After a short Ya Ya break, I return to Sunday’s epic Southport saunter.
If you think I’ve chosen a dull photo to head up the micropub reviews, you should see the ones I haven’t used.
On the positive side, it was three new GBG pubs in 37 minutes walking and drinking, which is not to be sniffed at when at my stage in the GBG. I suspect only Totnes and (oddly) Aberdare will be that generous again this year.
As Pubmeister reminds me, not every tiny shop conversion wishes to be called a “micro pub” and this blog respects the right of a pub to be identified as it chooses.
Look how un-micro pubby it is. It’s just a neat neighbourhood bar of a type you’d never see in Cambridge, but a regular feature on the Sefton sunshine strip (and possibly Solihull).
My notes say “loads of dogs“, “£2.60 a pint” and “all drinking Asahi“, which is possibly all you need to know. I’m sure you can identify the beer from the lacings.
Literally round the corner the Grasshopper was keeping to the Herne rules, for better or worse. It had more handpumps than customers, of course.
The beer range was straight out of the Herne textbook, too.
Perhaps it was the extortionately priced beers that meant this was quiet compared to Pines, but more likely the good folk of Hillside just want to dress up on a Sunday and drink cold fizz with their dogs, rather than Charrington Oatmeal Stout (very good) served by a jovial Landlord.
But it does make me laugh when CAMRA folk on Discourse complain about characterless Wetherspoons shop conversions and then rave about characterless shop conversions.
Sample banter;
“(Man) City just don’t score enough goals” – he really did say that.
On through the backstreets of Birkdale, with their black and white houses and cherry blossom, possibly passing my cousin’s house, which would no doubt make a much more interesting pub
You already know what it’s going to look like, don’t you ?
Go on, guess the beers…
That Salopian was the beer of the day, a cool and rich NBSS 4. With the second Embrace LP playing and a tempting range of strong Belgian bottles staring at me, I almost stayed more than five minutes.
Other Birkdalians were getting stuck into the De Konick and having a great time. You could have been somewhere posh like Sandbach.
This post was a struggle, but to be fair the beer in all three was good, so the Beer Guide doesn’t lie.
But I was desperate to get back into Southport central for a last Proper Pub of the night.
retiredmartin 
37 minutes? Even the BRAPA trip to those 3 places was longer.
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Have Salopian surreptitiously become a national brewery?
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They have become a national micro brewery 😛
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They’re certainly the new Titanic or Oakham. Hopefully their production will now be moved to Banks’s to ensure consistency for generations to come.
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They will be bought out by a new macro/micro in Porthmadog. Or Brewdog.
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I had a pint of Oakham Citra yesterday and it seems to have gone a bit national – nowhere near as hoppy as usual and it was in very good nick. Micros can be great but most in my experience not so – they’re just not pubby enough. Did you get to The Office in Morpeth or am I jumping the gun?
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I did, but a week behind. Better than yr square box micro, liked it. Keg murky 😉
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Isn’t all trendy micro keg murky?
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Oddly, I’m in the Oakham Brewery Tap at this very moment, and Citra not at its sharpest. Superb in new Pboro pub last month, mind. It’s the pub.
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I just had a very indifferent pint of Jarl in a very (well deserved) longstanding GBG outlet tonight.
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It happens.
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It does, but it is disappointing. When the local Spoons is getting on for your best bet quality wise then you start to worry.
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In recent months I seem to have more duff pints than ever before. Too many beers, lower volumes and less experienced bar folks is my guess. Maybe keg is the way forward. Mansfield Dark is very good.
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Someone should do a Guide to all the places selling keg Mansfield Dark.
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I’m worried about you having to do all these shops that sell beer. Have you ever thought about having a year off to just do Draught Bass pubs. I’ll let you have a list.😂
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If only someone would do that list, Ian. Russ would have such fun finding typos on it.
Speaking of which;
https://thewickingman.wordpress.com/2018/05/09/mirror-mirror-on-the-pub-wall-where-can-i-drink-draught-bass/
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Smooth – a model schedule for aspiring tickers. Good idea to combine them into a triple blog as difficult to expand much on some pubs even for as skilled and prolific a blogger as you. Grasshopper was heaving when I went there.
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It would only have taken a group of half a dozen tickers to have it heaving last Sunday !
I really struggle with these shop conversions. Perhaps I should just do an annual post listing the 257 micros I visited last year.
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An increasing proportion of new entries are micros- one of these days I will count how many there are in GBG. If I wait till the next edition it will be even more….
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At least BRAPA gets to visit real pubs when he goes to a new town, though notice how many classic places have lost out to micros (and if the beer is better there I’m not complaining).
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