retiredmartin

August 2023. Marske-by-the-Sea.

Beyond the exploration of Winkies Castle and St Germain’s Churchyard and the craft bar and the cobbled lane,

the main reason for visiting “Marvellous Marske” was to belatedly tick the Smugglers Den,

whose debut in the new GBG had been cruelly scuppered by a car smashing into the wall just before Christmas.

But the Smugglers had recovered rapidly, their Facebook full of tales of “bottomless brunches”;

“Join us at The Smugglers Den in Marske: a funky, trendy microbar with 4 rooms, pool, and a jukebox. Enjoy lots of alcohol, drink offers, and an unforgettable pub crawl experience.”

“Funky” ? “Trendy” ? That’s me and Mrs RM, that is.

Walking past it earlier we’d seen an exciting collection of cask.

But at opening time (rather earlier than expected, both pleasing and worrying),

the four pumps were about to be turned round, one by one.

Something to do with the micropub closing on Sunday and only re-opening on Thursday afternoon.

The cheery barman was hoping we’d accept a lager as substitute, but Mrs RM can be very persistent and did her “I like my real ale, me” routine and the young lad scuttled off to put a new barrel (tech word) of Three Brothers AU on.

I’m afraid the first pull was undrinkable, so the lad went down to the cellar again to do some more “tweaking”, and eventually we got something half-decent.

While Mrs RM discussed the cask lottery with him, I did a tour.

A quirky place,

and most of the custom seemed to be from the lads in the upstairs pool room, with a pleasant room for bottomless brunches next door.

Honestly, despite the average beer, I liked it, a lot.

And if I ever get bored of this pub lark I’ll take up making model boats out of matchsticks.