retiredmartin

June 2025. Bridlington.

My penultimate East Yorkshire GBG pub (not many new entries here in honesty) hasn’t had rave reviews from the ticking community, but often that reflects lack of “exciting beers” (ugh) rather than pubbiness.

So I was in a state of high excitement approaching the Brunswick Hotel,

particularly in light of a claim on Discourse that an unnamed Bridlington pub had made the GBG with an average NBSS of 2.5. Could this be it ?

If the Brunswick was made from a kit it would be “1980s residential seaside drinkers pub”. Blackpool Jane will be familiar with the model; the Thwaite’s Empress springs to mind.

I enter to the left to the sound of Irene Cara,

hear laughter in the right-hand (almost identical) bar and move there, only for the barmaid to pour the Wold Top from the pumps to the left.

The strongest Wold Top had the best scores on Untappd, so Scarborough Fair it was. And it was sensational; cool, crisp, chewy (NBSS 3.5).

But that’s the beer. Forget that. “Flashdance” gives way to…”Flashdance” again, which stops abruptly and “Under Pressure” starts. The soundtrack never leaves the ’80s.

But that’s the music. Forget that. On the next table our gentlefolk heroes are discussing fall-outs with neighbours, breathlessly, without a pause.

I take many, many, notes, including one about a tattoo of an angel in an intimate place that now looks like a Space Raider that I will never be able to use. One Old Boy asks for a “Double Double Top” which looks scarier than that Cha Cha I had in Georgia.

“John” calls the barmaid Angel, and signals that he’s leaving his Guinness while he walks the lady home.

He never returns. I think about drinking his pint,

but I’m not BRAPA.