31st May 2023. Newcastle.
Three GBG ticks down, one left till I could colour in the Tyne & Wear chapter for another year.
The problem with having done the whole book is you lose discipline and are much more tempted to wobble off from the Wobbly Duck and get distracted by old favourites on Percy Street.
Pubs like the Hotspur, next to the old Newcastle Breweries office,
which I remember fondly when the time when the Toon’s Guide entries were called Hotspur and Bodega and Strawberry rather than being named after small animals.
Luckily, I made it to Haymarket without distraction.
The Crow’s Nest is another those Edwardian dining pubs that Greene King seem to own by the bucketload in Nottingham and Manchester and W1.
“Fish and Chips” scrawled on the window is always a big no-no for me, and my heart sinks even before I reach the bar and realise there’s no GK IPA. In a Greene King pub. I remember the good old days when CAMRAs used to complain that a Greene King pub didn’t have guest beers, and now they hardly have a GK beer on.
I ask Twitter for advice, ignore it, and go for Brew York. Which is perverse, because I really had never had a decent pint of their before the one in Norwich this year. “It’s them that keeps it that spoils it“.
I do the “Do you prefer card or cash“/”Whatever” dance at the bar, get a fiver out to pay for the 3.7% Pale, and put the fiver back as I find out it’s five quid FIFTEEN and I need to pay by card. Blimey.
But that’s my only (mild) quibble, and to be honest after hearing of £7.70 pints in London this week I sense that £5.15 is the new £3.70.
It’s gorgeous, cool and crisp. I write down a “4”, then revise it to a “3.5”, but that’s still a winner.
And the Crow’s Nest is a lively drinkers pub, perhaps the Parcel Yard of the Toon if it was at the main station rather than Haymarket.
Pubs aren’t dead. The jury’s out on cask.
Guess what’s coming next….
retiredmartin 
Having trebled their estate from 900 to 2700 in the years I’ve known them Greene King must know what they’re doing.
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Oh, yes they do.
But is it in the pub goer’s interests?
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No
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No-one believes this, but that’s three times the number of pubs that Wetherspoons own (I know some Spoons are bigger, but many aren’t).
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£2.46 is the new £1.99 in Stockton Wetherspoons.
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I think you’re right.
Good job we have CAMRA to provide the vouchers that means there’s still that £2 pint that we fought so hard for.
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