The drive back from Southern Poland to Calais is 14 hours of motorway punctuated by nine McDonalds across five countries. Even on mainly German roads that’s not healthy in a day, so we stopped at another place we’d hardly ever heard of before, halfway between the honeypots of Leipzig and, er, Dortmund. Kassel is, I… Continue reading CIGARETTE SHARING, JAYWALKING KASSEL

I’m up in Stockport tomorrow for City’s New Year’s Day match (moved by Sky to the 2nd of course). While there I hope to catch up with two US visitors who I’m sure will be delighted with the reading matter I’ve collected for their return train trip to Euston.  There’s even an Imbiber in that… Continue reading CAMRA NEWSLETTERS

The problem with picking a “best of“ is that immediately afterward you come across one you missed. This from Tandleman really should have been in my Top 10; Like Matthew’s pint in the Hop Inn, I reckon that’s a thing of beauty, particularly as the colours settle in the glass.  Pints only, note. The Tand, among others, has… Continue reading BASS – A RARE FIND

  Today has been a day to test the boredom threshold of the motorway driver, even if Poland and Germany do allow you that rare luxury of legally driving at 90 mph along their A1/A4. Oddly, I seem to be driving again, and Mrs RM clearly sensed the chance of a last cheap Polish IPA… Continue reading A PUBLESS TOWN

  Is that the name of a band ? If not, it should be. I promise this will be my last post from snowy Poland. I’ll be back in Kassel, on the edge of the Ruhr tonight. Any tips welcome. This post is at the special request of Mrs RM, who has become too big… Continue reading MRS RM AT THE POLISH DISCO

I just read that the thing most appreciated by sodden UK blog readers is reports from exclusive European Ski resorts. Happy to oblige. Actually, there is some footage of my first and last ski lesson, taken by a 15 year old who will never reach 16 if it sees the light of day on his his Instagram.… Continue reading POLISH BOTTLED BEERS, SKIING TEARS

Enough of Poland for a while; I’m desperate to be back in England ticking GBG pubs again, and a few old favourites in Stockport over New Year. Talking of which, Stockport’s finest #PubMan has just published his own best of 2016 here. Pub Curmudgeon’s favourite shot, taken in the Hare & Hounds captures many of… Continue reading MY TOP 10 PUB PHOTOS OF THE YEAR

    Katowice is a big Polish city, perhaps the equivalent of Nottingham in influence, but Middlesbrough in looks. Sadly I didn’t get enough time to compare the emerging micropub scenes. In fact the only beer I saw in Katowice was in a couple of first-rate museums, an area where the city excels, along with… Continue reading UNDERGROUND IN KATOWICE

    Our young Polish host had been reticent about a tour of the dumpy male pubs of Laviska Gorne, but jumped at the chance to take us round student Mikolow a couple of miles away. She’d last done the pubs while at college here in the late ’90s, and was keen to see an apparent… Continue reading A NIGHT ON THE TOWN IN MIKOLOW