PREEMPTIVE DERBY

February 2024. Derby.

Almost back to the old days now, with a preemptive tick in one of our best but most stable of GBG cities.

11 minutes, less 3 minutes to leave and then re-enter the station, and the delayed train from Uttoxeter. That leaves about minus 5 minutes for a half in the Victoria. Plenty of time.

A dash across the taxi rank in the rain, like in the Blue Nile song,

a quick check to make sure it’s the right pub,

and a scramble to get my coinage to the bar.

Plenty of excitement around the Vic, a music and ale pub to break the “quick beer between trains” monopoly of the Brunswick and the Alex.

2 beers on, neither you’ll have heard of,

so I pick the closest one, a Peakstones Ales milk stout.

Which is cracking, cool and smooth, and it already feels like a CAMRA pub, which you can read as you like.

Nice art too.

How about some Bass now we’ve lost the Station Inn again ?

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.

21 thoughts on “PREEMPTIVE DERBY”

  1. Why do brewers apparently think that any miscellaneous substance may be added to stout, from milk to oysters?

    Whatever, leaving that aside, it occurred to me, that the occasional person here suffers from – but never mentions – wonky knees, and we also now learn that Martin has a Gammy Leg (not wooden, is it, what with the parrot reference?) and so I thought that they might read the following sympathetically. It’s a crossword blogger’s opening preamble to a backdated puzzle that I was doing over three pints of NBSS 5 Brains Bitter today:

    “I thought I would be tackling this puzzle while resting up after getting a new hip.

    But it didn’t happen, again.
    The last time it didn’t happen in July was down to hospital equipment failure. They called to cancel the day before it was scheduled. These things happen.
    This time it got very close to happening. I still have the indelible black marker pen the surgeon immediately put on my shin saying something like “THIS ONE!” and a big arrow pointing up to my hip. Got to get the right leg. But the anaesthetist and senior nurse put the kibosh on proceedings due to my swollen legs which means a greater risk of post-op infection. They were on the side of caution. These things happen.
    Now I’ve got to have a vascular specialist find out why they are swollen and get me sorted. Which will take another few months. Looks like I won’t be walking again this side of Xmas.

    At least I had Private Eye to cheer me up…”

    Now, I think that the long-suffering patient here might have referred his medical team to his blog posts, and in particular to his Username.

    It is “Beermagnet”

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  2. Etu,
    Sorry to hear of your hip. I needed time off work due to bursitis of my left hip but rest and a van with the seat at a proper height cured it.
    As for “wonky knees” I was due a knee replacement seven years ago but Glucosamine and moderate exercise over the several months waiting cured it.
    I’m very lucky really.
    You’d love a BPF Proper Day Out as we spend as much time discussing ailments as we do beer or politics. ,

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    1. I’ll be honest with you, Paul, half the time I’m bewildered by these comments and I’m not sure whether Etu is referring to himself or someone else. When I met him a year ago in Cardiff he was a sprightly fella. I’m just a bit concerned he claims to have found NBSS 5 (practically perfect) pints of Brains as it’s 20 years since I could say that.

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      1. Well I had a pint of Brains The Reverend James that was past its best on my way home mid afternoon today. That was after the Butlers Bell which Tim has passed on to Davenports and is convenient for the bus stop from Milford and the Marley Bow as we used to all it where the IPA and Abbot were drinking well, my sandwich was disappointing and I met an old work colleague whose daughter was with mine at junior school. That’s all because it was a nice morning for a walk along the canal towpath to Cannock Chase.

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      2. Now you mention it Paul I’d forgotten about th Rev James; that’s a beer I have enjoyed quite a bit (in Monkseaton and Lancashire from memory).

        Will you/did you attend the Davenports launch of the Butlers Bell ?

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      3. Martin,
        Yes, I was there.
        The Butlers Bell has certainly changed a lot and is also very different from the new Davenports’s Queens Head in Birmingham, a nice pub, and Littleton Arms in Penkridge, too up market for me. The “launch party for invited guests” was very well attended but it offered “a free bar, delicious canapes, and free live music whilst you take in the surroundings”. The inaugural “My Local” pub offers three cask beers, their Original and Gold and Sharps Doom Bar. Normal prices are a very reasonable Mild £2.40, Gold £2.40, Original £2.50, IPA £2.60, keg Drum Bitter – yes, “the drum you can’t beat” – £2.30 and Continental Lager £3.90. Food times are 8am to 8pm.

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      4. It’s a quote of something I read, dear hearts.

        Thanks for the concern, but having strenuously avoided playing any sort of sport during my life my joints aren’t in bad shape so far, mercifully.

        It’s a pity about the brain, maybe.

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      5. I’m not a CAMRA but isn’t the NBSS system supposed to be relative? That is, a five doesn’t mean that you could never have a more enjoyable pint, but just not a more enjoyable one of that particular beer?

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      6. The scores should relate to the qualities of the pub, rather than the beer. A pint of a beer you don’t normally enjoy e.g.Wainwright or Greene King IPA might be served in a pub with high turnover, clean lines, cool glass etc etc .

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      7. Four days later, a fresh cask on and the Reverend James was drinking exceptionally well, so two pints rather than the intended one – and all the better without a sparkler as if I was in the south west.
        Then the original 1930s Twyfords Adamant urinals before a kebab and chips from across the road for after my ten minute walk home.
        There’s worse places to live than Stafford.

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  3. I was in the Victoria with young Stafford Paul on 9th March. My photo of the bar showed six hand pumps, of which I went for Leatherbritches Dovedale 4.4%. After saying farewell to Paul three pubs later, I spent the afternoon watching football in Matlock. On arriving back in Derby for my train to Sheffield, I found that I had the traditional minus five minutes for a swift half, so popped back into the Victoria and had the same beer again. Unbelievably, it had improved from NBSS 4 at 10:45 to NBSS 4.5 at 6pm.

    I was back again this week with my friend Jeff, just back from a weekend in Dundee, and found there are now nine hand pumps, with seven beers on at just after midday, and an eighth – which you’ll be pleased to hear was Bass – being pulled through while we were there. Of course, I went for Leatherbritches Dovedale again, and after visits to the Alexandra, Smithfield and Brunswick we couldn’t resist calling in again, as there were real, positive minutes in hand before our train.

    My scores of NBSS 4.5 will be raising eyebrows amongst Camra’s assessors, but honestly this was a great beer in near perfect condition and the licensee is not related to me in any way.

    So, four visits, same beer each time. I’ve no idea what the other beers might be like. But I’m willing to guess that they’re tremendous.

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    3. “my friend Jeff, just back from a weekend in Dundee” – all the way up there to vote on lined glasses I presume.

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      1. I was sorry that family demands prevented my joining you and fellow pub men and women in Dundee, but the reports on Discourse suggest a completely pointless event.

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      5. Thanks Will.

        I don’t know if football commentators are still banned from using the word, but I do remember David Coleman’s having to find a substitute for “remarkable”. He settled on “extraordinary” as I recall.

        But we’re not football commentators.

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