East End Brewery beer in London

When I was in London at the beginning of December of this year, I made it a point to have a pint of beer from the East End Brewery in Pittsburgh, Pa. The oddity of this is the fact that I am from Pittsburgh and drink the beers often, as the beers coming from Scott Smith's kettles are wonderful. So why would I travel to London at considerable cost to drink a beer I get down the street? Because it was there!

When I first started my travels to the land of fish and chips and pork pies I was not yet a beer drinker. Good thing too as there was not a lot of what we would call craft beer back in the 1970’s. As I got my training in good beer at Chiodo’s Tavern in Homestead I discovered that there was more than one beer style. Unfortunately nobody told London. I was drinking porter in Pittsburgh but no bartender in London ever heard of such a drink. “Do you have any porter?” “No, he went home early today”.

Finding good beer in London is pretty easy now. The Brits are finding that they can make interesting beers and so many are finding their way to London. European beers are as popular in the UK as they are here. American beers have been firmly planted on British soil and Sierra Nevada, Rough, Victory, Southern Tier and Duck Rabbit are as easy to come by as Young’s and Fullers.

Thanks to a rotating distribution system Scott was able to send 30 combined kegs of Black Strap Stout and Big Hop IPA to England and Europe. Two pubs in London had them on and the reviews that came back were positive. A long time buddy from London had a Black Strap and found it eye opening. One chap on twitter sent Scott a tweet with the word “blimey” in his review of the IPA. When a review incorporates the word blimey in it you have arrived. To stand next to a tap in a London pub sporting a beer from Pittsburgh is one that I am happy to stand next to. I support Pittsburgh brewers and will do so 4000 miles from home.

Photos are of the Craft Beer Company on Leather Lane, Clerkenwell EC1

US Airways to Oz

One thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is to see what I can do to get to London next. On this day I was poking around the US Airways website looking to see what they were offering for this coming November. I have no money to go right now but that is a secondary issue. I have always wanted to be in London for Thanksgiving and pretended to make reservations for Monday, the 22^nd to Monday the 29^th. US Airways as well as most others are coming in between $500 and $600 for an economy round-trip flight. As you cannot get a direct flight from Pittsburgh anymore at least one stop is required. Airlines usually give you a number of flights out and back to choose from but one outgoing flight caught my eye.

They actually recommended a flight to hell. First let me set the stage as to what should be expected. A flight from Pittsburgh to Charlotte or Philadelphia is short. The flight to London takes off that evening and eight hours latter you are in Piccadilly. A combination of flights for 22 November exceeded two days. Here is how it was scheduled.

Flight	Trip	Times	Duration
96	Pittsburgh to Philly	8:45pm – 9:56pm	1 h 11 m
	Same Day Layover		0 h 54 m
1290	Philly to LaGuardia	10:50pm – 11:40pm	0 h 50 m
	Overnight Layover		7 h 20 m
2116	LaGuardia to Boston	7:00am – 8:05am	1 h 05 m
	Same Day Layover		1 h 25 m
61	Boston to Charlotte	9:30am – 11:58am	2 h 28 m
	Same Day Layover		6 h 22 m
732	Charlotte to Gatwick	6:20pm – 7:20am	8 h 00 m
			29 h 35 m

Total transit time: 2 days, 5 hours, 35 minutes.

7:20 am in London would be 2:20 am on the east coast.

Good-God. Four layovers and one of which is overnight for over 7 hours. You actually leave Pittsburgh on Monday but don’t leave Charlotte until Tuesday and when you land in London is it on a Wednesday morning. You would think that with all of this free time one of the planes would fly past Oz and pick up Dorothy and her little dog, too.

The flight to London is only scheduled for 8 hours but the total flight time is 13 hours and 34 minutes. All this for only one easy payment of $275. The flight back to Charlotte and Pittsburgh is only $276. (Only one dollar more?) And let us not loose focus on that 7-hour layover in Boston. What does one do at that time of the night? One question that will never get an answer to is how do they know they know when they are losing money? When? Any day they operate a flight! I know that the above schedule was computer generated. I am just glad they still have pilots on board and not computer driven craft. As I have always said (if you ever listen to me) is that just because they can get you there does not mean you should take the flight. Fifty-four minute layover in Philly to get to New York; I would rather take my chances in Vegas.

Pitt Students in London

I am looking for Pitt Students (or other college students) who have studied in London for a semester with the University.No need to call 911 as I am not looking for anything shady. I noticed on the Pitt web-site that students are given a travel pass for the time they are there but not for one week in March. I wondered what type of card you get and why none for the one break week. I think it would be better to be issued a travel card (monthly, seven, three and one day) which will give you unlimited travel in zone 1 & 2. I have to think that the guys at Pitt know about this but I don't know what pass students get while in London. So, how do you like studying in London? Way different than Oakland, uh?