One instinctively knows that BRAPA will have great fun with blog titles when he eventually gets to North Lincolnshire.
I finished the county at Owston Ferry, in what’s commonly known as “the posh bit twixt Donny and Scunny“, if only in the sense you’ll see the odd person on horseback and a depressing lack of graffiti. An area yet to be penetrated by craft beer or micro pubs, which alone must make it the most desirable place to live in the UK.
I arrived to find the village lazing about on the river, as temperatures hit 26 degrees.
And turned up at the wrong pub again, never for one moment suspecting there’d be two pubs for a thousand people. I’d have popped in the White Hart but the thought of warm York Guzzler fills me with dread.
Luckily the Crooked Billet is a minute along the bank of the Trent, nervously awaiting my visit. I entered via the beer garden. Who needs front entrances ?
The surprised Landlord was still setting up so I had a good nosey. It’s a vast rambling pub, the antidote to all the square boxes I have to go in these days.
It took two seconds to see the advert for Rick Reed and know you’re in a Proper Pub.
A weird combination of plush sofas and bench seating won’t please the purist, but it works for me and the average Owstonian (?).
It’s possible that Rick Reed was going to be miming to his ’78s, played on the pub’s cutting-edge HiFi.
Sadly the James Last album was in that dreadful modern format and had been turned into a clock.
At the bar, I had a tricky choice. Would Doom Bar be imbued with magical qualities by being served so close to the Trent ?
Probably not, and the Milestone Black Pearl is a gem (see what I did there ?).
Our Landlord pulled through a good three pints worth, and made two corrective trips down to the cellar before it poured. That gave me time to make best friends with a Guinness drinker who then decided to give the Pearl a go ! THIS is what CAMRA is about, folks, not discounts.
We enjoyed our rich, thick pints (NBSS 3+) outside on the bank, moaned about the heat, and spoke of a mythical pub across the river.
It may be quiet, you may no longer be able to get a ferry across to the fleshpots of East Ferry, but as the sun beat down on my pint, Owston Ferry momentarily looked the best place under the sun.
retiredmartin 
Just reward for a valiant ticker.
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Great great post.
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Thank you. It’s the James Last clock you love most, isn’t it Dave ?!
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Are you gaining a licking fetish? Or merely admitting it post retirement?
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Lyrical perfection…good stuff that Black Pearl…
Oh and good to see they’ve found a use for James Last LPs – the charity shops will have a lot more space when they manage to get rid of them…
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Let’s hope “Who needs front entrances ?” isn’t taken out of context !!
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Converting a Guinness man 👏👏👏 that is proper pub blogging!!! What a post …James Last clocks, bench seating and positive spin on Lincolnshire I doff my cap sir
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I like to think that fellow switched permanently then and there from Guinness to real ale, and then, a day or two later, became an obsessive GBG pub ticker. 😉
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A dead cert! Blogging to follow 😉
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And a day after that switched to fizzy craft keg.
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Oh yes and the most ubiquitous Carling beermats ever 👍
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That’s the second post where the licensee was just ‘setting up’. What are they setting up? Do they mean all the jobs that should have been done before they opened the doors? There’s no wonder pubs are shutting. In fact the causal browser of your generally empty photos could be forgiven for thinking a lot of Therese places can only be fronts for money laundering operations. Well they don’t seen too be making money from selling beer.
You’d have to laugh if it wasn’t wasn’t true.
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The main trade these days appears to be charging folk to park at their pub while they shop.
That and money laundering.
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These not Therese offs.
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Shitting spell checker ….
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Judging by Rick Reed’s jacket and hair that poster must date from 1990.
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Good year for music. The Beloved, Betty Boo, Rick Reed…
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