Keep reading, the Bass badges are coming up soon. The good thing about these Beer & Pub Forum crawls is that, unlike the Japanese tourists visiting the city, you can dip in and out of our tours without getting told off ! Mrs RM and I dodged the standard menu in the Chequers in… Continue reading OXFORD – COVERED MARKET TO CASTLE
Author: retiredmartin
Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.
OXFORD CHEQUERS – A PURE PEDIGREE
Pub No.2 for the Taylors and the Tim was the Chequers, one of only a few real Oxford classics (in my humble opinion). Look, it even says “Historic Pub” on the door ! With cobbled courtyard, breweriana and proper pub sign, the Chequers was an instant highlight (again). Mrs RM was reminded of the… Continue reading OXFORD CHEQUERS – A PURE PEDIGREE
OXFORD ’18 – CURLING
You’ll be delighted to hear the blog is up-to-date, bar yesterday’s crawl round Oxford. Eight pubs and eighty photos in Oxford, so no doubt that’ll be eight short posts to dribble out over the next 3 days. No new GBG ticks, which will horrify the Pubmeister, but sometimes you have to visit pubs for pleasure… Continue reading OXFORD ’18 – CURLING
LIKE A NIGHT OUT IN SHEFFIELD
You Fill Up My Senses, Like A Gallon Of Magnet, Like A Packet Of Woodbines, Like A Good Pinch Of Snuff, Like A Night Out In Sheffield, Like A Greasy Chip Butty, Like Sheffield United, Come Fill Me Again, Na Na Na Na Na…OOOOHH! SOURCE: Sean Bean, probably Up to Sheffield on Thursday night to… Continue reading LIKE A NIGHT OUT IN SHEFFIELD
BLACK SHEEP WINS BATTLE OF CUTTHORPE
Chesterfield is one of our great pub towns, but the hills to the west have been strangely bereft of GBG pubs over the years. The Gate is your archetypal traditional rural pub, and a pleasure to have in the Guide. Just when you’re thinking GBG status is all about sticking a homebrew pump on the… Continue reading BLACK SHEEP WINS BATTLE OF CUTTHORPE
MATLOCK SPOONS PERSISTS WITH THE OLD-SCHOOL COFFEE MACHINE
I knew we should have gone in Matlock‘s Spoons when we walked past last year on a glorious Summer day. Perhaps we did go in. Google maps might know. But Matlock is always worth a return trip, even if the M&S Food Hall makes you unreasonably irate by not recognising anything as part of… Continue reading MATLOCK SPOONS PERSISTS WITH THE OLD-SCHOOL COFFEE MACHINE
SCRATCHING A BASS ITCH IN CRICH
This post title only works if the locals really do pronounce it CRY-ch, of course. Crich is the first place out of Derby or Nottingham where you’re really aware of the Peak. Their transport Museum makes a useful place to entertain toddlers who are young enough to be fobbed off with brightly coloured trams,… Continue reading SCRATCHING A BASS ITCH IN CRICH
MINCE & DUMPLINGS, NOT MIGNON MORCEAUX IN MEDOMSLEY
Contrary to popular belief, Tipton pork scratchings aren’t the ultimate snack. That would have been Mignons Morceaux, the flagship product of Phileas Fogg until United Biscuits ruined the brand. In memory of the great MM, I walked the Medomsley Road* to the Royal Oak, slightly disappointed not to meet guys on street corners selling boxes… Continue reading MINCE & DUMPLINGS, NOT MIGNON MORCEAUX IN MEDOMSLEY
DIPTON MILL – DIPPING INTO HEXHAMSHIRE
Once a blog post is at least two years old you have free licence to use the same material again, confident your readers (and yourself) will have long forgotten it. And you can’t yet plagiarise your own work. Into ancient Hexhamshire. According to Wiki, now a name for a civil parish of 797 people,… Continue reading DIPTON MILL – DIPPING INTO HEXHAMSHIRE
YOU CAN’T HURRY KELSO
You left us in Rutherfords, contemplating whether to start a game of skittles and just work through the beers/gins. But drinking on an empty stomach remains a daft notion, even in Scotland, and we set off over the cobbles for Cobbles. Or “Cobbles Freehouse & Dining“, just to emphasise that we were going to get… Continue reading YOU CAN’T HURRY KELSO
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