Blimey. A month after I contemplated a first visit to Hoddesdon for the first time in a quarter century (football rather than pubs), the Beer Guide sends me there. Well, Roydon, which is on the edge, in some senses. Some lovely villages between the “challenging” towns of Hoddy and Harlow, with Roydon having the bonus… Continue reading ROYDON RUMBLES INTO THE GBG
Month: October 2020
HARLOW NEW TOWN SCULPTURE SPECIAL
These are worrying times, apparently. I understand some of you are being denied your human right to sit in a pub and stare at strangers over a pint of foaming Doom Bar. What you need is some pictures from Harlow New Town, I think. Look how happy Harlow’s most famous son was to escape to… Continue reading HARLOW NEW TOWN SCULPTURE SPECIAL
WELLINGBOROUGH WOBBLING
You left me in Wellingborough, you sods, contemplating my fate in a second new Guide pub in an otherwise unremarkable Midlands town (don’t start arguing with me, it’s Midlands). Would it be another 10 pump ale shrine like the Coach & Horses so beloved of Alan Winfield, a brewery tap selling undrinkable beers from a… Continue reading WELLINGBOROUGH WOBBLING
LASAGNE v MOUSSAKA
Along with Bedfordshire, Northants is a bit of a doddle to do each year. The odd estate pub putting on some microbrew, a village pub going gastro, perhaps a micro in a town you’d assumed would never trouble the GBG scorers again.. In 2021 that town is Wellingborough. Pub ticking teaches you many things; when… Continue reading LASAGNE v MOUSSAKA
DELIVERIES TO DODDINGTON
WARNING : Pub free edition to meet family obligations. On Monday I drove my Dad (Keith 1) the 40 minutes to Doddington to deliver a TV and some tat to my cousin (Keith 2), star of One Night In March (2016). Sickeningly, Keith 2 (my cousin) looks younger at 60 than I did at 23,… Continue reading DELIVERIES TO DODDINGTON
PUTTING BEDS TO BED
Great excitement in Slip End, home of my last GBG tick for Bedfordshire, a county whose seething resentment at its absence from my Top 10 was evident on my visit. Yes, a new grass cutting contract for this small village known locally as “that place just off the M1 you can’t actually get to“. A… Continue reading PUTTING BEDS TO BED
RED, GREEN, EMBER
Now it’s officially out, I can applaud those new entries to the new GBG without risk of sanction of the CAMRA Curfew Enforcers (who have now been dispatched to Bristol to enforce Covid crimes like handpump counting). It’s always best to get Buckingamshire over and done with early on. There’s 73 Guide counties and I… Continue reading RED, GREEN, EMBER
GOOD BEER GUIDE ’21 – A TRIUMPH IN ADVERSITY
“Greetings to the new brunette” sang Billy Bragg in 1986, before he got woke and left his pap pop behind on Workers Playtime, the best LP of ’88. Today I say Greetings to the new Good Beer Guide 2021, the book we once thought might never happen as pubs closed in March, preventing the vital… Continue reading GOOD BEER GUIDE ’21 – A TRIUMPH IN ADVERSITY
TOP 10 COUNTIES – No. 1 – TYNE & WEAR
It’s been an emotional run-through the Top 10 Counties. And here’s your winner (well, mine, your views don’t count, obvs). One of the smallest “counties”, but barely a square inch wasted (though the Boldons is a bit dull, unless there’s anyone there reading this, in which case the Black Horse is OK ). Let’s start… Continue reading TOP 10 COUNTIES – No. 1 – TYNE & WEAR
SITTING AT THE BAR AGAIN IN BLETCHLEY
More “recommended” pubs before the big launch of GBG21 on Thursday. I can’t wait. While you count down the hours, here’s a report from one of the UK’s richest cities. Honest, Milton Keynes is one of the great post-war British success stories, boosting replacement tyre sales by 33% in Buckinghamshire alone due to those roundabouts.… Continue reading SITTING AT THE BAR AGAIN IN BLETCHLEY
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