The weeks have started to develop a pattern. Pop down to Waterbeach once a week, stopping at the East Markham McDonalds (I’m sponsoring No.107 next season),
take Dad to 3 new garden centres with weird pot plants (he ticks the centres in ochre. Possibly),
then stop somewhere interesting in the campervan on the way home the next day.
Sometimes the gods of ticking smile on me and I get TWO GBG pubs within walking distance of my overnight spot.
As with Rempstone (pop.367), whose lovely all-rounder White Lion looked oddly familiar as I turned up in the Monday deluge.
I apologise, and give a little whoop of joy as I see what’s on the bar.
The barmaid ushers me to a corner seat next to the Old Boy,
away from the younger residents, who are engaged in administrative business over their Carlings, possibly the Rempstone Steam and Country Show.
“Would you mind seconding that ?”
“Old Dave Roberts will know“
“You have no authority here !“
“He needs a PSA blood test“. etc etc
Great but incomprehensible stuff.
I focus on the Bass, because I know the Wickingman will want to know the score.
It really is hit or miss whether you’ll find Bass in your East Midlands boozer, but if you do it’s more than likely to be pretty well kept. This was cool, crisp and leaves distinctive lacings (NBSS 3.5).
My attempt to pay the £3.80 with precise coinage results in a coin rolling under my seat. Being English, I am too embarrassed to go hunting for what I guess is a 5p, though I see the Old Boy’s eye light up as he surveys my feet, and I imagine him rummaging around for it when I pop to the Gents.
“Do you sell umbrellas ?” I ask the barmaid, attempting conversation, badly.
“No, sorry” she says, but I know I’m on safe ground ruminating on the weather.
And I know that with my luck the rain will have given way to sunshine by the time I leave, by the wrong door.
retiredmartin 
I’d have gone for the Black Sheep, which I’ve only had once since pubs reopened, and then not at its best. And have yet to see Bass at all here in South Yorkshire.
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There are “Bass men” and there are “not Bass men”, and I can’t say fairer than that. Think how annoyed Wickingman would have been if I hadn’t had the Bass. Wait till you see the next one…
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“5p, though I see the Old Boy’s eye light up” as he thinks ‘that’s a shilling in proper money’.
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…but half the size!
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Does size matter ?
It’s still twelve proper pennies.
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Great little boozer and nice to see it make the GBG…on my visit it was a cracking local but had the presence of some likely lads from Brum!!
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“I reckon it might be a GBG contender in future years” – you were right !
2018 seems a long time ago, doesn’t it !
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Absolutely!!! Nice to see the Bass is still a staple though….driven through that village many teams on the long winding road to Oakham
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Yes, good to see that Bass is back – in one or two pubs, at least.
Nice lacings btw – a term I had to explain to my American brother-in-law who, totally out of the blue, sent me a Whats App message asking what was the term used to describe the marks, left by the head, on the sides of the glass, as the beer is consumed?
Perhaps your American readers have been spreading the word? If so, it’s got as far as Amherst, Ohio.
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Of course “lacings” was coined by the iconic American, Stevie Nicks. In Sara she sings “undoing the lacings”, as a badly washed nonic glass denies her the joy of the foamy joy in a pint of Fremkins.
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