retiredmartin

September 2023. Chesterfield.

A very inefficient start to the new GBG year, so it’s a good job I’m not a professional ticker anymore.

My attempt on 3 Chesterfield pubs last Thursday was halted by the bloating “Chinese takeaway in the rain” and my conversion to “pints only” after completing the Guide.

But there’s nothing worse than an uncompleted town, and on Sunday I popped back to tick the Glassworks, a dull slog north of the crooked spire.

Because you’ve seen that famous spire a lot recently, here’s the Mormon one.

In 2014 a well-respected beer writer, possibly ignorant of the Good Beer Guide, visited the town and declared it c**p. These days (and back then, to be fair, it’s packed with good pubs and my beer scores suggest it sells well enough, too.

The Glassworks is Brampton’s pub opposite table-topping Chesterfield FC, and with the current American obsession with the National Conference we can expect to see Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus in the public bar before a match against Solihull Moors soon.

On Sunday the North London derby (aka the race for second) was on so I had to take my pint of Bud (not THAT Bud) to the side room, which is gorgeous. £3.35 your pint, 3.35 your NBSS. Seems fair.

Some nice history on the walls. I didn’t read any of it.

Instead, I contemplated a walking route that would a) burn off 317 calories, b) get me back to the station with 35 seconds to spare and c) see me seated with a pint of Bass, listening to “Solsbury Hill” and Heart.

Well that was easy. At the inaugural GBG tickers AGM we ended up at the Chesterfield Arms, with only th most degenerate of our group steering away from the Bass.

Don’t YOU make the same mistake.