October 2024. Ripley.
From Derbyshire, to Nottinghamshire, and back to Derbys, like Brian Clough poaching players in the ’70s.
Our map covers some of the least compelling towns, but best countryside and pubs in the country;
The Rainbow One takes you from Eastwood to Ripley in comfort and with a phone charging outlet, which is something Cloughie didn’t need to worry about in 1977.
“Our next stop in Derby Road, just a short walk to Morrisons… That’s us, duck. Quack quack“.
Honestly, that was the announcement.
The bus gets to Heanor, sees a road closure sign, and has to head all the way back to Langley Mill to divert to Ripley, a town dominated by its ornate Spoons.
It’s full and manic, suppering my ambition for a Katsu curry, so I have a choice I contemplate while admiring the view to the A38 and the sewerage works.
You see, there IS a new entry in the Guide for Remarkable Ripley, but What Pub says “Groovers Arms (formerly Beehive Inn/Honeypot)“, and I did the Beehive, so technically I don’t have to do Groovers, and it’s not open for another hour and I want to be home with Mrs RM.
So I do a classic revisit.
The Talbot is a classic wedge pub, though you’d only appreciate that from the photo on the wall.
The classic boozers of small-town Derbyshire get a lot less attention than similar pubs in the cities (see also : Dead Poets, Holly Bush, Dew Drop Inn) and I guess it’s a lot easier to visit ale shrines in Sheffield and Derby.
But the Talbot is a must visit,
with a beer range as “exciting” (ugh) as anything in Nottingham.
Beware, the Burton keg is (checks notes) keg.
Wish I kept extensive notes of what beer I drank when, how much it cost, and how many visits to the Gents it produced like proper Pub Men, but I bet 15 years ago it wasn’t as murky as this Farm Yard gem (NBSS 4).
Starving by now, I asked about cobs, forgetting they’re called baps or rolls down here.
But I succumbed instead to the Punters Pie, a quite astonishingly meaty chunk,
which I suspect was intended as a sharing platter for the table of four that make up the Talbot’s rumbustious custom.
Reader, I share my pie with no-one.
retiredmartin 
That Red Lion frontage is mightily impressive…Ripley is, apparently, the centre of Derbyshire, which is why many things are based there even though most people are south …boring but true fact!
LikeLike