13th December 2022.
We didn’t let the snow interrupt our travel plans,
but the latest rail strike meant we’d have to drive down to London for our annual End of the Road Christmas Party, via an overnight stop to complete Rutland for GBG23 (calm down, it’s only one new pub each year).
We arrived in Uppingham, first time since just before Lockdown 2, still wondering what Don Paddy’s is,
and how on earth The Vaults has made the GBG.
Well, good beer quality of course, but let’s face it;
Did you really expect a pub with a beer range as well-known as that to make the Guide in 2022 ?
“We are a drinks only pub” says the website from which I nicked the photo above, and it’s a quite a shock to enter a smart Rutland pub without a greeter and a menu on the table.
Though there is a “Reserved for Poncho” sign on the next table, in a wet pub. Poncho sounds like a main character in “Narcos Mexico”.
The young staff wear starched uniforms and have to fix the till before they take my money, and the smart customers watch greyhound racing on the telly. It’s all rather quaint.
Your 1990s beer range is more than welcome, and my Pedi is a cool, sulphuric and foamy NBSS 3, so I won’t have a word said about Rutland CAMRA,
especially after they picked the even more basic Exeter Arms for the Guide in 2020.
I bet this old Ansells pub was good when it was a pub, whenever that was.
Much to her chagrin, I made Mrs RM walk the 300 yards west past the public school towards our curry house.
Red Indiia is spelt with two “i”s, oddly, and has a Captain Kirk and a Crutchley’s on the menu, which we obviously pick,
and it’s excellent, even if Curry Heute has no opinion (check for yourselves).
Poppadoms, two specials, special rice and peshwari naan for £33.20, a bargain. It’s Bring Your Own booze, we have tap water.
One downside to Bring Your Own. The local rugby club are holding their Christmas dinner and are incredibly boorish (“So, Gibbo, that’s Mike Gibson”) and incredibly sweary, like in one of Chelmsford’s industrial strength boozers.
I feel for the staff and hope they get a good tip at least.
retiredmartin 
The Vaults is finally on my occasional pint list, not because it’s in the GBG (whatever that is), but because they’ve got Proper Job on. A pale hopped choice amongst the samey bitters at last. Bloody expensive though, as is its sister bar Don Paddys (£5.50 for barely a pint of Old Peculiar recently). Sad the pandemic did for the small brewery at the back of the Falcon Hotel, the bitter was average but they did some nice darker beers on occasion, and the little bar with its fire is a favourite of ours (though more particularly hers) in town.
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Cask in Don Paddy’s?
A cert for GBG24 then.
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Adnams and Landlord usually, so maybe not. I was talked at for an hour by a local CAMRA recently, doesn’t go anywhere with Doom Bar and doesn’t understand why a CAMRA branch should need to survey a town like Corby as there’s “…nothing worth drinking”. [sigh…]
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The GBG is a colouring book that small, immature children like to complete.
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Rugby clubs: always living down to their reputations.
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On my sole visit to Uppingham in 2003 I had a decent Ploughman’s in the Vaults which at the time seemed to be the most down-to-earth of the pubs in the town centre.
Aren’t there only about 35 pubs in the whole of Rutland? I vaguely remember Sir Quinno spending a weekend aiming to do them all.
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35 sounds about right. 7 in the Gbg I think.
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The best sort of Proper Job is Proper, Proper Job in a CAMRA approved outlet.
I would have liked to hear the CAMRA talk, as it would be interesting
Don Paddys is an Italian / Irish – Pizza / Pub combi
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It’s a pretty town with nice people who are out chums
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“Out” chums, or “our” chums ?!
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You don’t happen to know who invented those extendable dog leads, do you?
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Poncho is obviously the pub hound, carefully trained to fend off craft beer salesmen.
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I hate to rise from my slumber in Pedant’s Corner, but Red Indiia is spelt with three ‘i’s.
Somehow, I feel like I’ve been triggered…
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The first I is silent so we don’t count it.
(I just spent 10 minutes looking to see if it really is Red Indiiia).
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No, no, no.
The second – or even the third – “i” is silent.
Toss for it.
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The fourth one is invisible.
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Yes, four “i”s for four minarets but the one at the back is invisible.
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