retiredmartin

August (finally !) 2024. Chorley.

Family dramas have meant a “difficult” start to August, in the same way that the lockdown of November 2020 meant a “difficult” month for pub ticking.

Six trips from Sheffield to Cambridge and back, a visit to Tunbridge Wells, and a rush to Chorley to get Matthew to an early Friday surgical appointment.

Five hours, actually closer to six hours slog by the time we parked up in Lancashire’s micropub capital, and, having done the micros, took the Classic Pub (?) Revisit route waiting for Matt’s train.

The Malt N Hops is Chorley’s version of the Olde Vic, or Maltings, or Elm Tree, a longstanding drinkers pubs without pretensions. Cask listed on the TV screens, but far from a CAMRA crowd, as Thomas Hardy might have wrote.

The chap in front of me had a complex order, and seemed genuinely apologetic to be holding me from my drinks, but with Matt’s trip from Piccadilly already running 20 minutes late due to an “incident” at Stockport (it’s always Stockport, isn’t it ?), that hardly mattered.

He was just back from 34 degrees heat near Nantes, pleased to be back to real ale and real weather, and although Chorley does small pubs well I was pleased to be back in a Proper Pub big enough to hold all human life, and Chorley’s too, buzzing with aimless chat.

I wondered why I hadn’t warmed to this on my “ticking visit”, early 2010s I guess, and it’s possible the beer now was better than I remember back then. A chewy Bank Top mild (3+) and Nelson Pale (no idea whose but 3.5) were doing a sterling job to maintain the quality of cask as Summer arrived.

Lacings never lie, as someone who knows about these things once said.

Matt’s train from Piccadilly finally arrived, a mere 22 minutes late. He could buy 3 cans of DAB if he applies for a refund.

Sadly, it didn’t look as if the train was going to complete its journey to Blackpool, but that may be for the best.