July 2023. Swinton and Mexborough.
Planning your pub visits is as much a joy for the ticker as the beer and the banter, especially when it suddenly hits you on your exploration of the keg wastelands of Yorkshire’s former mining towns that you could do Mexborough from Swinton and save yourself a separate trip.
An hour between trains, 2 a mile’s walk to the Gorilla Tap, 20 minutes for a pint and some pics of crumbling social clubs. Perfect.
Shame about the rain, but then it is summer in Sheffield.
Anyway, here’s your Working Men’s Club.
and here’s your algae.
Oh, and some attractive if pointless wall decor, too.
I’ve never been to a pub in Swinton (the South Yorks version), but I had been to Mexborough when the Concertina Band Club (R.I.P.), Imperial and Spoons regularly made Mex seem like a hotbed for (cheap) cask.
With the New York Stadium in Rotherham and Original New York Bagels in Swinton “Meadows”, it’s no surprise the area gets so many American tourists.
With under half an hour to spare in Mexborough, I can’t give you a full “Cut-Out-And-Keep” guide, but you really need to come in the evening when the Imperial’s exciting musical programme accompanies their £3 homebrew.
Two homebrew pints yards apart, in fact.
Gorilla’s Tap has complex opening times and a sign that may cause offence if you really, really look for it.
It’s just opened, and dads are beginning to arrive with their lads after school, lured by burgers and giant TV screens.
I didn’t see anyone else ask for cask, it was all Neck Oil or ABK; but Gorilla’s Kong impressed during lockdown and their Ape-X has one of those CAMRA award winner badges that mean so much so I have that.
The sun shines on the virtuous, so I get to sit outside under the palm trees for 10 minutes by the Meccie Riviera and life seems pretty good.
Canal boats, swans, NBSS 3.5 beer and a bloke giving you a blow-by-blow account of his weekend plans (fishing on the Don).
Perfect.
It doesn’t last. The rains return, and at Swinton I’m regaled by teenage girls in pink singing “C’mon Barbie let’s go party”.
Make it stop.
retiredmartin 
I only know two things about Meccie…Alan Winfield did a crawl around some of its less salubrious pubs (well all of them actually) and The Reytons quote it in one of their songs “Lowlife”
(Boring but true fact #2) However, looks like a tidy pint!
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