March 2025. Cambridge.
Mrs RM was still (still) getting ready to leave the Travelodge for our night out in Cambridge as I left the Alex,
which meant I’d have to find somewhere new to wait for her, I suppose.
A fourth visit to the “new” Kingston Arms since it put the Bass on,
and again I have to admit to some conflicting emotions on this.
It is, without doubt, a MUST on any half dozen pubs in Cambridge crawl, having reclaimed that lived-in feel it had before a disastrous gastro phase,
and with the sort of attention-grabbing breweriana that can sometimes look overdone.
But this is perfectly judged, here recalling a time in CAMRA history I may well have mentioned lately.
There a good flow of custom late on Sunday afternoon, groups and solo drinkers,
some likeable Scousers all deep in conversation with Landlord Mark on subjects ranging from the Wirral, City’s net spend and beer. “Where’s Grimsby ?” asks a Scouser.
And topped off by a soundtrack of “Pretty in Pink” and this rarely heard wonder,
Which all sounds marvellous, and it is, but that Bass (in unbranded glass) is still perplexing. Better on the second pint (NBSS 3+) than the first (NBSS 3-), but you’re never switching from the Moonshine cider or, dare I say it, the Side Pocket for a Toad.
Bass needs its triangle. It could be the glass,
“and it could be me, and it could be thee, and it could be the sting in the ale.
The sting in the ale“.
retiredmartin 
Cricketer is one of my favourite songs of all time. Never tire of it. If I heard it in a pub I would certainly stay for another pint.
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FACT: David Bedford, who wrote the brass band arrangement for Cricketer, used to live round the back from me when I lived in Bristol. Only found out after he died.
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Didn’t you hear his brass band from your house ?
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I only know it from John Peel’s playing of it and its link to his marvellous producer John Walters.
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It were t’Grimethorpe Colliery Band so a bit far away to be heard from leafy Henleaze.
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Quality. A pub where one visit is not enough. I had a disappointing pint of Bass in February in the Hand and Shears, by the way.
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I don’t remember a good pint in the Hand & Shears, either!
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“a MUST on any half dozen pubs in Cambridge crawl” but somehow missing from my eight pubs with two nights in Cambridge last September.
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That’s surprising, though it had fallen far from grace for a good decade before reopening a couple of years back.
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I am having a Bass in the Kingston at this very moment, and it is not right. Doesn’t smell right, doesn’t taste right, and is borderline fizzy on the tongue. Yet I wouldn’t call it off. Unbranded glass. Very odd, and disappointing.
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Yes, that’s what I’ve said every time I’ve been in. Tastes a bit…rough, and beer too warm even before the heatwave A shame, because I think it’s a classic conversational pub.
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