retiredmartin

December 2023. Hull.

Just to prove I really was in Hull,

rather than, I dunno, Theale or Leiston.

A professional GBG ticker would have headed straight to the Guide newbie Old Bull & Bush, had a half, then swam around the Humber to Grimsby to do a tick in New Waltham.

But I can do what I want now, and I headed for the Land of Green Ginger for a classic revisit.

We’d tried to get in the George a year ago on World Cup Quarter Final night, failed, and ended up in the similarly venerable White Hart.

Now it was 4:30pm on a quiet Thursday without TV distractions, surely the George would be near empty ?

Google Maps thought so;

The George thought differently. It’s a small pub, and was rammed with drinkers.

Even better, it’s a Craft Union with real ales you’ve heard of.

I’d mentally prepared myself for an Old Peculier, but then the bloke to my right bought five successive pints of Landlord, and the sixth was mine, all mine. Always follow the market.

£3.10 your pint of the benchmark Tim Taylor pint, full of the richness and depth missing elsewhere (NBSS 3.5). I even got the last table, as many blokes choose to stand at the barrels.

£3.10 for a pint that regularly sets you back a fiver outside London, in a Heritage pub. If this was Leeds, it would be the Templar, and the White Hart would be the Scarborough. I know you like those comparisons.

I felt a bit Martin-no-mates, squashed between shopping bags, as the trade is all groups of mates and couples, and I realise with horror they’re actually all my age.

One mate is bringing the drinks and appears to have got lost. “Ere, is ‘ee bringing the shots ?“. No, it was 4 pints of Coors.

Also a bit lost is England’s smallest window, which I will contend is no more than a slit in the wall.

We all need a hill to die on.