retiredmartin

July 2023. Slingsby. North Yorkshire.

After our bull scare, a rare new GBG tick in the lovely Howardian Hills. Slingsby’s Grapes is almost the local for the Howard family themselves.

It’s hard to see where the Sunday night custom for the Grapes comes from. 665 souls, says Wiki, and the most deserted High Street of the year. Perhaps they clear the area of modern stuff when they’re filming “Brideshead Revisited“.

You never know what to expect in the village pubs north of York, mainly Duck a l’Orange and table reservations I’d guess. Like in Hovingham, where Mrs RM famously sank two pints of Old Peculier in 20 minutes in front of my parents in 1996.

Nice welcome from “the worst pub in Slingsby“.

Untypically the Grapes has no lunchtime opening, and only offers pizza from 5pm on Sunday, so it’s not your typical gentlefolk gastro.

A fairly typical beer line-up,

though that Theakston is £3.80, which is almost Sheffield price.

But, standing at the bar while Mrs RM makes difficult decisions about pizza toppings (there’s two types of mozzarella and she wants to know if the buffalo are traceable), it starts to hit me.

The Grapes is a treasure trove, not just of Guinness tat,

but of every imaginable tat. It’s the Hyde Park of the North.

We’ll get to the Bass in a minute, but lets’ savour the Theakston (cool, rich, 3.5),

and the pizza with pineapple on the top (NPPOTSS 3). I think it was called something like “The Abomination“, but never trust folk who don’t have pineapple on pizza or put the milk on the teabag before the hot water.

665 souls in Slingsby, and (I kid you not) 20% of them were in the pub on a Sunday night with toddlers and dogs and hiking boots and horsey voices. “ANOTHER person who forgot their pants !” said Mrs RM, who’d decided I was driving and switched to a Pinot (eight quid !) by now.

Young people don’t go to the pub anymore, you say ?

“You’ll get booze on your breath, Harriett” said Dad Who Sits Daughter On Bar Stool. Start them early and all that.

I hope Harriett doesn’t think all pubs are this good. I could hardly find anything of interest in that Staffordshire community pub the other day, and that had Bass.

The Grapes doesn’t have Bass (give it time), but it has Bass mirrors.

You might have thought Wrexham is being revitalised by Hollywood, but it’s actually the sale of replica Bass mirrors to smart pubs all over the UK.

The soundtrack is “Escape (Pina Colada song)”, the beer of choice is Becks, the Gents is both inside and out.

Talking of which, who wants a talking George W. in the loo with you (press PLAY).

I think only Gents get George and the rat and the Guinness calendar,

but I dread to think what’s behind THIS door.

Unmissable.