What a wonderful day.
Pubs are back, there’s another tick in the Guide to pink in,
and I have more evidence that Doom Bar is the connoisseur’s beer.
But what about Blyth itself ?
Last month I gave you memories from the Spartans’ finest hour,
but failed to give you a feel for the town.
Think of a middling industrial town (Hinckley, Northwich, Dunstable), dump it next to a long stretch of sandy beach, and you’re 77% of the way there.
This is the view from the free beach car park where our campervan found a little space next to a Jaguar (not the cat).
An early start (who else gets to Blyth at 6.30am ?) meant I could capture ALL the highlights that will have you rushing to book a fortnight’s holiday here rather than Seahouses.
I mean, look, they clearly filmed Transformers XVI – Whey Aye, Man here.
Towns with historic ports always have compensation for workaday centres, (see: Grimsby, Bootle, Goole).
The tourist office have given up seeking a VAR reversal of that Wrexham goal from a twice-taken corner in 1978 and focused on the joys of the harbour, including the tall ships and the less-than-tall ships.
I had no recollection of Blyth, bar losing a football in the sea in 2009, but Pubmeister recalled 8 GBG entries.
There’s certainly some handsome pubs, including Oddfellows with its glorious bay window above the door.
The door was open at 7.45am, and it’s possible it pipped the Spoons in welcoming in the new dawn for pubs with a Carling offer. Certainly a bloke inside was happily drinking two hours later; I should have joined him.
The size of these pubs tells you how Geordies spent their evenings in 1978. They weren’t watching Celebrity Bakeoff on Ice.
Nearly all keg, bar the Spoons and Olivers, of course. But the pubs are the highlights of a town with functional shops and a lot of vape shops.
And barbers, at least 8 of them.
The queue for a £7 cut at 9.15am went round the block, even as the queue at the Wallaw looked a little light.
Lively place, but I’d come here when football returns and visit the Spartans, after a gallon of LCL Pils of course.
NB Thanks to Pubmeister for the blog title. Usual fee applies.
Love your photo of the King’s Head, though would have been even better if you’d captured it with a local with a whippet walking past.
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Thanks, David.
I think the whippet was in the queue for a haircut 😉
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Fantastic!!! I actually vaguely remember Blyth v Wrexham and the green and white stripes….the lacings on that pint of Doom Bar are amazing!!!
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You’d have been about 8!
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I know!!! It annoys Mrs BB regularly how I remember football but not ‘other’ dates!!!
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Welcome back to real time beer blogs ……. treading the path and furrow some of us cant!! 🙂
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That’s right, make me feel guilty 😉
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Definitely not! It’s a gosh darned public service you’re doing….no guilt required:)
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Wrexham v Blyth attendance 19,935! Great pics and that title is an absolute zinger. I am guessing that’s the campervan’s first major outing. Doubt you will be able to top it.
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Yes it’s a great title. You should have trademarked it.
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Noted GBG completist found “celebrating” return to pubs with surreptitious wee on site of Blyth station.
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That LCL Pils was the Low Carbohydrate Lager from the Northern Clubs Federation Brewery that in its heyday supplied a thousand clubs some of them with deliveries of thirty hogsheads twice a week.
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Is it still brewed or is there a cask version that’s now called JHB or similar?
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I think LCL was brewed for a while by Thwaites, the Blackburn brewer that made a fortune by selling its Wainwright and Lancaster Bomber brands to Marstons..
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I thought LCL Pils was a slightly dull name for a beer – until you mentioned its full name. I suppose now it would be WWL Pils (Weight Watchers Lager) 🙂
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GH,
A dull name but in 1987 LCL Plus Lager beat 143 entries from 63 breweries representing 31 countries to be voted the World’s Best Bottled Lager, a title Einhorn never achieved.
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That bay window might be an oriel window (ok I’m not sure really…). Anyway – it will be very useful during the pandemic to monitor the socially distanced queue outside the pub… 😉
Your photos convey a grittiness to the place and how many terraced house owners can boast a lighthouse as part of their back addition… 😉
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