Retired Martins’s first rule of blogging is
“There is no post, however slight, that cannot be redeemed by a photo of a cat“.
So here (s)he is, perched on a wall near the Red Lion in Bicker in the heart of nowhere, Lincs.
In my former life as scum NHS management, I actually stayed in a cheap B&B down the road in Swineshead before meeting local GPs. This is not a fun place, I can tell you.
Anyway, cat apart, this is the highlight of Bicker. A little stream between two lanes leading to the church and a village store that was closed. (Of course. It was Saturday)
The lone pub won’t be joining the “Dick & Dave Must See List” anytime soon.
This is the bar area;
Once you’ve seen that, there’s not a lot else to say, is there ?
Yes, just a few sofas for drinkers tucked between smart restaurant areas, with this view of a bar that no-one else visited while I was there at 3pm on Saturday afternoon (it is, at least, open all day).
My Mum would have liked it, Mrs RM would have had the Prosecco, I was stuck with Directors, GK IPA or a Batemans seasonal that was very hard going. It had that overpowering floral taste of Young’s Kew beer, and had clearly hardly been pulled through all day (NBSS 2). No-one trying that beer as their first real ale would try it again; it’d be Bitburg or Peroni next time.
There was no-one attending the bar anyway, so clearly not much point changing it in the hope the Directors was marginally better.
This would have been my last Lincolnshire tick, but that late opening at Horncastle meant we had to come back for Fulbeck, which you may remember is a very similar gastro-beast.
I’m sure the villagers of Bicker were delighted to lose a village pub and gain such an attractive and clearly successful restaurant.
So ,any chance of a micropub in Bicker or Fulbeck ?
retiredmartin 
If you went here on the strength of the WhatPub description, you might feel seriously misled.Or maybe a dining pub is a “typical country inn” nowadays 😐
And is the common “closed Mon” phenomenon now also extending to Tuesdays? Let’s hope they always put fresh casks on for Wednesday…
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Good points. I think Yes to both, with opening hours reflecting dining patterns.
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Oh, and on the point about new casks, do you micros who open Thr-Sat (example, the Claygate, Surrey one on the BBC recently) dispose of all their beer Saturday night ?
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I normally enjoy Batemans’ beers, but I would agree with you on Hooker. Sadly that type of hopping is really common these days.
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Used to like XB and XXB a lot, but volumes fallen so dramatically that rarely any good. Very few Bateman pubs in GBG NOW.
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As another who likes Bateman’s, that is unfortunate. I would imagine Bicker has never been a place Dave has planned to go. Your comments make it official.
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My mission is to find you a place if good Bateman.it may be the Brewery Tap in Wainfleet though 😞
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Never understood why they allowed the link to the Lincolnshire Poacher to lapse, it was a great showcase venue for them.
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Well there’s a case study.
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The Bateman beers, including the Dark Mild, used to regulars in Wetherspoons, before they consolidated to Greene King, Doom Bar and a lot of novelties.
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The Bateman’s public house, with its red signage, is surely the image which defines the southern parts of Lincolnshire. There are loads of them but none, or at least very few, make the GBG. Whether any of them are any good I don’t know, but they can’t all be rubbish. I do sometimes wonder whether they are seen as the norm, thus unspectacular, in much the same way as, say, a Tetleys house would be in Leeds.
I recall a senior railcard advertising poster using the classic pun ‘Swineshead Revisited’. I still require the shack tick. One day I shall rectify that.
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