December 2024. Rye.
Yes, Rye does have another pre-noon opener for the desperate adventurous pub man,
though you might not even notice The Crown if not for the twin flags, promise of Sky Sports,
and window sticker advertising Old Speckled Hen.
OK, it’s not Rother Valley or even Harvey’s, but if you can only justify one cask in your sports bar I’d say OSH is a safe bet.
Not as safe as Guinness, of course, and I decide that since this is now (apparently) the UK’s hardest to find beer I’ll get a pint for Mrs RM, as well as pickled onions Taytos. A good Guinness, by English standards.
There’s three (3) things to say about the Crown.
It’s very friendly, and the trio of early drinkers at the bar are Rye’s cheeriest.
My notes say simply “saliva”. IDK.
And that Speckled Hen I approach so apprehensively turns out to be a cool, chewy, gem, with the bite of a good pint of Broadside (3.5).
I wasn’t expecting that, and neither were you.
retiredmartin 
“the UK’s hardest to find beer” is no longer Humphrey’s Yorkshire Stingo or Bathams XXX then ?
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Stingo spotted at the Old Cheshire Cheese in London last week.
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Thanks. I’ve been checking Untappd for check-ins as still hoping to get up there this week. And yes, all bottles except one check in at the Cheshire Cheese, yesterday.
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I had Stingo from a can last week. How different is the canned version from the cask version?
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Sam Smiths, from a can ? I think the stronger the beer the less the difference, but don’t tell Stafford Paul I said that.
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Dave,
I’ve drunk neither but think cans might be even more of an abomination than bottles.
It has to be cask or wait another five years until it’s in cask again.
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Well, Google Translate does say that the Latin for Tram Shed is Tram Shed.
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Told you it was Latin. It’s like Henry VIII went to all that fuss in 1532 to get shot of Latin for nothing.
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Andy,
That reminds me that the German for “my brown shoe” is “mein brauner schuh” which is exactly the same in a noisy pub.
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In which pub did this conversation take place (in German), Paul ? I’m guessing The Vine.
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Coincidently, I was in Stafford’s Vine today for the Banks’s and had a brief conversation there with Mark from the Railway.
But no, I don’t know which one as all noisy pubs sound exactly the same to me, and I could almost agree with Mrs SP who keeps telling me that I need to get my hearing tested.
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Selective deafness is the thing to aim for, Paul.
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Yes, but it doesn’t seem to work for the festive music in some pubs.
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