retiredmartin

December 2025. Cambridge.

I barely spent an hour at the Mill Road Winter Fair, enough for a couple of pubs, a couple of carols (is “Get Lucky” a carol ?), an ounce of regret I’d already had lunch (Tesco Meal Deal) and was meeting Curry Charles later for, er, curry as I surveyed dozens of food carts.

Onward to the packed streets of Gwydir Street, lined with mobility scooters pushchairs.

I’ve never seen so many young children in pubs, isn’t it great ?

A particular beneficiary was the Cambridge Blue,

drawing in the toddlers with the promise of flat Bass Father Christmas and his reindeers.

OIder punters were perhaps more impressed by Tally Ho,

but I’m a man impressed by “Staff Favourite”, “Legendary” dishes, and Brian J from Rhode Island, which I assume is a suburb of Waterbeach.

I like a man who declares “This, this is what a bitter should be” and scores it 5 on Untappd (not CAMRA, scoring a 5 on CAMRA carries a lifetime expulsion).

Well, Brian (and the lovely lady behind the bar who said “That’s great”) is right. Squadron Scramble is a daft name for a beer, even for a brewery whose flagship is “Side Pocket For A Toad“.

Apparently “this ale is characterised by a debonair medium light colour and a dare-devil maltiness that compliments a courageous hop aroma from the best Mount Hood hops“. It was gorgeous, the sort of beer the Blue still does best.

Back on Mill Road, the Sally Army band were playing the hits.

How many hits can you name which feature a Salvation Army band ?