retiredmartin

I’m delighted to see my diary entries detailing trips to REAL pubs are better read than the short-lived Guess the Pub series, though I notice from my blog views that a few readers from Greenland have cancelled their subscriptions.

The travel map looks a bit closer to average, and is already showing the advantages of that move north at Christmas.

May was the first full month of The Return of Pubs, and half of it was spent indoors. Pubs are really meant to be enjoyed indoors, aren’t they ?*

It was wonderful to see the excitement of Old Boys on the Carling in Spoons, the gentlefolk on the Prosecco in the Hexham gastros, and of course the Untappd tickers in the micros.

The Stats

Well, young Simon declared last night at 9pm on 55 ticks, which is impressive till you realise he’s using Colin the Cauliflower as a replacement liver.

I managed fifty-seven (57) pub visits in May, all of them different venues, which is unique.

BUT only twenty-two (22) of those were new Beer Guide ticks, as I got distracted by drinking in my new Sheffield home and walking Hadrian’s Wall, where Mrs RM and I spent the first week after the Heaventeenth reviving the UK hospitality industry in a way not seen since Hadrian built a chain of micropubs along the Scottish border.

The other big bit of tourism we managed in May was in Cambridge, a promising little city I think you might like.

Matt’s leg muscles is still recovering from the punting (Emma did the steering), but has been fortified by the resurgence of Manchester’s bar scene. Here’s Emma tonight on the pints of Fierce barley wine (possibly).

Fierce provided the best beer of, well, the year, and some wonderful company from the legend that is Quosh on the day we evaded the biblical deluge that sank Manchester for an hour.

Some very good beer all month, nothing in the plant pots yet you’ll be disappointed to know, and a pleasing number of one pump pubs. Hoorah !

The best pub of the month is yet to come, in fact it’s likely to be the Pub of the Year. You’ll never guess it. But a close second is the Split Chimp in That Whitley Bay, which was, to be blunt, blunt. Mrs RM hated it.

JUNE PREVIEW

Well, I ought to get a move on and catch up with that BRAPA whipper-snapper, so let’s target 50 ticks, shall we.

Unfortunately, there’ll be two competing demands on my freedom in month. The in-laws are popping up for a fortnight (14 days), and we’ll be setting off to pester Bill in Shetland.

There’s bound to be Bass in the Scottish islands, surely ?

NB If you wondered why I haven’t mentioned a certain event on Saturday, I didn’t watch it. But James and Matthew DID watch it, on a mobile phone outside the Etihad. Made me proud, oddly. Roll on next season, and if anyone can get me a Chelsea season ticket you know my e-mail.

*Unless it’s 26 degrees outside