August 2026. Newport. Gwent.
My last visit to Newport resulted in a post called “Well, could YOU walk past the Murenger“, and though I rarely seem to visit Sam Smiths pubs these days you should never take that pint of cask OBB for granted.
In and out of the Beer Guide, and often looking in need of a bit more trade, the Murenger was (relatively) thriving on Saturday night.
What difference has the sad death of Humphrey made to the Sam Smiths estate ?
Not a lot, it’s gorgeous as ever, though £4.30 my pint of cask seemed a bit steep; sure it was £2 last time.
Mr Smith would have wanted me to talk to strangers, so I took a table, eavesdropped on the conversation 2 yards away, pretended to read a random book, and waited to pounce. Someone should write a thesis about the difficulties on interrupting two random strangers conversation in the name of “pub culture”.
“Have you noticed any change in the Murenger since Humphrey died ?“.
And that’s how it started, me interrogating them on the virtues of Sam Smiths pubs and the ups and downs of Newport nightlife and a load of other great stuff that I can’t tell you because NO PHONES IN THE PUB!
That OBB was cool and rich, though, shame I couldn’t score it and get it back in the GBG.
retiredmartin 
Cool and rich. That’s what so many young ladies seem to search these days, as my sons bemoan.
As for OBB I’m on Pedigree just now and reassured that it still tastes much as I remember fifty years ago.
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I’d always go for the Extra Stout in there.
If I was still drinking ..
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Why has nobody opened a pub called “The Olde Mudgies”?
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Maybe Scott because many thousands of other pub names are available.
I keep meaning to get in that Murenger and would have done five months ago on my way to Carmarthen had I not spent all afternoon in Swansea.
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I suppose that a murenger is to a mur what a scavenger is to a scav.
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