PRATSLOGUE

Welcome to the very first blog of PRATS.   

PRATS is an acronym for Poppies Real Ale Tasting Society.  

The PRATS blog is all about 4 PRATS members and their journeys  following the Poppies on the away day travels. These days always include the best real ale pubs we can find, either on our way to or from or even once we’ve arrived at our destination. Checking out the local snaffle is also a very important part of the day especially if pork pies are involved and they usually are. We measure the quality of the hostelry focusing on the ale, 1) quality,)2 price, 3) choice, the attributes of the bar staff cough, cough, will also get a mention with the image of a hand-pump in any position between horizontal to vertical as a guide. We’ll leave you to work out what position the hand-pump will be in for a ‘tasty bird’.  

Ale quality:  

Is the beer as flat as a witch’s tit or is there a lovely tight head, clingling to the sides of the glass, where you can count the number of swigs taken to consume the pint, a bit like working out the age of a tree?  

Is the beer cloudy, not too dissimilar to a bucket of hog-swill, is it as hazy as a relatively clear day in downtown Beijing or of pristine clarity with an inner glow.  

Is the beer as warm as piss or is it freezing cold; shattering ones remaining molar, or is it just right; washing over the tonsils quenching the Gobi like thirst.  

Ale prices: 

As we travel throughout the country we have experienced a wide variety of prices ranging from a couple of quid at a decent ‘Spoons’ pub or heading towards a wallet evacuating £4.00. 

Ales choice: 

Nothing worse than going into a pub and seeing a row of hand pumps with ales you can buy anywhere in the country. Ok, so maybe GK IPA , bloody Doombar and the other plethora of nationals are just about drinkable, but we don’t want them ramming down our throats do we? Well actually one of our PRATS likes Doombar, once only to be found in Cornwall now every bloody where.  We like local ales, LOCALES is good. You can’t beat good micro-brewery ale or even a brew-pub to while away the hours before and after the footy, if you’re really lucky the clubhouse might have some decent local ale on. A couple of times last season we quaffed our quota before getting to the ground only to find they’d kindly fetched in a polypin of some local ale just because the Poppies were in town. Marvellous, just because we’d had our quota didn’t mean we went without, Oh no.

We would like to invite other Poppies fans to contribute to PRATS; indeed we also invite those away fans travelling to Latimer Park for their thoughts on Kettering’s hostelries and their general day out on the razz.  

Naturally this BLOG will evolve over time and become useful for others in search of a decent footy day out.  

If you would like to contribute to PRATS then please email pratsktfc@btinternet.com