The Travel Critic

The joys of international travel, we are told, lie in the chance to immerse oneself in other cultures: to haggle for spices in a sun-bleached souk, to ride a camel over sand dunes at sunset, to hear the haunting call to prayer echo off the minarets of an ancient city as you sip mint tea and reflect on the ephemerality of life and the permanence of sand. You know, proper cultural stuff.

So there I am in BrewDog.

In Bluewaters Dubai. A Scottish craft beer company, flogging IPAs with ironic names like “Elvis Juice” and “Punk” in a technically dry country, while I lob darts at a board in a cavernous air-conditioned room with Oasis on the stereo. It’s 7:15pm and 38°C outside. I’m one fry-up and a looped episode of EastEnders away from a full house on the Brits Abroad bingo card. Ah yes, that’s why we travel.

Now, ignoring me being a philistine for an evening, what was it actually like?

Well. I’ve always found “pubs” in the Middle East a bit…tricky. It’s not the drink (they’ve got that covered, don’t worry), and it’s not the decor either. We don’t walk into a Chinese restaurant in the UK and complain that it looks like Shanghai circa 1842, opium wars and all — no, we suspend disbelief, we play along, we let the lacquered dragons do their job.

No, it’s not the venue — it’s the people.

You see, tourists don’t make good pubs. Brits, for all our moral corrosion and tendency to vote against our own interests, do know how to behave in a boozer. Yes, we drink too much, but the likely outcome is singing, not collapsing face-first into the scampi fries. There’s ritual, there’s etiquette, there’s timing. The slow warm-up pint. The meaningless argument about football. The passive-aggressive queueing at the bar.

Here, by contrast, you had families with small children, couples on what looked like deeply regrettable first dates, and groups of chaps who clearly couldn’t hold their liquor. I watched one guy sink three lagers and then try to arm wrestle a friend. The friend was a woman. Who won. He fell off his chair. Not in a fun way.

Still, we can’t account for other people. Send them to a British rugby or cricket club and they’ll learn soon enough. It’s called conditioning.

We swung by during happy hour (4pm–8pm — a gloriously liberal interpretation of “hour” that would have you finishing the Lord’s Test and still having time for pudding). And it was happy. Cocktails were cheaper than beer (I’ll never understand that), and the food was… well, exactly what you’d want while sitting under neon lights halfway to tipsy. Chicken wings. Fries with things on them. Sliders that fall apart like a Lib Dem coalition.

The venue is modern, industrial in that East London startup-meets-Dubai chic way. Exposed ceilings, concrete, moody lighting — a little bit dystopian, but not without charm. It’s not cosy — no pub carpets or horse brasses here — but the seating is proper comfy, the staff are alert and smiley in that “we-know-you’re-English-but-we’ll-serve-you-anyway” kind of way, and honestly, the view is worth the Uber fare alone.

Because that skyline. My God. It’s the Blade Runner backdrop we all secretly wanted. Spires and towers, yachts bobbing in artificial marinas, and everything lit like the inside of a billionaire’s iPhone case. Humanity may have made a mess of most things, but Dubai’s skyline is what you’d build if you gave a 12-year-old Sim City and unlimited funds.

So yes — nice drink, lovely service, stylish venue, and one of the most astonishing views on earth. It’s a Scottish beer bar in the desert. It’s nonsense. It’s brilliant. It’s absolutely worth a visit.

And if you win at darts, they make a fuss. Which, really, is all I ask.