November 2024. Bath.
These blog post titles could do with a BRAPA edit; staying in Waterbeach both expands your gut and rots your brain.
Nearly at the end of our Bath trail,
let’s see what six pints in five hours due to the mental state of Pub Men and Women.
Mrs RM had finally made it down from Sheffield that morning, stopped in the Park and Ride, and hot footed it to the Bell.
where she’d now set up camp, pint of Bristol Beer Factory in hand, the classic pose.
Rather overshadowed by the Star round the corner, but you’d never miss out the Bell, Bath’s equivalent of the Live and Let Live in Cambridge or Gardeners Arms in Sheffield.
Cosy, friendly, a real local and shrine to BBB.
BBB on all my recent visits has meant Boring Black Brew, as I used the Bell for a mid-pints Americano. Not as potent today, but only £1.80 so no complaints.
This time Kentish Paul had been fed and watered so was staying the course,
dutifully typing in Untappd scores, or checking the route back to Bath Spa station.
Half a dozen in when we arrived, filling up rapidly when we left, by which time I’d split a pint of Summer Lightning with Mrs RM.
“That’s good !” says Mrs RM. I’d had better (NBSS 3).
The Bell feels the sort of place where your soundtrack is the Levellers or Low, but instead you get Sade;
seemingly on repeat. Could be worse, last time one bloke had a “This Charming Man” ringtone.
Mrs RM asked, for the 5th time, what time our free cheese and wine at the Z hotel was on, and decided we’d race ahead to our final pub and let the Pauls finish their pints of Otter at leisure.
A woman with a night of free cheese and wine ahead of her is a woman untamed (Proverbs II.vi).
retiredmartin 
Did the Pauls like the Bell? Don’t make us wait for PB’s post.
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I guess so. Comfortable and pubby and decent unfussy beer.
I took almost no notes ?
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Yes, with my first pint of Palmers for years, and I rarely fault a pub with Belgian Bar Billiards.
Inevitably a disappointment after the Star though.
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Hi Dave, this was my second visit to the Bell, and it ticked all the right boxes, on both occasions.
Currently working on report for pubs 1-3, and have just finished, metaphorically speaking, the famous pies, at the Raven.
Domestic duties have been limiting keyboard time, with a long overdue repaint of the kitchen, plus the fitting of a new window blind, continuing to cause delays on the blog front. I even, rather shamefully missed the launch of this season’s Porter, from local brewing legends, Larkin’s, on Thursday evening!
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Quite an effort to finish those pies, Paul !
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And then you found the mashed potato.
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