Our next meeting will be at the Tapping the Admiral on the 18th of October.

A word from Del our Organizer:-

The next event for the Capital Beards is a visit to Camden on Sunday 18 October. Always a vibrant place, in fact during our recent holiday in California, I took my wife, Yo, to Haight and Ashbury (or mission control for those, like me, who are in complete denial that we have moved on from the 60’s) and while I was trying to explain the history of the place, she just commented that Camden was much better – praise indeed! The pub we shall be visiting is the excellent Tapping the Admiral at 77 Castle Road
Camden Town NW1 8SU.

Firstly, let’s deal with the name. In 1805, following Admiral Nelson’s victory and demise at the battle of Trafalgar, it was decided to bring his body back to England for a hero’s funeral. To keep the body in reasonable condition, his remains, it is said, were put in a cask of rum to preserve them on the voyage back to Britain. Sailors, who would do anything for a drink, bored a hole in the cask with a gimlet and drew off quantities of the rum through a straw. So many did so that when the body arrived in London the cask was found to be nearly empty. This practice became known as Tapping the Admiral. It has also given us a brilliant pub name. This Edwardian pub usually has 8 cask ales on tap and Chef James Spicer’s Sunday roasts are legendary. In CAMRA competitions it is a multi-award winner, and is in the frame for the current year. This is reflected in a discount for CAMRA members, so bring your membership cards. Post meeting visits to the Devonshire Arms and the Camden Town Brewery are also very much on the cards for those of stout constitutions.

Watch this space as exciting news regarding Capital Beards biggest event to date follows soon.