WESTON-SUPER-BASS

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Ah, Weston-super-Mare.

The English seaside,

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Beat that view, Sorrento
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Greek flag ?

Jeffrey Archer,

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Graffiti added since last visit.

and Draught Bass. If you can’t make a decent blog out of that you’re not trying hard enough.

Weston also has those all-important cheap guest houses that draw retiredmartin here as a base for exploration, rather like near neighbour Newport.*

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All human life is here. And then there’s Brislington

I picked the Welbeck (room only), because it’s cheap. Fosters and Strongbow on the bar, with the Siren Breakfast Stout presumably settling in the cellar.  It’s clean, and my car was still the same colour in the morning. I can ask no more for £30 these days.

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It’s fine, honest

There’s a hundred guest houses along the Prom, all full of septuagenarians with HUGE suitcases.  All of them have “No Vacancies” signs on Sunday night. My parents loved the place, so what do you know, you snobs.

The Bear comes at the end of a long row of care homes (just another form of guest house) half a mile south of the station, and apparently squeezes 23 rooms into its compact shell.

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The Bear – I think
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Ah yes

What Pub says “rare beer styles” and here we are;

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Yes, that rarest of Boring Brown Bitters, with home-made pump clip.

I risked a half (don’t judge me, that’s my job). Whatever the reason for the “errant” pump clip, the Bass was worth a pint (NBSS 3+).

The pub was in the much loved “community local stuck in 1985” camp. Earthy chat, shopping bags, “Flashdance“, “Live to Tell“** and more. There’s no pubs like this in Cambridge anymore.

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Proper Pub

Well done Weston super Mare CAMRA (that sounds like a fun branch).

On to Brizzle for my Gloucestershire completion.

 

*Nearby is an interesting concept.  You could swim across quicker than drive, and 90% of Weston folk have never been to Newport. And never will.

** Don’t hear that one much. Belated Happy Birthday, Madge.

 

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Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

35 thoughts on “WESTON-SUPER-BASS”

  1. On a day when the temperance lobby has stepped up a gear by suggesting that everyone goes teetotal, it seems appropriate to repeat these wise words from Kinglsey Amis: ““No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home in Weston-super-Mare.”

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  3. It’s a shame you didn’t eat in the Welbeck as it looks like a very large cold frame in the front garden for their very locally sourced vegetables – but you waited for the complementary Bombay Mix in the Bear, just visible in a white bowl at the far left of an internal photo.

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  4. More dispiriting news from the Forgotten Coast.
    As I waited in the car outside a petrol station while Mrs PPT was inside buying some fags two good old country boys emerged carrying six packs before climbing into a pick-up truck the size of a Routemaster bus clearly looking forward to a few cold ones after a hard day’s work.
    They were carrying the work of the Devil.
    Bud Light Orange.
    Yup,the pissier version of the world’s pissiest beer has now gone orange-flavoured.
    I blame Trump,of course.
    He gets blamed for everything else in this country.

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    1. P P-T
      They might have got the idea from the notorious Watneys who launched a heavily promoted orange flavoured beer called Biarritz in, I think, 1976 that only lasted until 1981.
      Now though add any fruit, herb or spice, say it’s a “craft beer” and it sells like hot cakes.

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  5. I stayed a few nights in Weston a couple of years ago because I honestly couldn’t find any suitable accommodation in Bristol that was even 50% above my budget. Didn’t get to the Bear, but the now keg-only Bristol Hotel was a pub in similar vein, with a fish tank and some drinkable Butcombe. Also has one the smallest and grottiest Wetherspoon’s known to man (the Dragon, not the Cabot Court).

    It’s surprisingly scenic, but the town itself is a typical slightly run-down seaside resort.

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    1. Same logic here. Off-peak return to Bristol is good value and scenic (unlike Temple Meads itself).

      I though Weston might smarten up a bit with Banksy and “Dismaland2, but thankfully not.

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    2. “…the smallest and grottiest Wetherspoon’s known to man…”
      As ‘Spoons have tried to move upmarket, they have disposed of many of the small and grotty – and sometimes rough – branches. The so-called “Wetherspoons” in the Burmantofts area of Leeds, now the Rose and Crown, is an example, as is The Match Maker at Bow. It’s always interesting to describe the goings-on in such branches to those who think that the current estate is down-markey.

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      2. “Before the typo-police get involved, I confirm that was meant to say “…down-market”.”

        I hear the typo-police don’t bother with comments because RM is too cheap to allow the editing of comments on his blog. 🙂

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  7. I think of Weston-Super-Mare mainly as the hometown of John Cleese (whose silly walking persona I spied on that defaced wall art).

    Always felt that Paul Theroux made a fatal error when he decided to make his “Kingdom By the Sea” book based on a journey entirely following the coasts, as he ended up arriving again and again in once-prosperous-but-not-anymore seaside towns. I’m pretty sure he passed through Weston, and had his usual unhappy gripes about the place. If he had just had a pint or two of Bass, I reckon he’d have had nicer things to say. 🙂

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    1. Mark,
      Yes, his The Kingdom by the Sea book would have been a much better read if, like Martin, he had been guided by the Good Beer Guide. In 1982 he would have got round five Weston pubs for Bucombe, Courage, Hall and Woodhouse, Marstons, Ushers and Wadworths
      I don’t know when Martin will be publishing an illustrated compilation of his blogs but it will be a hefty tome.

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    2. Not sure if I actually finished “Kingdom by the sea”, too depressing, and not sure that Bill Bryson made it as far as Weston either in “Small Island”, though Bill certainly drank in a fair few pubs!

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  8. Love the seaside photo Martin very moody and really fits the tone of the post…

    I suppose ‘errant’..is the landlords diplomatic version of ‘somebody knicked the Bass pump clip’….?

    Must have been one of those with ‘Try Me’ on it….

    Easier to put in your pocket than a Bass mirror I suppose…😬

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  9. “Beat that view, Sorrento”

    Is that the Severn river in the foreground? (that bit at the bottom middle going off to the left into the sea)

    “It’s fine, honest”

    What’s with the windows looking into the cellar? Is that so you can see them putting the spiles into the kegs (a bit like the windows in new micropubs showing their shiny kettles). 🙂

    “On to Brizzle for my Gloucestershire completion.”

    Brizzle?

    “*Nearby is an interesting concept. ”

    A bit like getting to the Boat Inn from Redbrook. 🙂

    Cheers

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      1. Yes, and that derivation might have something to do with them thereabouts often not pronouncing the last letter of a word ( about the only thing Bristolians and the French have in common ) such that there could be confusion as to whether poor TV reception is due to the aeria’ or the area.

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