January 2024. Kelham Island. Sheffield.
Mrs RM wanted me to join her and some neighbours for some Sunday blues at the Gardeners Rest.
Frankly, I wanted a day off the beer, but I owed Mrs RM big time after Preston, and I’ll try my best to be sociable,
and the Gardeners is a great community pub, even if my head felt a bit like this photo of the approach;
We’re late for kick-off, so it’d already packed, and I’m incredibly claustrophobic.
Mrs RM heads to the back room to chat to her mates, leaving me with the man’s job of choosing the beers. Dorking Porter and Sheffield’s Triple Point.
I’ve not always thought the cask in Gardeners the very best, but both these were stunning (a later Thornbridge was less convincing, go figure), NBSS 4 quality.
Standing around waiting for Mrs RM to take her point I bumped into the glass door and splilt what looked like a full pint (actually about 20ml) of the Triple Point over the floor, and a nice lady rushed to fetch some paper from the loo. What nice people in Sheffield.
All this build-up is to confirm I REALLY DIDN’T WANT TO BE THERE.
But then I stood next to the musicians and it was magic. Press PLAY.
M & J Blues ran through two sets of Richard Hawley-esque material, virtually none of which I recognised, and that’s always a good thing. I think.
Oh, and Mrs RM’s friends were chatty and cheery. But you guessed that, too.
retiredmartin 
There’s a proper pub round the corner called The Clown And Drum Kit I think someone said but I’ve passed over that for the comfort of the Broadway Hotel. Staff hurry to plump up cushions when you go to the bar and I can only be humbled by that
The Gough’s pale is quite nice too
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“The Clown And Drum Kit” ?! Ooh sounds hipster.
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Probably a bit posher than the plain “The Rifle Drum”.
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Crown & Trumpet, I think. https://whatpub.com/pubs/SHA/40/crown-trumpet-inn-broadway (Live music Fri & Sat)
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The Crown & Trumpet was the first pub our daughter stayed in, aged three months.
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Sorry, yes, The Frown And Crumpet
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I gave the Gardeners a miss for quite a long time, but since I’ve started going again in the last three or four months the beer seems a lot better, both in terms of the choices on offer and the quality.
I still can’t really warm to it as a pub, even though I’m a shareholder!
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Interesting. Their coronation beers last year weren’t great (still good enough for the GBG most towns, but…) those two were NBSS 4+, particularly the Dorking. Loads of beer being pulled, particularly the Thornbridge White Swan (NBSS 3).
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