retiredmartin

July 2024. Alnwick.

I’d been putting off an assault on Northumbria’s new pubs for a while since The Great Completion, didn’t do any north of Newcastle in GBG23, but everything fell in our favour for a rare weekend of ticking excess last weekend.

Two to come at our stop for the stop for the night in Wooler, but first a rapid return to Alnwick, fast becoming the Margate of the North (joke) with its burst of micropubs.

Mrs RM did an Instagram reel at the gardens while I ticked the pub, which is rather cheaper.

Harry’s Bar is at the foot of a pleasantly pedestrianised little stretch of independent places, and I thought it was a corker.

The guy in the Crass jacket might have been hoping for “Stations of the Crass” as a soundtrack; instead we get George Benson, The Spinners and this corker,

sounding as tinny in 1966 as it did in a micropub in 2024.

A similar feel to that cosy, quirky place in Whitby, a mix of locals and curious visitors bored of Potter and pegonias.

“How much for the Bass sign ?” I ask the Guvnor, who tells how rare they are.

£25 in Wrexham indoor market, mate.

I’d never actually buy a Bass mirror, though Mrs RM has just moved that world map she’s ticking, so there is space now.

I wander the rooms, packed with interest,

and settle down with a pint of Flying Gang “Liar’s Dice” (no, me neither).

Untappd offers a range of beer descriptions,

from which I pick “chewy”. Anyway, a cool and beautifully conditioned NBSS 4, but Untappd doesn’t seem to bother itself with the things which actually make beer great.

Right, half an hour until Mrs RM gets kicked out of the poisoned gardens, time for tourism.