September 2024. Rotherham.
Well, I’ve introduced the new GBG, and by coincidence the first pub visited since the new Guide became official (I was BRAPA’s taxi today) is the star of our next post.
Simon loved it this afternoon,
and I’d been impressed last week, even without the “beige” platter.
This year’s newbies in Greater Rotherham are a cross-section of pub life in 2023. Farm yard cafe bar, Spoons, posh golf club, suburban 1 pump boozer, and this Sizzlin‘ family diner.
Every year I read that GBG is now a collection of uncomfortable micros with six varieties of pale beers sold to blokes of retirement age.
But then you get the Homestead, as far from the “CAMRA pub” image as you can go,
a place with exercise bike at the entrance,
something to upset the “Christmas in September !” brigade,
a “Mr and Mrs Quiz” (glad my own Mrs stayed home, I don’t even know what colour her hair is),
and a lone handpump.
Last week Jaipur, today it was Old Peculiar, they like their beer strong in Rotherham
“Going well, that one” says a gem of a barmaid.
I look at that £2.45 Cask Club sign, guess a pint will be under a fiver and get a mass handful of change back as it’s £5.15. The barmaid sympathises with the change, if not the price. “The worst is Strongbow, that’s £4.05“.
It’s a gorgeous pint though, cool and rich (NBSS 3.5), the sort of Jaipur that made Ember Inns such a draw 15 years ago.
The trade is a bloke in the smoking shelter on Stella, a few Old Boys watching racing from Pontefract, and the last knockings of the late lunch brigade.
A table of gentlefolk mildly argue the merits of the Mixed Skewer V the “Chicky Tikka” V Sticky Ribs, and the Sticky Ribs win, as they must. I can hear and smell those ribs as they emerge from the kitchen.
It must be nice being retired and getting to eat out in Rotherham, I decide.
retiredmartin 