More North Yorkshire stragglers, and a first trip to the tourist honeypot of Helmsley (pop. 1,515) for 25 years. Is that possible ?
It’s very North Yorkshire coach party/bikers/OAP destination for people who can’t brave the A170 to Scarbs and Whitby, but punches well above its weight and is undeniably a little bit lovely (though it’s no Staithes).
A look at the OS extract reveals Cistercian abbeys. Ionic temples, the medieval village of Griff, a dismantled railway and of course a brewery tap in the GBG.
The internet ran out, but luckily I spotted the brewery van outside their solid looking tap.
Let’s be honest. It’s functional.
And drinking a half of pale next to a brewing vessel is a bit dull, however good the beer (it was superb, a cool, sherberty 3.5).
Luckily, the well-heeled crowd were all in the cheery little garden, discussing their Prosecco choices with visiting relatives. It was the poshest tap I’ve ever been in, and I’ve been to Banks’s brewery with the Mudg(i)es.
Helmsley was heaving, and I had to queue outside Thomas the Baker for their award-winning sausage and black pudding roll.
Tradition dictates it is consumed outside the parish church.
So good, I had another one in Pickering today. I’m getting predictable in my old age.
retiredmartin 
Might be the first time I’ve seen sherberty used to describe a beer. Nice.
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I believe that retiredmartin uses “sherberty” on his excellent beer bore blog.
e.g. here https://retiredmartin.com/2020/12/04/will-father-christmas-bring-tier-1-to-south-cambs/
I know what it means !
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I know what it means, and it’s one of the flavours I try to avoid!
It’s four years since I was in the Helmsley Tap and I wasn’t impressed. Suffice to say that the beer I had there was in poor condition. (In the brewery tap? Are you serious? Yep.) The next day I had one of their beers (not the same one) in the Sun in Pickering, and it was superb.
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Well that’s not good enough, Will. Us pubmen must have identical experiences with a common beer so that we can authoritatively say that “Beer X is “good” beer”, and “Beer Y is “bad” beer”.
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Luckily I can tell when you’re joking.
There is a difference though between not liking a beer and finding that it has not been kept properly. Maybe I would have disliked your “cool, sherberty” pale, but I could still have awarded it 3.5 NBSS (“good” beer). On the other hand, the beer I had there four years ago might have been a 1.5 NBSS and it would not have been possible to say whether it was to my taste, as it was clearly not right (“bad” beer).
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It was certainly very good last week, I’ll say that. The Sun in Pickering is a top pub.
I agree with your wider point that you don’t always get beer at its best from the brewery (example – Stonehouse, Oswestry).
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Ah, this is the brewery one of my oldest mates set up a few years back, though I’ve yet to pay a visit (I’ve not been able to organise a p***-up in a brewery!)
I’ll have a word and get him to make it a bit more Burslem-like (our home town) … should rid the place of the pashminas
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No, leave it like it is, mate. It’s doing a good job and if the pashminas are in the brewery tap they’re not in the queue for sausage rolls.
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I like your thinking there
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Sadly it was closed on our last visit.
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I was in there a couple of years ago. It was rammed with people. A bit soulless, I agree, but good to see booming beer trade. As it happened, all the other pubs were very busy as well.
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People give pubs soul, of course, and they were in the little garden at the back. All the pubs were busy !
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Yeah, on the other hand, I think that it might be some time before we see a chitterlin and avocado baguette, or a tripe and onion sourdough sandwich, perhaps.
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Mrs RM prepares those at home for me, of course. Sometime she substitutes partridge for chitterlin.
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What, when you get bored with the ducks’ feet paninis, like?
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My county (just!)
Some real stragglers I imagine in the fifteen mile radius south of Middlesbrough.
The White Swan is my PotY so far in Stokesley..
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White Swan always good, particularly for food. The other pub in the village seemed to be more beery.
Yes, quite a few loners south of Teesside, often open late in the week and not for lunch. Appleton Wiske, Great Ayton and Dalton-on-Tees all on my To Do list.
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Looks a bit Matlock Bath to me!
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That’s a very astute comparison, I reckon !
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