3rd March 2023.
Stop 3 on the Uttoxeter Bass trail, which frankly didn’t look a lot different from the one in Paul’s 1980 CAMRA leaflet;
Seventeen different beers in the sixteen pubs 20 years later, which is probably more than there are today if you ignore the Spoons.
The Talbot has gained “Ye Olde” since those halcyon days, obviously in pursuit of the US tourist dollar.
Research at Keele University in 2017 showed an American was 77% more likely to visit a pub with “Ye Olde” in the name.
That same research showed 110% of people named “Martin” will ignore the advisory notice below;
Folk were clearly shorter in 1805 when Nelson defeated the French and Spanish in the Battle of Trafalgar in Brighton.
The choice of beers had been reduce by 50% since the Old Codgers visit of 2019, with Doom Bar defeated.
I’d missed the Uttoxeter “Proper Day Out” in 2019, and felt jealous at the time reading Pub Curmudgeon’s blog post, on the Talbot, where the much missed Peter Allen had his first ever Bass and the soundtrack included one of my all-time favouries.
Ella Fitzgerald’s “Every Time We Say Goodbye” your classic today, but really it’s the convivial atmosphere Old Mudgie noted that made the Talbot tick.
“How ya doing, lads ?” to us.
More cool Bass, and perhaps the best so far (NBSS 3.5).
The temperature of all the beer was just right all day, even if we stared jealously at the roaring fire.
I guess there are folk who travel to Uttoxeter on race days and then watch the whole lot on the telly in the pub;
who can blame them ?
retiredmartin 
Real fire, racing on the telly, Ella Fitzgerald, Bass. As Belinda Carlisle pointed out, heaven is a place on earth. It’s called Uttoxeter.
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And I never knew.
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That percentage goes up if the name includes stag, “Inne” or Shakespeare.
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Have you been in a good pub called Shakespeare ? Oh yes, one in Sheff, one in Birmingham ?
Someone wrote recently the one in Manchester was terrible.
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The Bridgnorth one was okay.
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Of course ! That’s Joules, isn’t it ?
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Yes, bit more open feeling than the other Joule’s I’ve been in. Choice location.
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I think there’s an OK Shakespeare in Bristol but I haven’t been in, despite staying nearby two years in a row. Too much choice in Bristol.
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Now I think about it there’s LOADS of Shakespeares in Bristol, Andy.
https://retiredmartin.com/2022/03/14/shakespeares-shakespeares-everywhere/
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It’s well over a decade since I spent a single night in Uttoxeter, but I remember the market place pubs, and deciding that it was very much an OK place in that way.
The Talbot was the main course of that evening.
Mrs. E spent the next long, freezing day in the library while I attended to more tedious matters.
I wonder if it’s still there?
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The library?
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Yes, well there aren’t so many these days…
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Martin,
I must admit to drinking halves during the evening of Thursday 9th December 1999 when I researched those seventeen different beers in Uttoxeter’s sixteen pubs
Uttoxeter might have been a bit “in pursuit of the US tourist dollar” with American servicemen stationed nearby during the Second World War, and they probably explain the early jukebox in the Wheatsheaf, but the town’s Joey (C) Bamford earned many more dollars with his excavators exported far and wide, ‘JCB’ I think getting a dictionary listing a decade before ‘CAMRA’ did.
Bill,
I could almost imagine “Heaven is a place on earth. It’s called Uttoxeter” on tourism adverts.
Dave,
The Willenhall ‘Shakespeare’ was my favourite, that’s up to 1985 as one of the Simpkiss Brewery’s pubs.
Etu,
I remember Uttoxeter’s market place pubs being extremely lively on Wednesday afternoons with their Market Day Extension – but that was ruined by ‘All Day’ opening in 1988.
There’s still a library in Uttoxeter’s High Street. The County Council website gives an 0300 ‘phone number adding that “your call will be answered by Staffordshire County Council’s Contact Centre staff who will be able to deal with your library enquiry” presumably to maintain the silence we so appreciate in such an establishment, though lunchtime music in the the Old Star might just be heard.
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Many thanks Paul, I like the “will” re enquiries. So if someone rings and says “I’m trying to find my wife, could you check if she’s in there?” it will work?
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