retiredmartin

Name the famous #BeerTwitter person made out of Playmobil*. Clue: It’s not Pub Curmudgeon.

I met up with Paul and Quosh back at the station after a quick flat white in a Picture House resounding to a joy of a Staffordshire lass celebrating her 18th birthday with a four litre jug of Shropshire Lad Abbot and four straws (I presume).

Seemingly they’d already managed three pubs in Stone, which shows the dangers of drinking with Paul.

To give Quosh a bit of recovery time I directed them to Slaters via the scenic route.

Paul and Quosh had a lengthy debate about how those trees you see growing on the church got there. It’s breakfast time; I’ll spare you.

Stafford’s gems, pubs apart, are handily contained in a very small stretch of pedestrianised centre.

We noted that the Ancient High House, even older than the two Mudges, is STILL not a Brunning & Price.

Stafford has all the giants of the pub world in half a mile. There’s a Spoons, a Craft Union, a Joules, a Titanic and a Slater’s. And Brew XI, but we’ll come to that later.

Most folk we saw on the High Street looked about 30 years older than the demographic that Slater’s is pitched at (says I), and arriving at 2pm we’d missed the (BYO) lunch rush.

It’s a low-key, airy bar with long tables and a sensible beer range. But we said that bout the Wolves one, too.

Now, Paul and I are gentlemen but I firmly expected that Quosh would go and ask for the T** T****, somehow confusing him with Curry Charles.

Sadly they had no TT. Or they did, but it’s now called 1 Hop. Which no-one told me.

Quosh decided he didn’t like his weird one so swapped it for my Original, albeit only after a joke about gonorrhea we could have done without. Whatever it was, it was the perfect embodiment of NBSS 3.

Quosh and Paul talked about hop plants, at which point I put my fingers in my ears and said “La la la”.

Whoever picks the music in Slater’s, and I hope it’s the two chatty ladies behind the bar, deserves the Mark Crilley Award for ’80s Pop in Pubs.

Not only “Come on Eileen” but also “Geno“. Not only Deacon Blue’s “Real Gone Kid“(a paean to Maria McKee) but also Dollar’s “Give Me Back My Heart“.

Coincidentally, David van Day (not to be confused with Dick van Dyke) is now a Conservative councillor in south Essex, which is where I’m headed now for my last Essex tick of the GBG year. It’s a small world.

*Yes, it’s Quosh