I start with some tremendous news. I’ve found the photos from Tonbridge and Rye, so I CAN bring you a post from Jeff Bell’s new pub (brilliant) and Mrs RM’s karaoke (less so). I’ll be sharing the latter unless she brings me back some tablet from Melrose tomorrow.
April was a stellar month, with trips to that place where all decent beer is made (Wolverhampton), the only English town I’d never been to (Bridport) and a week selling tat in a church car park.
I still have reports from west Lancashire and Merseyside to bring you, but since they’re nearly all micro pubs, I suspect you can wait.
The April stats; 43 new GBG pubs in 15 counties, finishing Salop, West Yorkshire, Staffs, Manchester and Cheshire. It’s all uphill now.
Away from pubs, we walked Chesil Beach (soon to be made into a film, I hear),
but the coast at Burnmouth topped even that.
And to complete the coastal theme, I’ve got these fellas coming up in a forthcoming post.
This was also the month that City won the League, of course (or strictly the Baggies won it for us. I’ll confess I enjoyed the celebratory evening with Mrs RM in Crafty Cambridge as much as anything last month, drinking cloudy grapefruit flavoured keg at £8 a pint while listening to “Neighbours” covers in a grotto. #LivingTheDream. #ComeOnRoma.
Live music was a feature of my Top Pub Experience, too, as the gent in the check shirt started an impromptu round of “Cockles and Mussels” in Winchester’s Eclipse. A great pub, and a pint of Doom Bar that once again proved that quality starts in the pub.
I had some terrific beer in April, none more so than the Mild in the Banks’s Visitor Centre. I also enjoyed the East Anglian Beer Fest in Bury St Edmunds. and not just because of the Dove’s scratchings.
But Beer of the Month was the Greene King Black IPA in the Combermere.
A month where your two top beers come from Banks’s and Greene King, eh !
Any of the Wolves pubs would have been award winners if I hadn’t been in the them before, but my New Pub of the Month for April is (drum roll)
the Bailey Head in Oswestry. Great, cheap beer and food in an unfussy setting.
MAY PREVIEW
Nottingham tonight; pre-emptive tick tips welcome.
This Saturday the Beer and Pubs Forum posse visit Northampton. No new ticks, though St Giles Ale House should be a future entry since it’s a micro and there’s laws about that.
BRAPA visits Cambridge the week after and I will be joining the welcoming committee at Royston station.
And at the end of the month I get to meet the folk who made America Great Again in Leeds. Shoulda been Halifax lads.
retiredmartin 
You’re making me very thirsty… I have to say of all the areas we have visited the Leeds\Yorkshire area was the most difficult to whittle down to a manageable number of places to visit. Really remarkable. Hope they live up to the hype:)
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Yes, we hope so. Nevertheless, it will be a sight better than I am experiencing here.
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Possible new Nottingham GBG pubs are
Barley Twist Carrington Street close to train station and the now closed Broadmarsh bus station.
Beerheadz outside the train station.
Head of Steam High Pavement on the road towards the Keens Head.
Lacemakers Arms High Pavement.
The first two are Micro type pubs so they are bound to get into the GBG.
Head of Steam was converted from a bar that i have been in.
I have not done three of them due to ill health Barley Twist, Beerheadz and Lacemakers Arms.
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Beerheadz.
The hairdresser-style pun would put me off going completely.
Talking of hairdresser puns a haircut in Cork is known as a bazzer – hence my favourite barber’s name Bazzer By John.
I thang you.
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Yep, BeerHeadZ up to four pubs now, with another one in the pipeline at Melton Mowbray. Bound to get one, or more, in GBG soon, and Nottingham’s is good a shout as any of them: CAMRA types tend to like pubs where they hardly have to leave the railway station :-).
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Dead cert, unless it opened too late for next GBG
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Brilliant, thanks Alan. Can only have a
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Can only have half so Bearheadz
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I chose a proper pub, Alan. You’ll like my choice a lot (It’s not getting in the Beer Guide with just Theakston Bitter on though) 😉
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I am now trying to think what pub in Nottingham city centre would only have Theakston Best on.
My guess would be Blue Bell first then Thurland Hall or Coach & Horses.
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It was Royal Children, Alan. Loads of Forest stuff. Will write it up soon.
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Fine performance and a lovely pink spread. Very professional!
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I see that the Black Prince is on the Northampton map, i went in it with my Brother about 18 months ago, i gave up looking for a beer as soon as i walked in, so my Brother got me a half, he went on to count the real ales in each room he lost count at 18.
Just warning you Martin.
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Martin likes pubs with a wide range of ales, minimum should be ten to even be considered for the GBG. And if they’re in a micropub that opens for two hours on the third Thursday of alternate months (except in the Winter), then that’s even better.
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You’ve sussed me, Fred.
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Fred, you forgot the random animal/child to lick him
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Can’t wait 😁😉
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My pub in Nottingham tonight had one beer on, Alan. Good Yorkshire beer too.
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Picture of my specs on the table in the Boar’s Head there 😄😎
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The specs and the beer are the two classics!
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“New Pub of the Month for April is (drum roll)”
And probably the same for May, oh, no that’s the Rifle Drum.
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I set em up, you put em away
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Were you hanging from the ceiling for that first picture?! I spent three years commuting to Northampton but I was in between cask ale drinking so would love to know what boozers are worth visiting…
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Sleight of hand, that shot.
Of course you were in Northampton. Is there a video of your goal ?. Some quite basic boozers near the old ground/cricket, and more surprisingly in the market places. You’d like them.
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Wikipedia is incorrect I’ll have you know! Two career goals but they clearly don’t count the important ones (play off semi finals)! I have photographic evidence of the second one!
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Sue !
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I blame asange
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I think that second one was credited to Harry Kane.
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😉👍 I like that 😀
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I thought you went in any pub Ian.
We had a bat round the middle of Northampton then walked up Wellingborough Road,loads of pubs along there plenty of normal pubs with real ales on and some with no real ales on.
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I do pal. I can’t really recall many as it was 20 years ago apaprt from A spoons in the centre with moon in the title and Chicago Rock Cafe!!! Plus the Cromwell place by the bridge just beofre the M1
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Just thinking a bit outside the box here, but once the guide comes out every year, perhaps some sort of database could be set up for the GBG completists where local folk could advise as to possible public transport routes to try and cover outlying random ticks?
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Or better still, local folk offer lifts to try and cover outlying random ticks !
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But where’s the challenge in that?
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You’re much too nice, Fred. We all want to read about Simon getting mud-splattered on the Wirral as he walks 5 miles to a closed micro, we really do.
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Yeah, we could like invent the internet or something so we could look up transport routes without visiting Tourist Info Offices in Brechin.
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Bus times online are about as accurate as Whatpub opening hours. More of a vague hope than any closeness to reality.
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You have buses ?
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Charabancs
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I do like the idea of you comparing all the various beers you encountered during the month, carefully deliberating, and then saying “I’ve got to give it to Greene King.” And not just because of the interesting facial expressions it might provoke among all the craft brewers. 😉
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I take this sacred work seriously, Mark. Speak truth unto power etc
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