I’d been thinking the folk on the Isle of Man were the luckiest people on earth. Pubs still open with minimal restrictions, Manx Queenies, the best coastline in the world.
But then it ended.
I feel for Dave, I really do; he’d only just completed his tour of the 133 pubs and clubs on Man.
I’ve got 610 pubs to take photos off from outside, dreaming of the day that Proper Pubs like, er, Kuckoo Rocks will re-open at last and serve Proper drinks like the Cara-Mac to eager pubgoers.
Yes, you get allsorts of pub in Sheffield. You left me contemplating a loyalty card for the Forty Foot,
which if pubs do return in May I shall undoubtedly visit in May.
I headed back towards Hillsborough, nearly bumping into the arches while scanning What Pub for other treasures. Shouldn’t there be a microbrewery under one of those ?
Back in March, my last live football, I couldn’t even get a hot chocolate from the away end at Hillsborough.
The closest pubs to the ground are an odd mix.
The cafe-styled Riverside,
the Sizzlin’ Park (scored 2/10 by Sheffield Hatter, always a recommendation*),
and a micropub I’d COMPLETELY missed, despite walking past it 4 times this year.
The Brass Monkey offers artisan gin, to distinguish it from the 13 out of 610 Sheffield pubs that DON’T offer artisan gin, I guess.
How does this relate to Northern Monkey down the road, or the Blind Monkey near me. I don’t care.
I pressed on, via Hillsborough Park, to the Big Yellow Storage place where I FINALLY found a missing lever-arch lever file with a purple sticker on that should have had a green sticker on it (don’t ask).
I’d never noticed the Cadbury factory before. Or Bertie Bassett. So much to discover.
I would have taken Mrs RM some chocolate back, but my hands were full with that lever-arch file.
That’s my excuse.
*Alan Winfield scored it 6/10; who do you trust (joking, Will)
retiredmartin 
Alan happened to visit when there was only one real ale on, whereas they had two on at the time of my review, both of them in dreadfully poor condition.
Also, he was a much more generous man than I could ever hope to be.
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I could (only) judge from his blog and his comments that he was a generous man.
My conclusion from your first line is that it’s better to only have one real one, rather than two. Sounds right.
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I only met Alan once, when he was in Sheffield in 2014 for one of his extended crawls. I finished work early and joined him at around pub #15 of 24. And I met his brother Steve when I did a memorial pub crawl for Alan, who died in 2018. A pleasure to meet them both.
My comment on Alan’s generosity was meant both as a remark on his personality and on his appreciation of pubs. He really enjoyed going to pubs – he wasn’t known as Al 10,000 for nothing – and especially to estate pubs which I would only go into after making sure my life insurance premiums had been paid. And he would then give them good marks in his reviews on Pubs Galore – even if there was no real ale. That’s what I call generous.
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Yes, generous of spirit is what I mean, too, spilling over into pub scores that some would be surprised at.
I think Irish Sea Dave from the Isle of Man is probably the modern-day Alan to some extent, but his output is largely confined to some glorious tweets when he tours estate pubs in Lancashire !
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…and as regards one real ale or two, I’ve been in plenty of pubs with just one but it was badly kept. You can’t tell if the beer is going to be ok without having a drink!
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“ALLSORTS”
Nice seque to the photo below.
“I feel for Dave, I really do”
Pull the other one!
“dreaming of the day that Proper Pubs like, er, Kuckoo Rocks will re-open at last and serve Proper drinks like the Cara-Mac to eager pubgoers.”
By the time they re-open you’ll be happy for such a drink. 😉
“Shouldn’t there be a microbrewery under one of those ?”
It’s behind the fenced off bit on the right.
“I couldn’t even get a hot chocolate from the away end at Hillsborough.”
Probably and elf and safety thing. (i.e. too hot)
“(scored 2/10 by Sheffield Hatter, always a recommendation*),”
Yikes!
“and a micropub I’d COMPLETELY missed, despite walking past it 4 times this year.”
Obviously it wasn’t cold enough. 🙂
“to distinguish it from the 13 out of 610 Sheffield pubs that DON’T offer artisan gin, I guess.”
Artisan gin. Really? That’s like vodka for goodness sake. There’s no bloody difference!
(says someone who does not indulge in hard liquor)*
* any more 🙂
“How does this relate to Northern Monkey down the road, or the Blind Monkey near me. I don’t care.”
Ahem. The Blind Monkey can’t see them; not because it’s blind but because the other two are on the other side of the Loxley. TheBrass Monkey is so named because it’s got brass ones due to the fact it’s further north than the Northern Monkey. 😉
“where I FINALLY found a missing arch lever file with a purple sticker on that should have had a green sticker on it (don’t ask).”
I won’t!
“That’s my excuse.”
And stick to it!
“*Alan Winfield scored it 6/10; who do you trust (joking, Will)”
To be fair, that was probably years ago. 😉
Cheers
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The reason I couldn’t get my lad a hot chocolate is because the concourse was absolutely rammed that night in March. There’s a scary pic on the “Sheffield on a Wednesday” post. A week later the football was stopped, the pubs were closing, and we looked back on Covid hotbeds like that with horror.
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