THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF GOOD BEER GUIDE TICKING – A WORKED EXAMPLE FROM HULL (20 MARKS)

The ultimate clickbait; a picture of a pub I haven’t actually been to yet.

A week since my last tick, and I can’t even use the excuse of being in the Balkans again, just rotating between Waterbeach and Sheffield.

Monday is a good time to travel; there’s a better than 5% chance your Northern train won’t be packed or cancelled.

I looked at my spreadsheet snappily called “Pubs left to visit GBG24“. Patronised readers get the full list, you lot get the extract;

Blimey, there’s some names to conjure with. What I’d give to be in Quakers Yard right now, or Donhead St Andrews, or Kemerton. But they all require a campervan trip, carefully curated to tie in with Chinese takeaway opening times.

But East Yorkshire ? Must be doable by train ?

Well, that one in Hull is.

And only 1hr 20mins by train once I’ve slithered down to Sheffield Station.

But look at the price !

OK, if I’d booked it in 2018 like BRAPA does, or been old like Will, I’d have got it for half that, but that’s a lot for one tick, and the museums that might make a day out worthwhile will be closed on Monday.

Obviously Hull has lots of great pubs, but I’ve done them already, and once you start in Hull you don’t stop and it ruins your week.

What about a second tick, on the way ? Simon said the Bear was good;

There’s a No. 55 bus from Brough station to South Cave at 15:05. The bus back leaves at 6:22. On Tuesday morning. Perhaps I could walk the 3 miles along the M62 in the dark, like BRAPA would. Oh well.

I decide to save Hull for a special day, and remind myself how fortunate Simon is he can still visit towns like Walsall and Derby and find SIX (6) new GBG pubs in an afternoon, a bit like when in the early stages of filling in your 1978 Panini World Cup album you might get SIX (6) new stickers.

Let me tell you, Si, the further you go, the tougher it gets (as Billy Ocean once sang).

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Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

29 thoughts on “THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF GOOD BEER GUIDE TICKING – A WORKED EXAMPLE FROM HULL (20 MARKS)”

  1. Isn’t the BRAPA theme from the T-Birds?

    I’d wrestle with a lion and a grizzly bear
    It’s my life baby but I don’t care
    Ain’t that tuff enuff

    He’s got what it takes! No Billy Ocean getting him down.

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  2. I was going to send a complaint email asking where part 2 of the spreadsheet series was, but this will suffice. Deri, Gilfach and Quaker’s Yard are in a nice-ish cluster which would be do-able together in a day on public transport if you want to cut down on your lemonade intake – train to Gilfach from Cardiff > bus (30 mins round the houses) or walk (under an hour, along old railway track) to Deri and back to Bargoed > direct bus to Quaker’s Yard (but takes 50 mins, on what is only a 15 mins drive). There’s a train station in Quaker’s Yard to return to Cardiff, but there’s been an almighty balls up with the station refurb, so might not be open for another month or so.
    Another option would be to bus it back to Cardiff (change in Pontypridd) and the bus would stop outside the Aneurin Bevan, so four ticks in a day.

    Quaker’s Yard in Welsh is Mynwent y Crynwyr, which is actually ‘Quaker’s Graveyard’

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    1. Thanks Rhys. I’m issuing the spreadsheets in instalments in lulls between actual pub visits, a bit like splitting the final Hunger Games film in 2 where Mrs RM is Jennifer Lawrence.

      Your travel advice has me salivating for a return to Glamorgan in the new year, hopefully with some live music in Cardiff again.

      NB Complaint emails go straight in the bin.

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      1. Ozric Tentacles (remember them?) are in Cardiff in March! That gives Transport for Wales time to submit a planning application they forgot to send before starting the work at Quaker’s Yard…

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      2. Rhys,
        I remember when Wolverhampton had two railway stations, High Level and Low Level, and two big breweries, Butlers and Banks’s.
        It’s only one of each now.

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      3. I wonder how long there will be (large scale) brewing in Cardiff. There was an article on the BBC website last week about the company clearing its debts, with one eye-opening fact

        “But the restructure dramatically reduced the company from 1,600 staff to just 30.”

        I bet a large slice of that 30 are non-brewing roles, and more to do with property and finance.

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      6. It would be interesting to know the output of the other bigger-ish breweries in Wales. I see a Tiny Rebel pub clip in a hell of a lot of your photos from pubs all over England, which surprised me. That that it would be conclusive, but you used to be able to use API from Untappd to work out things like which beer, brewery, bar, was most popular, and at what times etc, but I think it’s been clamped down on now. A Cardiff Uni lecturer built a site looking at checkins in Cardiff. The sites gone, but you can still marvel on graphs on Twitterhttps://twitter.com/Bar_Diff/status/616902630560911360/photo/1
        https://twitter.com/Bar_Diff/status/628120976107175937

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      7. Clwb Tropicana used to pop up regularly on the keg fonts in the new wave of neighbourhood craft bars. And Cwtch on cask in the Washington in Sheffield recently. But very few beers dominate cask and keg taps around the UK.

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  3. We must have walked by the Old Bull and Bush during our Hull visit in 2014 on our way from the Wellington (we found it permanently closed) to the Whalebone(which did offer real ales at the time). Looks like we missed a good pub.

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    1. Indeed Rhys, but it’s a pity that the article doesn’t say where this Quaker’s Yard station is – as far as I can tell.

      I think that it would be nice if it were in Yorkshire, personally.

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      2. Totally unnecessary Etu as everyone knows where it it – it’s at the centre of the universe.

        Pontfaen means Stonebridge, and the nearest place with that name to Hillsborough I can find is somewhere near Coventry I think, so not too bad.

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