retiredmartin

May 2026. Sheffield.

While I was in zen mode back in 2022, focused only on completing the Beer Guide before family disaster/pandemic/ash cloud struck again, I’d have got irritated with anyone wanting to pop over to Sheffield to spend a Saturday revisiting good pubs.

But now I’m delighted to entertain visitors, as long as they give Mrs RM 3 weeks notice in writing via our butler if they want to inspect RM Towers.

Fellow ticker Jim B (B for Beer, I guess) was visiting from the posh bit of Oldham, and it was just like those Good Ol’ Days of Autumn 2024 as I picked up from the New York Tavern, Rotherham’s second-best pub.

Usual plan, compare travel plans, get lost in West Sheffield, drop Jim off for his quick halves at the Itchy Pig in Banner Cross and the Greystones,

then park the car and run up the hill to meet him at the Hallamshire House.

Google Maps says 21 minutes,

but I find you can knock 9 minutes off that by jogging up Carr Street and shortening your life by 9 months.

I thought Jim might have moved on by the time I reached this Thornbridge gem, but he was still discussing that Daisy + Doris Saison with a couple of locals.

I then made Jim walk UP Blake Street to the Blake, which amazingly he’d never done before.

I was holding on to the handrail as Jim bounded up to the Blake, about which I can tell you little more than you’ll aready know, and so round the corner and up Palm Tree to the Raven.

I’d only had a pint, but that photo looks incredibly fuzzy, a bit like the Stroopwafel pastry stout.

See ! Two halves ! What happened to pints ?

Stupidly, I then told Jim about the merits of Walkley Beer Co up the hill (everything in Sheffield is UP the hill),

before finally, finally, getting a downward stroll to the last pub on Jim’s list.

All the pubs that Saturday were ticking over; the Blind Monkey was full. Until the Arsenal v PSG came on the telly, when everyone left, to avoid the dreary French team, no doubt.

Mrs RM turned up to discuss Balkan and Caucasian travel with Jim, who I sort of sensed was past that level of Spanish inquisition by now.

Yes, that is from the Blind Monkey’s pub reading selection.