retiredmartin

September 2023. Hunmanby, Filey.

The last knockings of the 2023 Good Beer Guide year; just enough time to finish off North Yorkshire before GBG24 drops (ugh).

I’d been putting off the last couple of entries near Scarborough because a) the train costs £40.50, b) th train costs £40.50.

But it was a sunny September in Scarborough and frankly driving there with even a cheap B & B wasn’t saving a penny,

I nearly cocked up by buying the fixed time advance tickets to save a paltry £1.50 (half an OBB) but that would have meant I couldn’t break my journey 20 minutes short of Scarbs and tick Hunmanby.

Nether heard of it, though we did pitch a tent at Primrose Valley in 2002 when the lads were toddlers and entertained by a bloke in a bear outfit near Filey.

The Piebald has a fearsome reputation for pies.

There was no sign of any pies at 12:30, though the board obviously anticipated some late demand. I mistook that for a price list on entry.

In truth I’d quite fancied the Irish Draught, Beef in Guinness is a an east coast speciality, but feared I’d find myself getting a huge plate of chips 5 minutes before the train left, and I was terrified of being stuck the wrong side of the line after that mishap in Kent recently.

So just a pint, a self-selecting Boltmaker,

a superbly cool pint with a crisp head (3.5) that grew (?) thinner and thinner as I read the mottos on the oak beams.

Dick and Dave wouldn’t have warmed to the pub, but it did put Dylan on especially,

even if not classic Bob.

The entertainment came from professional staff dealing with unprofessional customers who’d got the time of their booking wrong, and folk with hugely complex questions about Autumn offers.

Not that there were a lot of customers, bar half a dozen drinkers (including two Old Boys scoring halves and trying to outscore the other by buying a cheaper round than the other).

I popped to the Gents, with its Old Skool humour,

and on my return found the Piebald suddenly packed with dog-walking pie-munchers (not Wiganites). A dozen of them.

The pub didn’t allow children, the campsite in the village was adult only, and the kid hostile atmosphere hung over a place seemingly stuck in the 1960s.

“Hey, some of us LIKE the sixties”.

No idea what incident prompted “Rolling Pin Cottage”.

Typical East Yorks (in North Yorks but whatever) one street town, which means there’ll be a good bakery.

And there was, the Hunmanby Pantry with mysterious “service through the hatch” providing a startling Coronation Chicken bap/cob/roll for the 22 minute ride into Scarbs.

Cheese and onion crisp as the artisanal accompaniment, since you ask.