retiredmartin

The Privileged Few get their advance copy of the new Good Beer Guide (2022) in the next week, and the whole process of GBG ticking starts afresh.

My Ticking Year (£25.99 via Amazon) will come to an end when the Guide is officially released on 12 November (ideal Christmas present for your niece) and the size of the task in 21/22 will become clear. It always helps if you’ve got a few pre-emptive ticks in the bag; a Hornchurch micro, a Hornsey tasting rooms and possibly an unexpected Hungry Horse in Hornsea.

But what about Sheffield ?

Mrs RM and I took a leisurely stroll into Heeley’s antiques quarter, lasting about 7 minutes before hunger demanded a random lunch stop.

No-one had mentioned the Crown as one of the city’s GBG hopefuls, but all Mrs RM cared about was the line FOOD 12-9.

There’s a bit of a pie obssession,

and a lot of humour,

and a determination to win the Yorkshire Life Dog-Friendly Pub of the Year 2021.

How does a dog even tip ?

There’s 3 main types of pub in Sheffield. The CAMRA one, with six lines of beer from Kelham and the Don Valley, the resolutely keg one with a mobility scooter outside, and the all-rounder with Farmer’s Blonde on.

The Crown is the all-rounder, with a commitment to BBB I hadn’t noticed elsewhere in Sheffield yet.

So I had to delay my day off beer by 24 hours to sample the Pride and (Mrs RM’s) Blonde.

Both a 3, cool and tasty, which means that they’d get in the Guide anywhere north of Edinburgh or east of Grantham.

There was a fair amount of cask being sold, and when I popped to the next door bar to buy Mrs RM a bag of jelly babies and a coffee a bloke was drinking a Brains SA. It was like 1997 all over again, and we know what happened then.

Proper Pie,

and a generous bag of jelly babies that Mrs RM described as “actually alcoholic“. I wouldn’t be surprised. “I’m watching male seahorses give birth“, she said.

A real mix of Heeley life, much of it pleasingly sozzled, but whether Pride, Broadside and Brains SA will get you in the GBG is a matter for debate in the Crow.

We did the obligatory nosey round the antiques centre, with me terrified we’d break something.

And Mrs RM was terrified I’d buy that Worthington clock (top). But I resisted.