AWEB#6 Fullers of London

Its been a while since I did an AWEB (Around the World in Eighty Beers).

In the mid 70's I was employed by the J Lyons company working in the Cadby Hall location in Hammersmith, London. Cadby Hall had all of the charm of Folsum Prison.

My introduction to Fullers beer came on the first Friday lunchtime that I worked there. One of my co-workers told me that we HAD to go for a beer, and that beer HAD to be bought at "The Red Cow".

It transpired that the 'Cow' was a very popular lunch time haunt on Fridays because they had a stripper.

What I found unusual about the "Cow" was everything was nailed or bolted down. My Co-worker explained that this lowered the number of potential weapons that were available to the customers! I did not beleive him at the time, but while researching this post I came across the followng:



Latymer's is on the site of the Red Cow, whose history goes back to the 17th century and which was a renowned (or notorious) punk rock venue in the 1970s. The current pub was built in the early 1980s but not opened until 1988. On its opening it was called the Red Cow but was renamed in 1989

The stripper was a 300lb monster whose previous job probably involved the 'Hitler Youth'. She had short blonde hair, and muscles that the average body builder would have wet dreams about.

She had all of the dancing grace of a bull elephant, and the crowd went wild!

Oops, I supose I should mention the beer. Fullers makes a couple of brews, London Pride and ESB. London Pride is their regular bitter. Its pretty heavy going. ESB is for serious drunks only! ESB is beer with a message, and the message is..... BEWARE.


There is a postscript to this. In 2000 I was living in Phoenix, Arizona, and I had a couple of friends who wanted to set up a joint buisness in the computer consulting field. Seeing as I wasn't paying, I had no objection to entering into an LLC (Limited Liability Corporation) with them. The major problem was what to call the stinking company. I hated the idea of 'Computer Nerds', or anything else that sounded stupid, equally I didn't want it to sound like a law firm 'Barrett, Buzuyen and Smith'.

We decided to go for a long beery lunch at one of the psudo brit pubs and thrash out once and for all what we would call the company. Several beers into the adventure we were no closer to a resolution. I looked up at the bar, and to my amazement saw that they sold Fullers ESB. "Thats it I proclaimed, we call it ESB". "But what does it stand for" they asked? Well it used to stand for 'Extra Sensory Bitter', but I don't supose that would work for us, so how about 'Excellent Solutions for Business'.

And that was what we called it!