February 2025. Chapeltown. Sheffield.
Back in Sheffield for 5 nights, the longest stretches at “home” in a year, Mrs RM did the fluffy jobs (boiler, painting, Instagram updates) while I manfully sought to bolster my waining vault of blog material.
On the Saturday I joined a scrum at Sheffield Station to board a train to Leeds, from which I’d launch a ticking assault on Otley or Riddlesden or Wetherby.
But despite staff using electrified cattle prods, they couldn’t fit everyone on the Cross Country service, and frankly I’m sick of being squashed. Something closer ?
So, having not yet pressed “PAY”, I jumped platforms and boarded a train to Berry Brow.
I have so many questions.
How come ALL trains north of Rugby are packed but down south they’re often empty ?
Why does that service stop a mile north of Huddersfield ?
Why are the carriages so cold and grim?
And finally, has anyone explored Chapeltown before ?
One of suburban Sheffields few rail stops, home of the Arctic Monkeys, subject to violent territorial skirmishes between Sheff and Rotherham CAMRA branches in the 1540s.
What can I say ? The flat roof social clubs tell a tale,
and the market under the arches promises German beer it can’t deliver. Not at 10:30am, anyway.
Nothing new in Chapeltown, just an old favourite returned to the GBG after an inexplicable gap, and a solid Wetherspoons dominating the place.
At least, it used to be solid, rambling place with mix of old and young. And perhaps if I’d stuck to the knitting,
or Old Peculier,
all would have been well.
But you know me, desperate for a clichéd “Pride drinking well” blog title.
Except it wasn’t. The barman took two goes, topping up two thirds of froth with a half pint of froth, and the end result being a sharp pint in Ruddles glass with those tell tale bubbles. NBSS 2, I reckon.
A bit worse I’d have got Mrs RM to take it back. But she was at home, painting.
retiredmartin 
This post was written and published on the Metropolitan line between Wembley and Rayner’s Lane. And it shows.
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Everyday life, innit.
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I tend to leave the fluffy jobs to Mrs B while I go about the King’s business, sitting at a desk attending to the needs of the indigent poor. Definitely jacking it in this year though.
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You need this again, Martin
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Oh dear.
And my Mudgie post tonight ended with such Pride optimsim.
” Bass appeared on the taps for the first time in three years or so at my local tonight and to say I was expectant as the pint was being poured is an understatement.
Reader, I have to report, it was a tremendous letdown.
Lighter in colour than I ever remember it and with a watery, insipid taste I also didn’t recognise. Where was the rich, malty hit of yesteryear ?
On the NBSS scale it was a bang average 3.0.
For the first time ever drinking Bass I didn’t chance another one and fortunately a very good pint of Rev James restored the ying to my yang.
That just leaves London Pride as the one beer I have regularly drunk since my teens that seems to have retained something like its original USP. If that changes it’ll be like someone telling me John Noakes actually preferred cats to Shep. “
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Fear not. Had two pints of Pride today in Uxbridge, both smooth and gorgeous NBSS 3.5. A minor blip in Stockbridge.
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Who is the Anonymous nonce ?
Professor Pie-Tin
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Could only be you, Prof.
How’s your Frugal February going ?
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You should never be so shy
as to not “try before you buy”.
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A pint’s a taster.
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There is always the chance the pub will continue to pour that beer for potential new Real Ale fans, and it will be enough to put them off for life. The start of a downward spiral.
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More rubbish beer for the rest of us. Win/win.
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“has anyone explored Chapeltown before ?” – not me though I spent a night there in mid-April 1989.
“Pride drinking well” was my experience in London on Wednesday and yesterday lunchtimes. But the OBB was drinking expensively, £6.60 in the Duke of York opposite Victoria railway station – doubled in five years.
Yesterday morning was a rare and very brief visit to a Wetherspoons, tempted in the Dolphin and Anchor by the sight of a Hook Norton Double Stout pumpclip. Payment in advance of course before three of the staff, that many rarely seen at once, agreed it wasn’t on but had no idea why. That meant leaving with my £20 note changed into three fivers and ten coins.
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Were there no pot plants crying out for refreshment?
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In Spoons !!
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