retiredmartin

October 2024. South Yorkshire.

For a second week in a row I get to be DES to one of the pub ticking legends around Greater Rotherham’s rich collection of new Guide entries.

While “pints only” BRAPA‘s initial target was a conservative half dozen, “strictly halves unless it’s Doom Bar” Ian aka Alfie had loftier ambitions;

I didn’t think I could manage driving to all 28, so settled on a plan to help Ian conquer Greater Rotherham and Sheffield.

Mrs RM chose that morning to demand I put this tracker in my wallet so she know where I am;

if a man asked a woman to do Mumsnet would tell her to LTB.

Ian had some technology to sort first up as well, and just as the longest journey (technically, Cambridge to Milton Keynes) starts with a single step, so our day of pubs starts at the EE store at Rotherham Parkgate getting a new SIM card, which means nothing to me (Vienna). There’s a family diner across the road with Greene King IPA on, but Ian doesn’t take up my proposal of a pre-emptive tick. It’ll be in GBG26, you see.

Having done this route twice already since GBG25 landed (ugh) I’m less interested in the pubs than interrogating Ian on his astonishing international travels. All World Cups since 1966 (his favourite) and to every country participating in the Eurovision Song Contest.

But he’s still excited at Sitwell Park Golf Course, no wake this week,

and immediately sees why the Wilton appeals to Simon and I.

He’s in and out of the pubs in 15 minutes, so I leave him to it and get a leg stretch at regular intervals instead of joining him and drinking so much Diet Coke I need to keep diverting for wee stops.

Like myself, Simon has little interest in the beer itself. I’d rather drink Doom Bar in a hundred different pubs than a hundred different beers in one. (NOT on the same day, silly, only Maltmeister would do that). Other tickers keep meticulous lists of beers they’ve drunk over the decades, scouring the bar for new ones.

Back home, I park up and Ian orders an Uber to the three (3) central Sheffield newbies. Mrs RM, saved from a half hour uphill walk, likes Ian.

I hadn’t decided whether I liked Perch Brewhouse, a 2021 opening in the Chinese quarter with refectory seating and slow-moving if enthusiastic homebrew.

I was surprised to say the least to see it debut in GBG24, but tonight it really sparkled. Not just the startlingly good Jet Stout (3.5+), but a cultural melting pot to quote the cliché.

Absolutely packed, and a barbecue arranged for a private function in the courtyard gave us their leftover pork baps, which always adds 0.5 to the NBSS scores.

Ian was still munching those baps on the way to the Grapes, where we took the last table in a pub full of students and a bloke wearing a West Ham ’66 shirt.

Again, the Acorn Barnsley is good enough, but I should have followed Mrs RM on the Guinness.

Another surprising new Sheffield entry, I really should go to my local CAMRA meeting in the Spring to find out what’s going in the next Guide, but then I might be coerced to help at a beer festival or worse.

The Old Shoe, our last tick of the trio is virtually a beer festival all by itself.

This is where Ian’s strategy of taking it easy pays dividends, while Mrs RM and I suddenly realise that 3 pints in an hour and a 10% Imperial Stout is a bad idea, right.

We leave Ian to forage for a ticket to Half Man Half Biscuit at the Leadmill, and head home.