retiredmartin

September 2026. Barnsley.

If put on the spot and asked to pick ONE (1) Barnsley pub, it would have been the Old No.7,

Acorn’s flagship and the best place to drink the revived Barnsley Bitter.

Not any more. Sold to Valiant in 2023, it still feels a cask pub, but today there’s a Tap Takeover (ugh) by West Yorkshire’s Vocation.

And that feels sort of wrong.

But the landlady is charm itself (“There ya go darlin“), and offers me a collector’s card I’m duty bound to take, and then instantly lose. It’ll turn up in the wash.

Note the AI slop to the right of the Pride & Joy. Who will speak up for the AI slop*, heh ?

A long, thin drinkers pub, the sort you get in Newport (not Essex) or Glasgow, and quickly filling up at noon opening. I headed to the big window.

It’s a rich and chewy pint, NBSS 3.75 in old money, VERY GOOD in woke CAMRA scoring. A pub in safe hands, I reckon.

I hadn’t been since 2017, when I noted;

“like all great “Proper Pubs“, the Old No. 7 was playing “Gold” by Spandau Ballet.  Some things never change in Barnsley.”

Well, this Thursday lunchtime you got “Get Up Offa That Thing“, “Boogie Nights“, and this one;

And if you can leave a pub before the last verse of “Valerie” you’ve a harder heart than me.

*_Me