March 2023.
Getting Mrs RM to join me on hilly Sheffield walks is a challenge, but there’s a bigger problem once you leave the Blind Monkey.
It’s very hard to walk more than a 100 yards without passing a pub that in any other city would be in your Top 5. Luckily I was determined to steer Mrs RM away from the demon drink by striding purposefully past open door, a tactic that worked till we got to the Brown Bear.
Actually, we would have gone in the Head of Steam next door, but Bertolt Brecht was on at the Crucible and his fans had, typically, hogged all the seats.
Mrs RM had sneaked into the right hand bar, taken the far seat, and got out her phone before I could shout (conversationally) “Mr Smith kindly requests no electronic equipment”.
So this photo is her fault (see also : The Ship, Chester). I don’t like to point fingers, but every table was on their phones, checking the score in the Bertolt Brecht.
A pint of OBB, a pint of stout, and two packets of salt and vinegar cost £9. In Sheffield. Where did it all go wrong.
Still, the OBB was as good as OBB generally gets, and the view from the rear garden to the Lyceum is gorgeous.
I then gave Mrs RM an ultimatum; take the £2 tram straight home, or walk back and have a pie and pint in Fagan’s.
There was never a decision to be made.
Having been in on re-opening night, it was a surprise to find it relatively quiet, but that meant we nabbed the snug, creating a wave of jealous stares from the students who started to tip up.
I was always going to have a Bass, and Mrs RM was always going to compare the Guinness with Sam’s stout.
Reader, I can fib about historical details on occasion, but I will never lie to you about beer quality.
The first Bass was a cool, rich 3.5/4, a rapid second close to 4.5, which in CAMRA parlance means “cancel plans”.
Unexpected brilliant. Even at a fiver a pint.
retiredmartin 
What an embarrassment of riches.
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And we mere mortals get to see them all in less than a months time.
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How did the stouts compare?
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I’m glad the Bass was better than in the opening week. Still not sure I want to pay £5 for a 4.4% bitter in Sheffield. Especially if it’s NBSS 4.5 and I have to stay there and drink it until the barrel runs dry, or whatever’s required by the criterion.
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£3.40 for Draught Bass in Stafford’s Railway Inn and it’s top notch.
£3.70 in Stafford’s Kings Arms twelve days ago.
£3.80 in the Windmill at Gentleshall this lunchtime – on my fiftieth anniversary tour.
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You’re never fifty (50), Paul !
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Well, fifty years of drinking legally next month ( except for a few lock-ins since April 1973 )
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I’ve only done one lock-in. Unknown pub in Anfield after Liverpool v Wimbledon in 1994, Sunday afternoon, hard to believe now. Door bolted, curtains closed. Couldn’t get out and Mrs RM was in Liverpool centre waiting for me.
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About the best I remember was a seven pint afternoon one in Wem’s White Horse during October 1987 making eleven pints in the town, plus one in the British Lion on my way home.
That wouldn’t have happened with “all day opening” from the next August !
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I fear for the CAMRA AGM if Paul joins me in Fagans on the Bass the night before.
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But “on the Bass” needn’t mean many.
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