retiredmartin

There’s two sorts of settlements around micro-mad Middlesbrough (see: Blackpool Jane’s report); the gritty fun towns of the coast like Redcar and Loftus with £3 pints, and the gorgeous North Yorkshire villages bordering the Moors with £4 pints. That may only be a quid, but that quid difference is HUGE.

Great Ayton is just big enough for a railway station that in theory would get you to Stockton AND Whitby in the same day, and now boasts TWO GBG entries.

Actually, I bet they don’t boast about their pubs; it’s too posh for that.

Civic pride rests on Captain Cook, who also seems to have been claimed by every 3rd boozer in Cleveland.

I actually ticked the Royal Oak a couple of years ago; didn’t rate the TT Landlord but it was bustling with pashminas and cardigans and hard to dislike on a Saturday night.

The Tannery, tucked away in a utilitarian shopping arcade behind the barbers, but somehow yet to team up like that Birkenhead place, is an odd place, both classy and boozy.

Is that William Morris wallpaper ? Pauline will know.

A couple of family groups with (adopts Baroness Bomburst voice) “CHILDREN !”. I love seeing children dragging parents out to pubs, especially micros where they can help them upload scores to Untppd.

I doubt they get many Untppders here, but the beer range is pretty much perfect. A blonde one, a milk stout and a cool, smooth pale Eagle Eye (NBSS 3.5), about which I know (and care) nothing.

Yes, there’s high tables, but there’s also tables where Mrs RM’s feet touch the floor, and I welcome “micros” if all they do is welcome folk of all sizes and shapes back into pubs, while serving beer with lacings like this;