Quite a busy travel map in February,
but another month focused on the North-West, Yorkshire and East Anglia, with no plans at all at present to visit Wales, though the CAMRA AGM in Dundee next month sounds like a chance to take the campervan round Fife and Tayside again.
HIGHLIGHTS
Pub Crawls with Stafford Paul, Sheffield Hatter + Guests and Maltmeister (well, one pub) a reminder of the joy of visiting too many pubs in an afternoon and talking complete nonsense.
But the highlight was a trip with Mrs RM to Liverpool, which looked absolutely gorgeous.
Crossness Pumping Station. Best sewage works in the world.
Desborough Museum, perhaps the best small town social history museum in the world, unless you know better.
Standing at the Sky’s Edge in the West End. Moving, mesmeric and marvellous.
Fish and chips with Dad at the Hare & Hounds. Always a privilege to take Dad out for a pub lunch; Tom the Pub’s fish Friday’s are an institution.
THE STATS
Sixty-four (64) different pubs, though only 15 of those were new GBG entries so if you’re expecting a big push to Beer Guide completion you’re backing the wrong horse.
PUB OF THE MONTH – The White Star, Liverpool
A joyous half hour with gentlefolk enjoying pubs. I wasn’t dancing; others were.
NEW PUB OF THE MONTH – Red Lion, Liverpool
One of the cosiest, classiest, friendliest new GBG entries of recent times, and Liverpool was magic.
BEER OF THE MONTH – Big Trip Cosmic Weirdness, The Molly House, Manchester
Beer quality was sensational all month. Don’t ask me how, it just was. And Manchester’s Big Trip keep popping up in quality bars like the Molly House and Alder. Are they the new Two by Two ?
I have no idea where I’ll be in March, but I’d really like to do a Donnington pub this month. See, a sucker for punishment.
retiredmartin 
“Sixty-four (64) different pubs, though only 15 of those were new GBG entries”
You’ve prompted me to tot up and I did forty-eight (48) pubs last month though I don’t know if any of them are GBG entries, new or old.
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…and neither do you care I suspect !
The only disappointing pub in that 64 was Mr Thomas, and even there the Boltmaker wasn’t “that” bad.
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Yes, I’ve not followed the GBG for several years now.
Mr Thomas’s was wonderful compared to a “Tap” I stopped off at on my way home from Leicestershire.
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That crew is incapable of creating complete nonsense.
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It sounds like nonsense after five pints, Dave.
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You need a designated listener to record these conversations.
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Simon is the most charming of men, but I always know to leave him be when I’m chauffeuring him round so he can properly eavesdrop on other people and their conversation. It’s why I like going solo.
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The same bloke was on his laptop, in the same position, blocking the view of the pumps when I visited the Molly House in December 2023 🙂
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