retiredmartin

12th October 2022.

Blackpool Jane was about to visit and rate our new B & B (free to Patronised readers) for her award winning blog called “Getting p****d at away games”. We were thrilled, and before she arrived I undertook what we are legally allowed to call “research” in a few pubs in upmarket Sharrow in west Sheffield.

I’d be DES at the weekend, so on this exploratory trip I walked via the Rivelin Valley,

and Endcliffe’s studentville,

and the Botanical Gardens, resplendent in autumn colour.

Sheffield’s hills and parks are a joy, giving you false belief you’ve earnt that pint and salt and pepper squid as you reach the Porter Brook (top).

I’d conducted extensive research to find Jane a pub in Sharrow to meet her exacting culinary requirements (my own requitement is that what I eat must not be actually moving on the plate).

“Good old Greene King” said Jane, as I found the only pub menu not dominated by pizza, burger and “dirty” fries.

No idea what Jane would make about the squid (crisp and lovely, and not moving), but the White Rat was superb, a cool, crisp, sherberty NBSS 3.5/4.

Is White Rat the new TT Landlord, a bellwether for beer quality in a non-specialist pub ?

The guvnor came over and, apropos of nothing, asked how the beer was. I didn’t say “cool, crisp and sherberty“, but I did say it was good, and the landlord was keen to tell me how he chooses his guest beers by strength and style. You rarely get that, but it made me confident Jane and Karen would get decent cask that Friday, even if everyone else was drinking flavoured cider. “Oooh, I love cider flat, tastes of gingerbread” said our APPLE extract loving students.

Luckily, there’s another GBG pub right next door.