“Nah. Readers want tales of the happy babble of the real ale and the sloshing about of the customers, Martin.” wrote Etu, and he’s right.
Here’s a typical pub customer sloshing about while the Bass babbles happily in the Chesterfield Arms.
I actually met Etu in 2023 in Cardiff, what a babbly/bubbly chap he is. Just like the Brains Bitter.
While I was madly rushing toward GBG glory pub going was largely about solo ticking, alternating halves and pints along the way.
But once the Guide was done it became about company, and halves became pints pints, because as Mrs RM famously found out this year beer tastes better in pints.
No, it really does, and I can only sympathise with folk who have to sip halves and thirds to get their ticks and (Un)tapps up. BRAPA knows.
No doubt helped by sticking to pints, beer quality in 2023 was as good as it’s ever been. And the statistical evidence (“do the math” as Dick would say) backs me up. Average NBSS of 3.28, (where 3 is minimum GBG standard) and 87 scores of 4 or above, and only 2 pints returned all year. And I got Mrs RM to do that for me.
Last year I managed visits to six hundred and thirty-two (632) different pubs and bars, though only a third of those were new Guide pubs which would have been disastrous if I was BRAPA, or Ian, or Malt. Not that that matters since I’m no longer chasing the Guide.
Rather like Edmund Hilary, having conquered Everest, being able to walk up the steps of Auckland multi-storey car parks for enjoyment, I can now revisit classics like Coventry’s Town Wall Tavern (above), or join the Pauls and Peters and Wills on proper crawls around Wem.
Doing crawls curated explorations of public houses with the Old Codgers (and Nick) was a joy now the focus is on the pub rather than the tick. Here’s Paul in the Castle in Wem, worried he’s going to have to say something nice about a Joules pub.
Beer of the Year was Bass, obviously, particularly in the “new” Fagan’s in Sheffield,
but also, memorably, in Uttoxeter, where Leon arrived late to the Vaults but just in time to make sure I mad the train in time to collect my Chinese takeaway.
Leon, who also completed the Spoons, AND the Sam Smiths estate in Rochdale for his 40th birthday, AND has already introduced Ivy to the joys of pubs at 1 month old, is my Pub Man of the Year.
For those of you, and I know you are legion, who prefer their beer more crafty, my runner-up in Beer of the Year was the Jamaican tonic wine on Life After Football’s pub crawl curated beer exploration of Brum in April.
Best in pints, remember.
Pub of the Year – The Wellington, Sheffield
2023 was the year I finally “got” the Welly, one of Sheffield’s classic beer pubs which I’d found a bit too “lone studious bloke” on occasion. Five visits, five beers of NBSS 4 or better. But more than that, it felt homely, and the sandwiches for a quid edge it to the top.
New Pub of the Year – The Racehorse, Westhall
Steve Gray was right. This remote Suffolk community pub is a perfect all-rounder. Beer drinkers at the bar, retired folk travelling out from the big cities (Halesworth) for bargain lunches. Church of the Year too.
Overseas Pub of the Year – MIQT Pristina
There were a lot of modern craft beer places in the Baltic and the Balkans, but MIQT wasn’t one of them.
On Pristina’s student strip, I suddenly realised that young Kosovans had been over to Liverpool, and Manchester and Grimsby, and nicked all their best ideas and come back and set up bars with incredibly rude toilet art. It was heaven.
In Remembrance. On 15 January we lost Andrew Lane, longstanding landlord of my favourite pub on earth.
Andrew is terribly missed, and it’s to the credit of Helen and daughter/quizmaster Theresa that The Sun is as great as ever.
People make pubs. And the Sun will always rise in the morning.
retiredmartin 
“Beer tastes better in pints” – undoubtedly. I’ve started the year with two pints of what for decades was the world’s best selling Mild followed by two pints of the current best selling cask beer. That got me thinking of having no less than two pints of any beer in any pub this year but that probably wouldn’t be a good idea.
My father went to London seventy years ago to hear Edmund Hillary talk of his ascent of Everest.
A very well deserved award there for Leon who I spent a very pleasant few hours with in York last June.
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Yes, deserved recognition for Leon, who is always tremendous company. I need to visit him and family from Sheffield; Milford has a few decent pubs.
(You’ll understand you can only win the award once, Paul).
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Once was more than I expected.
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It’s like President. Once you’ve been declared Pubman of the Year you are Pubman of the Year for life and can include it on your CV when applying for jobs.
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How much longer do you think Doom Bar will be the best selling cask beer, Paul ? Is it possible that Landlord could topple it ?
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I doubt if Timothy Taylors would expect to challenge Molson Coors’s domination of beer supply.
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Beer tastes much worse in plant pots.
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“Flobbalop”
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I started my pub year yesterday, Paul, with a couple of pints, despite it being New Years Eve.
The Jarl, from Fyne Ales was on top form, in Fuggles Tonbridge, but I’ve a long way to go before I get anywhere near Martin’s amazing total of pubs – at least two per day, if you do the math(s). 😀
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That’s small beer (no pub) compared to some of the tickers !
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Paul,
Four pints yesterday – two each Banks’s Mild and Sharps Doom Bar.
At least four today if the bumpy bus gets me to Brewood.
Then less most of the other 364 days of the year.
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But not much less, I hope.
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A solid plan, I’d say Paul.
I suppose 2023 has been a bit of a Look-Before-You Leap Year for some people.
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I tend to go for a “Leap first and make your excuses as you fall” policy.
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Sorry, that was me, Paul.
Yes, I nipped out for a Perfect Three yesterday, because there’s nothing I like more than being indoors in hat, scarf, and coat. Especially when I’ve left a warm, expensively-heated home behind…
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Well played, Sir.
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In Brewood this lunchtime I had beer from four proper old breweries – Holdens, Banks’s, Marstons, Theakstons – but not quite time before the last, 2.26pm, bus for a Three Tuns. Then a not-drinking-very-well £2.45 Craft Union Doom Bar before walking home from town.
Not a bad first two days of the year.
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Ergative verbs read very well.
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What a great read.
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Thanks Dave. Never easy pulling a year’s thoughts together, and you immediately remember what you’ve missed. That curry in Bradford with the Southworths was a great lunchtime.
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Curry in Bradford…I dream of it.
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I highly recommend Aashiq’s, Upper Gornal (just down the road from Batham’s Britannia Inn).
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The Gornals is another place I haven’t been to for many years, bar a fantastic Holdens place in Lower G 5 years ago. Think I did 5 pubs walking from Sedgeley down.
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I might manage the Britannia, Sedgley and the Great Western later this month.
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Weren’t you invited to give a talk to the Middle Gornal Ladies’ Group about your “pubsploits” Martin?
How did that go?
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It went very well, Etu. I showed them my holiday snaps from Bridgend, played them a mixtape of my favourite new Texan country lesbians, and handed out samples of crispy shredded beef from the Sang Lung,
3 of them lasted to the end of the 4 hour presentation.
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That’s excellent news Martin.
However, I expect that you had to gloss over – rather quickly – the various techniques and apparatus used for Clandestine Interior Pub Photography, lest some of the polite attendees became nervous of its potential use for Inappropriate Purposes.
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Oh no, the Ladies were very helpful with tips for clandestine pub photography. Their best tip was “Take a lady along to take photos openly, no-one will question a lady’s motives”.
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Thank you Martin, and with stock like these fine women, we can rest assured that Johnny Foreigner will never be their match.
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