviving example at the turn of the seventies - a men-only bar.

Within six months of first entering the place, I was a regular and my favoured tipple was that old Midlands standby: brown & mild; half a pint of dark mild in a pint glass, topped with a half of brown ale (Manns for preference): a pint of which cost the princely sum of 2/6d - 12.5p in today's money - expensive, as a pint of mild was only 2/2d. I kid you not, a night out at the Cape would cost me well less than a pound, and would include four pints, twenty cigarettes (Player's Number Six) and fish and chips from the chippy just up the road, on the way home. Ten bob for beer, 3/6d for the fags and hake and chips for 1/6d: fifteen bob in total - 75p in 2021 money. One pint of bitter in Bangor these days (at least when pubs actually get to open) is around £4.00p, over five times the price of my entire evening out in 1970.

Not only have the prices changed. Whilst they've increased, year on year; inflating on a depressingly steady curve, the brewing industry and our pub-culture has deflated at almost the same exasperating rate, with pub and brewery closures symptomatic of ridiculous levels of excise duty and the shift towards corporate takeover, expansion and 'diversification'. What was a cultural institution, almost unique to the British Isles, has been decimated and mutated into the palest of shadows of its former self. 'Going out for a pint' is pretty much a thing of the past. You're likely going to go to a pub for food first, with a drink as an accompaniment, and that drink for the most part will be the product of some BrewCo, if you even bother to drink the beer.

By the time I bought the Beer Guide in the photo, Mitchells & Butlers brewery (the brewery itself opposite the Cape of Good Hope) was owned by Coors of Colorado (of insipid American lager infamy). Today, there is no M&B or a Cape Hill brewery: that's a housing estate, now. The hope these days lies with the burgeoning number of micro and craft breweries around (of which Wales is very well served, with some very fine beers on offer).

Sadly, dark mild and brown ale are almost impossible to find anywhere, these days, and the duty on brewed product ensures that it's more expensive than wine to drink. I enjoy both, but I would dearly like to see the day return when I can afford to go to a local and down four pints or so of under-strength and affordable dark ale, just as my grandad Harvey did with great regularity.