retiredmartin

May 2025. Batumi. Georgia.

More random Top Tips for all you aspiring pub bloggers hoping to be the next Retired Martin, BRAPA or Pubmeister.

DON’T accept the sponsorship deal with Pipers, they never pay up. AVOID all references to modern music; your audience hates your music choices. ALWAYS include the name of the pub you’re talking about, your readers can’t read the name on the pub sign. NEVER write about your foreign holidays. Your reputation is based on bitter in Bridlington, not baked goods in Batumi.

But most importantly, be true to yourself, and as this is a diary of Retired Martin’s exciting life I will drag you kicking and screaming across Georgia on a train, just like Gladys and Dean in 1972.

Foreign blog posts aren’t popular on release, but seem to have a long life; I’m still referring back to Ron Pattinson’s Cologne pub write-ups a decade later.

And I find myself scouring Duncan’s guide to Batumi (pop. 186,000) as we start a hour rail trip across the middle of Georgia that ends in pitch black just before midnight at our £12.50 a night BST guest house.

Batumi‘s seafront looks more impressive 12 hours later, though a reputation as the “Las Vegas of the Black Sea” is a little far-fetched, despite the casino and high rise hotels.

£12.50 a night buys you a well-equipped apartment near a passenger station that’s a couple of miles north of town, so you can either annoy Mrs RM by walking in the heat through suburbs dotted with washing lines and golden statues of Stalin (?),

or take a £1.60 uber that drops you in an Old Town where the first thing you see is the HofBrau pub.

Now I’d be the first to criticise you if you visited Georgia and ate schnitzel in a German pub,

but it somehow feels as much part of the cultural experience as a Wetherspoons in Bognor Regis,

and I get to watch a re-run of Manchester United in meltdown, which is nice.

To be clear, Batumi isn’t Bognor, it’s more Brighton without the Harvey’s, packed with graceful architecture,

and some rather weird hotels.

The pebbly beach isn’t all that, but you do get those Turkish ice cream vendors who do magic tricks with your vanilla glace.

Your best bet for views is to take the elevator up the Alphabetic tower for an Icy beer (top),

and then admire the gracious intertwining of Ali and Nino below.

A day will do you here, with your inevitable craft beer fix at Hop Hut, where you really could be in Brighton or Brum or Byker.

Note my check-ins at the bottom. What joy it is to see your name and emoji pop up on a foreign craft beer bar display.