As you’ll note from the areas not coloured in on my Philip Navigator, I haven’t been everywhere in the UK yet. It’s only a year since I first went to Cambourne, a place I’d always written off before my revelatory trip introduced me to its graceful Methodist architecture and Portuguese patisseries.
You should be prepared to be surprised by every new UK visit.
And so it proved with Immingham, as handsome a working town as any in North East Lincolnshire.
The town’s lower profile, compared to Great Grimsby or Ulceby, owes more to the lack of a true classic chippy than any aesthetic shortcomings. I bought haddock and chips from Smiths Ideal Fisheries on Grimsby’s Yarborough Road, scoffed them on a bench on King’s Road, and watched the big boats bringing in the craft beer, or probably Kopparberg.
It was all quite pleasant for a fan of industrial heritage and modern shopping.
And now Immingham has a Beer Guide entry, or close enough. The Station Inn in Habrough is a leisurely chicken run across the A180, one of England’s classic roads; its ribbed concrete surface makes it the noisiest road in the United Kingdom
A fairly trad line-up in the public gives no hint of the Station’s craft credentials;
for hidden in the back bar is the real “nectar of the beer gods“.
Some of my embryonic real ale experiences were great pints of Halifax’s finest, in pubs like the Church Inn outside Spotland, Rochdale. I never saw Cyril Smith drink it, which is all the recommendation you need.
With Truman and Lacons back in Beer Guide pubs, and this spotted last week,
I guess it was inevitable that Webster’s absence would be mercifully short. It’s was certainly selling like hotcakes from an unmarked pump, and was just the beer for a glorious Grimsby sunset (NBSS 5).
My only regret was that, due to our police state rules, I couldn’t take my pint on to the railway platform to enjoy it with best possible aeration.
The Station is an ideal modern-looking place to reintroduce the Bitter. Perhaps the Green Label re-launch is one for Beermoth or the Magnet, though.
retiredmartin 
Your lead in is interesting to me since I have been wondering one thing lately. What area of England has been the biggest surprise to you? The area that differed most from your preconceptions?
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Good questions. The Tyne coast at North and South Shields (particularly Seaton Sluice) was stunning, and Tyneside is as posh as anywhere I’ve been.
South-east London is MUCH more interesting than northern and western suburbs, quite hilly and with creative parts in Dulwich as good as anywhere.
And obvs, I was staggered how grim Maidenhead is.
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Our areas to see list increases again….
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Would that be allowed to leave Yorkshire? Probably smuggled over the Humber bridge when it opened and left to cellar age ever since. Did you ask if they hade a cask of Hewitts down there?
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They did have Hewitts but as a southerner I can’t pronounce that correctly so didn’t try. May have had Sam Smith Museum as well, but suspect that had been there 15 years.
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Now if you found a cask of Sam’s Dark Mild…. (they must have had that real at some point in history?)
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What kind of parallel universe is this? Immingham I mean, not your retro world. Actually went there for football a couple of years ago as the lure of a programme was even stronger than the prospect of super thin Webster’s.
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Remember they said there’d never be craft in Carlisle or Carluke or Carbis Bay. Immingham’s time will come.
Webster’s just needs a little more Mosaic hops in the mix.
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Ah delighted to see this ..it .was drinking Websters Bitter on hand pump at the Con club in Brighouse over 40 y years ago that was really my beer epiphany..Has the brand been relaunched Martin ?
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Sadly no longer brewed, Graeme, though those beer mats were new enough !
If they can relaunch Watney’s they can relaunch Webster’s.
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Ah well too bad
A la recherche a le temps perdue or some aphorism comes to mind…:)
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