retiredmartin

 

My clear policy is to alternate these highlights posts between the lesser known gems and the “honeypot” pub towns.

So I’ll follow Brentford with Crewe.

My 3 day holiday last Autumn was a first visit to the Railway town for a decade, and you’ll be delighted to know it got the highly prized retiredmartin cheap break accreditation.

So what’s Crewe got to offer, apart from £30 a night hotels, when it re-opens to tourists ?

ARCHITECTURE

ART

MUSIC

Crewe is the centre of the £55 billion classic rock tribute band industry.

FAMILY BREWER & OTHER “PROPER PUBS”

Duke of Gloucester

Brunswick Hotel

The Raven

New to the Guide, showing it’s not all micros in GBG20. I liked my Arkell’s Gold, a cool, chewy NBSS 3+, and the banter was, inevitably, about Mark Knopfler’s guitar work on Telegraph Road. You never get Dire Straits in a rubbish pub, as BRAPA well knows.

Borough Arms

The long-standing free house, as good as it gets.

An Erdinger stronghold, apparently.

CRAFT BEER

Until recently, craft means Hops, a Belgian beer bar felt very community free house, much in the style of the Cambridge Blue.

I read the WhatPub blurb about Orval ambassadorship.

“Do you have Orval ?”

“Yes we do “

“I’ll have the Tom’s then please”

Golly, it was lovely.

Tom’s Tap is a brewery bar on an industrial estate. But Tom’s have made an effort, as in those Halesowen places, to make it homely, even nicking The Scream from the Louvre to brighten the place up.

The beer was good; the toilets will send the Beer & Pubs Forum into meltdown.

Sadly, BrewDock didn’t last till lockdown, but at least they tried.

“The revitalisation of Crewe. Ha !” I thought, sipping my Cloudwater cherry cola sour and chatting to some typical Crewe hipsters on the terrace overlooking the retail park.

CULINARY HIGHLIGHTS

Some cosmopolitan options, and not just cheesy chips and donor kebab either.

A GREAT Turkish breakfast in Lily Cafe contained your year’s veg quota,

and the crispy beef and Singapore rice from the Emperor opposite the Travelodge was in my year’s Top 5.

And football at Gwesty Road ?  Been once.  Saw them beat Walsall 5-1 with Tony Naylor in full flow. 

You could do worse for an overnighter, and your mates will be dead impressed.