retiredmartin

Completing the Good Beer Guide is hardly worthy of congratulations.

All that’s required is stupidity, a pink marker pen, and an ability to plan ticking trips with the skill of Captain Scott (Duncan is Amundsen). Oh, and a vast private fortune to fund the accommodation costs in Guernsey and the Hebrides.

July saw repeated raids on the West Country, often using Ilminster as a base.

Rare to find a Best Western as your cheapest option, but the Shrubbery is also your only option nearby, and with its c.32 sockets proved ideal for a raid on the Five (5) Dials in Horton just over the A303.

Who can resist a pub with a numeral as the pub sign and “Doom Bar” plumage ?

The role of Ilminster in the life of Freddy Krueger is shrouded in mystery; I always assumed “Nightmare on Elm Street” concerned a calamitous Reading FC home defeat.

A Proper beer line-up for the purist, perhaps one too many, with the Otter Bitter a cool NBSS 3.

In truth the What Pub description of “a contemporary face-lift” and the pics of the pub grub tell you more than I ever could,

but on a Sunday evening it was so jolly I retired to the garden to admire the floral display.

I really should have visited one of Ilminster’s “gritty” pubs, but I wasn’t in the mood, and instead bring you some sober highlights from a modest town with much to be modest about, though the golden buildings in the centre and the minster itself are worth a look.

It was just what I wanted.