Interesting to note, looking back at 5 years worth of posts, just how many towns get three visits in that time. What can it mean ? Well, a new micropub every two years, that’s what.
If we get a GBG for 2021 then Belper might get a third micropub (Elvis Costello themed !) in the Guide, and I bet BRAPA can hardly wait to get on the twild-laden train from Derby again.
I mention Belper a lot on this blog, though to be honest it’s the unpretentious hinterland of the Amber Valley outside the city* that holds the appeal.Still, Belper gets bit more pashmina friendly on each visit, and Fresh Basil is the sort of classy deli you expect in Shrewsbury.
Odd place, the uphill market square always a bit too quiet.
Down the hill, it’s gone all arty.
But Arkwrights will serve you decent Pedi from the jug while you admire the Double Diamond sign. As you will, too.
We enjoyed the Angels micro that inspired the Black Sabbath album, their last decent LP.
Here, a half of Abbeydale, a cup of tea and a packet of posh crisps cost £3.30, prices to draw in hipsters of all ages.
Last May I had the joy of escorting BRAPA round the Valley, in a failed attempt to track down the Bass.The Black Bull’s Head was famous for it a decade ago. But we live in an Oakham world now.
Here we met local legend Mark, who gave us a Bass pump clip we fought over for 37 seconds.
My beer was a little thin.
Five minutes away the White Hart in Bargate was eminently walkable, but you know how these young folk struggle on foot.Just another unpretentious flagstoned boozer, with Sex Pistols LP covers, pies from the bar, and good beer. Unless like me you’re on the fizzy beers for the DES (top) .
A year before, I’d liked it a lot. Mrs RM hated it. She kept tripping over dogs.
Good enough, but not the classics we’ll probably get to soon.When we’ll surely find Bass.
*Everything is a city, on Trip Advisor at least.
retiredmartin 
Nice Bass clickbait. I’ve only been to Belper twice in my life, neither time for Bass. The first time was when I was 19 to pick up an A-reg Triumph Acclaim, which got almost all the way home when the exhaust fell off on the bank up from Marple Bridge! The second time was slightly more successful, we were there on a bell ringing trip in 2016 and fell into the Angels Micro Pub and devoured some Titanic Chocolate & Vanilla Stout – yes I had to look that up in my NBSS archive – it scored a solid 3. I thought it was a bit of an odd place to be honest, but everyone else liked it and we ended up staying slightly longer than anticipated if I recall correctly.
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A reg Triumph Acclaim, NBSS 3. It’s the detail that counts, Chris.
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Fantastic 👍 I’m a relatively new convert to Belper but what a town! Arkwright’s, Angels, Pump it Up, Belper Tap to name but four newish boozers and still plenty of trad…love the nags head
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I can’t remember the Nags Head. Did you write it up?
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Yes in my recent zig zag trip…great local
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Must reread that 👍
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All viewing gratefully received! 😄
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Great post that. Think I was celebrating our win over Villa in Manchester and missed it 😉
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That photo captioned “Non murk” suggests either the surface of the tabletop was slanted, or else the earth’s gravitational center temporarily shifted to once side. 😉
There is added poignancy to that photo of Simon, knowing that neither of you can be in your natural habitat now and for who-knows-how-much-longer. I predict that after the pubs reopen there will be at least a month or two of blogs with sentences like, “This boozer was horrible in every way– atrocious service, undrinkable beer, and Coldplay’s greatest hits playing– but my God, it was a pub, and it was open, and as such I can’t bring myself to rate it poorly!”
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You’re right, Mark!
Si and Duncan and I had been making tentative plans to meet, after those two finally met up on the Humber and realised they weren’t actually the same person. That would be a great blog.
So, you notice the earth’s gravitational center shifts when BRAPA is in the room, too 😉
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Micropub…microbar… a unit of pressure, equal to a tenth of a Pascal – which in turn was named after the French mathematician, physicist, philosopher, and, theologian of that name. In his “On the Art of Persuasion”, Blaise Pascal looked deeper into geometry’s axiomatic method, specifically into the question of how people come to be convinced of the axioms, upon which later conclusions are based. Pascal agreed with Montaigne, that achieving certainty, in these axioms and conclusions, through human methods is impossible. He asserted that these principles can be grasped only through intuition, and that this fact underscored the necessity for submission to God, in the searching out of truths.
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