retiredmartin

No, NOT a check-in on Un****d ! What do you think I am, a beer blogger ?

I’m not even a fan of Doom Bar, really, but it is a useful measure of beer quality between pubs. I’ve had really good DB, as well as a lot of under-conditioned sweet nothingness in Spoons.

Whenever folk dismiss DB, or Wainwright, or Bass (Bass !) as cheap, bland beers, as on the latest post from the ever-excellent Pub Curmudgeon, I assume they’ve never tasted those beers in a pub as good as the Quay Inn at Instow.

This is the view across the Torridge toward Appledore and Westward Ho !

Like the Southworths, I grew to love North Devon two summers ago, partly because the Torridge councils let us park our campervans in their car parks overnight.

It’s pleasing to see they’ve closed the railway line to make BRAPA’s visit even more tricky. I bet the famous signal box will be a micro called “R’ALEways” or “SignALE Box” by then.

The Quay is busy enough midweek in mid July, opens when it says it will, and has a gloriously mixed bunch of reviews (all about food).

Inside it’s still Perspex screens at the bar and signs telling you to “STAND BACK” and service is what I would call perfunctory. But that’s understandable, the spectre of Covid hangs larger in the South-West than anywhere except perhaps northern Scotland.

At least not all the tables are set for dining, and there’s some good political debate as the Tory leadership contest* enters the final strait.

“Who’s running ?”

“Richie Soon-ak and some woman I’ve never heard of”

Elsewhere a wife nags her husband to come outside, like in the Wendy Richard song, but the bloke is really quite happy indoors experiencing “Pub”, even if the ambient chill soundtrack feels a bit out of place.

OK, it’s a dining pub, fish and chips being whizzed past my ears at regular intervals, but the Doom was cool, crisp NBSS 3.5, and was totally enjoyable.

There, I’ve said it, Doom Bar was enjoyable , and will probably be turfed out of CAMRA for doing so, but since us Life Member leeches are persona no grata anyway it hardly matters, and now I’ve completed the GBG do I care ?

*There’ll probably be another one by the time you read this.