Next up an exciting yomp from Stockton up to Norton, which is definitely NOT a suburb of your new favourite Durham town. However much it looks like one on the Navigator.
Sheer suburbia between the two towns, though I do fancy the building below as a future micropub accessible only by scaling the fence.
It took me longer to find Hydes Bar than to walk there.
I walked past it twice, confused by this sign which clearly indicates hours well beyond the permitted [16:00-21:00 Thr-Sat] for proper micro pubs.
It also has a cute garden, again verboten under Herne Para 5:2.
There’s been a vigorous debate about micropubs on the official CAMRA Forum this week. Not “Are they a good thing ?” but is it “micropub, micro-pub or micro pub“.
It’s a pub.
You can buy beer, the local one and the one made in Wolves (or is it Burton ?).
You can watch daytime TV or chat to the barmaid.
And you can admire ’70s humour at its very finest.
No other pubbers on Friday lunchtime so I did what I always do and enjoyed scrutinising the signs on the toilet door without anyone to disturb me.
NB The “caught-short box” isn’t what I thought it was. You have to send an SAE to Tena to get one of those.
retiredmartin 
You can’t have Sky TV in a micropub – Martin Hillier will throw a fit 😱
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Martyn would have a fit if he went in nearly all the new micros that are entering the Guide these days; nearly all with some of TV/music/gins and young people. Especially the young people.
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No Hook Norton in Norton ?
The 61 Deep, previously Pedigree New World, is from Burton.
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Pedigree New World seems an eternity ago.
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“But we can brew anything here in Wolverhampton. Even Bass.”
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Productivity+ Progress = pint for £3″
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There are some remarkably informative signs in pub loos – I get most of my daily news from them….you’re right they have morphed into small pubs and all the better for it.
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Pub loos have morphed into small pubs?
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Very much so.
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😉 micro pubs have stopped following template rigidly 👍
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Pub loos are as traditional as ever!
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Wide range of cider there (often the case in micropubs); makes me wonder what sort of state it’s in, as so few people seem to drink it. We hear a lot about low turnover making real ale a gamble, but “real” cider must be far worse.
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Good point. Meant to comment on the cider. Go down to Worthing and all the micros seem to have a half dozen bag in boxes of weird favoured stuff behind the bar. Does the micro owner drink them when after hours?
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A quick Google suggests that bag-in-box cider will last for a month after being broached, so the turnover issue isn’t anywhere near as acute as with cask beer.
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A month – that’s longer than fresh broccoli.
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“…bag-in-box cider will last for a month after being broached” – that’s rather what I expected. I suppose unlike “real ale” there’s no strict definition of “real cider”; it’s like “craft beer” – anything that isn’t a big brand.
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Ah, but there’ll be a big debate in Dundee very soon on the definition of real cider.
I can hardly wait !
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