Times are a changing – for the better
Blackburn Times is now selling cask beer. This means most of the town centre’s pubs have real ale available.
At one time we reached a low point of cask ale only being available in just four town centre pubs: Molloy’s, the Adelphi, Postal Order and Jubilee. Other pubs said they sold cask, but it never seemed to be on when they were visited.
Since then things have improved by leaps and bounds. The turning point was Last Orders installing a hand pump and selling Tetley’s cask bitter. Their sister pub, Blackburn Times, took a little longer to follow suit, but has now gone with the flow. Now it shifts its real ale very quickly and this might make them look at increasing their selection?
We can now even buy real ale on the Barbary Coast. Zy Bar may be the last name in the telephone directory, but it’s first on the list of Barbary Coast pubs if you want a decent pint.
There are still a few pubs where only chemic is on offer, but real ale is now the name of the game. It will soon register with them when punters come in and leave straight away when they can’t have a pint of cask.
Things are on the up, but it’s still only seven town centre pubs where you can buy real ale. For a town of its size, Blackburn should have far more pubs. But, to use an overworked phrase: We are where we are. Before we can expect new pubs to open, or the mothballed ones to come back, we need the existing ones full of punters.
The Times they are a changing – for the better – and it’s now time people stopped whingeing about Blackburn’s town centre, got off their computers and paid the pubs a visit.
