My first post from Hitchin met with some kickback by other people who couldn’t get away from it quick enough. So I’m back, bringing you more reports from the cutting-edge of craft beer. In some towns (Stockport, probably) there’d be a hipster with a microbrewery under every one of those canvases in the market square.… Continue reading HITCHIN CRAFT UNION CONSPIRACY SPECIAL
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“You went all the way to Whitby and all you brought me back was an empty chip box !”
Oh, and some pictures of micropubs. One of them is in the railway station; it took me AGES to find it. Whitby was heaving on Sunday. “The busiest place I’ve seen since St Ives at Easter or York’s Shambles” I wrote in 2016, and it still holds. Perhaps Andover will acquire such heights of popularity now BRAPA… Continue reading “You went all the way to Whitby and all you brought me back was an empty chip box !”
SCARBOROUGH FAIR
On to Scarborough, with my Malton tick closed (half of Malton looks closed on WhatPub). The sun had made a brave effort to join me on the east coast, but with ever-present clouds I was glad that Wilson’s, renamed for the star of Tom Hanks’ Castaway, was so close to the station. On my annual… Continue reading SCARBOROUGH FAIR
“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”. MASK FAILURES IN YORK
York, Scarborough, Whitby, A trio of really obscure places for you to finish North Yorkshire. On the route into York I thought I spotted BRAPA being escorted back home after his triumphant tickathon in Hampshire, but it was just a delivery of fancy goods. Here’s a nice Sam Smiths pubs for you, they really are… Continue reading “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”. MASK FAILURES IN YORK
TOP 10 COUNTIES – No. 8 – DURHAM
Oooh, clickbait Bass. Is a pint of banked Bass REALLY the best visual representation for County Durham (not to be confused with Durham the City or Adrian of Talksport infamy) ? Stockton-on-Tees, home to the Sun’s famed bankers, doesn’t even appear on the Bing Map for the county. But it does appear in the Good… Continue reading TOP 10 COUNTIES – No. 8 – DURHAM
“THE BASS IS DRINKING WELL”
Here’s how to get my attention; Well done, Hare & Hounds. Only back from the dead two months as a village-owned pubs and you’ve already got THREE posts out of me. Last month you tempted me back with a promise of Bass but it had sold out in two days to a pub full of… Continue reading “THE BASS IS DRINKING WELL”
TOP 10 COUNTIES – No. 9 – NORTH-WEST WALES
Only number 9 ? Wait and see what’s Number 1. My completely unscientific chart goes foreign. Technically, I think I can drive the 200 miles into Conwy, Gwynedd and Anglesey for a half, but if I stop near Wrexham for a comfort break I’m arrested and put to work in the Bass mirror factory at… Continue reading TOP 10 COUNTIES – No. 9 – NORTH-WEST WALES
HITCHIN, HURTS
More local pubbing. Well, Hitchin is only an area away, next door to where I drop James off for his driving lessons. Covid-19 has just cancelled his driving test, AGAIN; perhaps they’ll give him a licence anyway if it happens a 3rd time and he can drive me to a pub. We lived here for… Continue reading HITCHIN, HURTS
TOP 10 COUNTIES – No.10 – STAFFORDSHIRE
Well, I teased you with a promise of my favourite GBG counties, offered a great prize, and then failed to tell you what they were. Baa Baa Toure gave me a disapproving look at my lazy blogging. OK, let’s start with Staffordshire, in at a respectable 10th for a landlocked county without a standout Chinese… Continue reading TOP 10 COUNTIES – No.10 – STAFFORDSHIRE
A PROPER HEAD ON THE BEER IN THE SUN
204 pub visits since pubs returned, but only half of those were new GBG ticks. Which is what we call deeply unprofessional in GBG Ticker Land. SEVEN trips to my nearest pub, the inimitable Sun. Well, it is imitable; the Three Horseshoes in Ecton that BRAPA just raved about is pretty much a carbon copy.… Continue reading A PROPER HEAD ON THE BEER IN THE SUN
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