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Day 2 – Muffins, Money, and More…

Day 2 – Muffins, Money, and More…

Published on 18 September 2024

My second day in London started with a full English Muffin Man breakfast, to prepare me for a day full of activities, ranging from ‘House’ visits, to meeting more Hash House Harriers…

In a place called Muffin Man, I had to have a muffin of course, so I ordered a toasted buttered English muffin in addition to the already more than filling breakfast…

The house I visited, was Leighton House, the former home and studio of the leading Victorian artist, Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830-1896), on the edge of Holland Park. I hadn’t heard of him before this trip, but it must have been quite a character, and he left us a beautiful house!

Back in the centre, I visited the Bank of England Museum. A nice little exhibition, but most importantly: I got to touch and lift a real gold bar!

My selected coffee bar of the day was Rosslyn Coffee. Standing place only, baking in the sun, but what a location!

From there it was just a short walk to Pelt Trader, where I enjoyed a couple of beers, and their Sussex Hot pizza. By the time I finished it, I realised I was actually quite far ahead on schedule, which meant the next bar I planned to go to wasn’t open yet…

Luckily The Rake—the bar I finally went to in June—was only a London Bridge away, so I decided to cross the Thames and spend some time there. As expected, they once again had a great selection of beers!

After that The Bolter was open, so I had a last couple of beers there, before heading back to the hotel to change into my running kilt. 

The Piccadilly line was acting up a bit today, so I had to leave a little bit earlier to make it to Enfield in time to run with the Enfield Hash. By the time I arrived at The Cricketers pub, they had already almost finished chalk talk, so I gave my bag to Mick Mac—one of the Brussels hashers, but an Enfield native—and we took off! 

After returning in the pub, I managed to wolf down a steak and ale pie before circle started, so I was ready for a last beer stop before going back to the hotel. 

That last stop was in BrewDog Soho, a bar I hadn’t been in six years! I arrived just fifteen minutes before last call, so after two beers, I was on my way to a shower and my bed…

More Interscandi!

More Interscandi!

Published on 27 July 2024

The first and only full day of Interscandi continues to follow the usual schedule: breakfast, run, lunch on the way, circle, and dinner and a themed party. Considering we were based in the second largest city of Germany, we had a surprisingly green run!

After last night’s pub crawl, the hot dorm room, and the loud music from the venues on the Reeperbahn, not everyone made it in time for breakfast, but luckily I did!

After an U-Bahn and an S-Bahh to Hoheneichen, we were ready to run the trail. My choice was the long trail, good for 14,3 km of running, including some ‘checking’ (running in the wrong direction to find out where the trail actually continues).

So, a note about the party and dinner: the theme was ‘vikings in drag or flip flops’, although the formulation changed over time, and mermaids were squeezed in there somehow as well… I decided to just go for a viking in a viking dress.

Since I’m not much of a party goer, I snuck out early to put my battle axe safely away, change into my usual kilt, and go back to Craft Bier Bar Hamburg, probably the bar with the most interesting taplist at the moment!

Interscandi!

Interscandi!

Published on 27 July 2024

After the hashy intermezzo on Thursday, it was back to normality for a couple of hours, before the main event of this trip would really start: Interscandi. What supposedly started as a joint hash event for/by the Scandinavian hashes, now extends to anywhere the vikings have been, hence the choice for Hamburg this year…

Normality usually starts with breakfast and coffee, so after a breakfast buffet at the ibis budget hotel, I headed to Milch for that coveted coffee. Unfortunately they were inexplicably closed, so I walked on for my only cultural stop today: the Kramer-Witwen-Wohnung, the ‘shopkeeper’s widow’s home’, built in the 17th century—so widows could move out of their husbands’ shops, so other shopkeepers could move in—and in use for this purpose until the 19th century. Reading this explanation probably took longer than the visit, because it was tiny!

To be fair: I limited myself to one cultural stop to be able to squeeze in one last beer stop before the less predictable part of the weekend would start… On the way there was the Elbgold coffee roastery though, so I could have my espresso macchiato after all!

But just a little after lunch time I found myself already at the Beyond Beer shop, tasting their draught beers…

I still had some time left, and I decided to kill it at BrewDog St. Pauli. I actually already dropped by there on my first night in Hamburg, but I just missed last call then…

Interscandi is with accommodation included, so I had to change venues on the day it started. So my home for the next two nights would be the Pyjama Park Hostel, completely filled with other hashers… The checkin was a happy reunion with people I met at other hash events, and of course a a substantial delegation of BMPH3 members. Let the mayhem begin! Well, as it turned out, the mayhem was too much for the people behind the bar of the hostel, so I fled to The Baby Goat Barn, and had some pizza while I was there.

After that, it was already time to start the pub crawl, no running involved this time. To my delight they had set a “beer nerds” trail as well! It brought me back to The Baby Goat Barn, BrewDog, and Bar Oorlam, but I was so happy to be drinking craft beer on a Nash Hash pub crawl!

History and Hilarity in Hamburg

History and Hilarity in Hamburg

Published on 25 July 2024

A new day in a new(ish) city, that means I had to visit some history museums! However, since today was the day before the main, weekend-long hashing event, there was also—as hashers call it—a pre-lube: a Red Bra Charity Run! And that is exactly what it sounds like…

First things first though: breakfast and coffee! The Grosse Sache breakfast at Lieblings was ample, definitely enough to keep me going until the late afternoon run. For my coffee of the day I went to Nord Coast Coffee Roastery, bringing me closer to the part of the city where I would spend most of the day: HafenCity. I didn’t expect there to be a queue, but I decided just waiting my turn was still quicker than going somewhere else. The espresso macchiato was excellent though, so worth the wait!

On the cultural programme today: the tiny Speicherstadtmuseum and of course the huge Internationales Maritimes Museum.

After that it was time to head back to the hotel, but not before finally having a sit down coffee at Playground Coffee.

Then it was time to change into my special running outfit, and go all the way back to the other side of the Nordelbe river to the Veddel S-Bahn station! Here was the start for the Red Bra Charity Run, a run organised by the Edinburgh based BRAS* and Pants H3! The charity chosen to receive our participation fees, by the way, was Kinderbauernhof Kirchdorf, not too far from the Bunthaus Schankraum, where our run ended.

(*Brewery Runs Around Scotland)

After the run and a shower, I had time for two more bars on my list: Omnipollos Hamburg and the rather uninspiredly named Craft Bier Bar Hamburg, which had great beers nevertheless!

Just a Day in London

Just a Day in London

Published on 5 June 2024

It’s easy to forget how nearby London actually is: just a two hour train trip from Brussels! So even though I already have a longer trip to the Big Smoke planned later this year, I decided to pop over for a day just to visit the British Museum for an exhibition which was about to close very soon. And of course, while I was there anyway, have a couple of beers…

The trip didn’t start off too well: the Eurostar which would take us to London already had a fifty minute delay even before it arrived in Brussels. Apparently there were some signalling problems between Amsterdam and Rotterdam… Since there was no way to make up for that delay en route, and I would miss my scheduled coffee stop, I did something I had never done done on a Eurostar before: visit the bar carriage and get a coffee there!

After arrival, there was just enough time to walk to the British Museum for the exhibition I came for: Legion: life in the Roman army. Being the Roman (military) history geek I am, I found it definitely worth coming over for! There were some artefacts I had only ever seen on photos before, and I quite liked how the visitors kind of followed the career of one specific soldier throughout the exhibition.

After the visit, it was time to enjoy the sun—we were definitely lucky in that department—and sights of London a bit: the parks, the architecture both old and new, the monuments…

The walk ended at Borough Market, the perfect place to grab some lunch. I went for a classic: some Scotch egg with black pudding and pork and Stilton pie from Mrs King’s Pies, apparently already in business since 1853!

Right next to Borough Market is The Rake. It’s a beer bar—well, you could say the OG craft beer bar of London—that had been on my lists for many years, but I just never made it there, until today!

Just a day in London is shorter than you would expect—especially with the long check-in times recommended for Eurostar in London—so I then already made my way to Camden, to be on the safe side. And a visit to Camden of course means a visit to BrewDog Camden! Not a lot of new beers brewed by BrewDog themselves, but the staff recommended me some excellent guest beers!

Basically just across the canal from the station, in the Coal Drops Yard, there is a bottle shop—well, can shop actually—where you can drink in as well: the House of Cans. A really nice selection of canned beers indeed, so since I only had time for one beer, I also bought a couple to take home.

Ten minutes after leaving I had already checked in, and all that was left to do, was to wait for my Eurostar to Brussels. No delays this time, so just fifteen hours after leaving it, I was back home again…