retiredmartin

September 2026. Shireoaks. Notts.

The new Good Beer Guide has dropped (ugh); it would have been poetic to blame my injury on the descent of this massive brick of a book (forgot to mention that last post),

but it arrived while I was in Dewsbury and flattened Mrs RM instead.

Having made every effort to limit the walk to and from the football (even took the metro to Piccadilly) the only sensible option was to get home and rest.

But “sensible” isn’t a criticism often directed at me, and when the internet returned somewhere near Dore I started planning a “cheeky” (ugh) pint at a closest GBG new entry,

That’s Shireoaks (pop 1,774), another mining village, this one just inside the Notts border next to Worksop.

There’s a lot going on in that OS extract apart from the colliery turned into a gorgeous country park.

Moses’ Seat, Rhodesia, a Ryder Cup venue, and an industrial estate with a Beer Guide debutant.

I’m ambivalent about industrial estate brewery taps. They fill an essential role in underpubbed towns and keep the mobile food truck trade alive, but are never going to trouble the heritage pubs register.

I really don’t know what to say. What is there to say about Ticking Clock ?

OK, it’s great to see a community getting together to support independent businesses. The beer was very tasty, though in retrospect I should have tried the cask, as “Can’t Hardly Wait” was a teeny bit too carbonated.

But it does give me an excuse to play The Replacements,

as if any excuse is necessary.