22/10/21 - Using the Good Beer Guide to find the best pubs in Nottingham

Pubs - 8 (over two days)

Good Beer Guide Ticks - #597 - #601

A first visit to Nottingham since I started blogging.  I'll put my faith in the bible to find the best locations to get a pint, perhaps a little surprised that some of the classics - the Bell, The Salutation and the Trip - are not contained within.   You cannot accuse Camra of playing to the crowd.

Off the train and exactly an hour to find food, a pint, get checked into Lenny's gaff and take my seat for Fake Kate Bush at the Playhouse.

VAT and Fiddle over the road from the station meets the first two requirements.

VAT and Fiddle, Queens Bridge Road, Castle Rock Harvest Pale

Tap House

Traditional pub and tap house for the Castle Rock brewery.  Through the door and take stock of my surroundings.  After work pints for those who cannot WFH.  A long bar festooned with all of Castle Rock's wares.  Like the man who enters a chip shop and stairs at the overhead menu for an age before requesting "Fish and Chips", I eventually decide on their signature brew, a Harvest Pale.

Perfect.  Lasagne for £8.  I have made a good choice for an opener.

Award Winning

Barrel Drop, 7 Hurts Yard, Kernal Pale Ale Mosiac Sabro

The rest of Friday was singing along to Never for Ever whilst drinking bottles of Magpie and going to one of the few traditional pubs open after 11pm, Ye Olde Salutation.  How this isn't in the bible, I will never know.  The Ghost Ship was one of the best pints found.  For entertainment options - can you beat a room full of students, hard drinking pensioners and hard men with skull tattoos instead of hair, whilst listening to the stomping on the beamed roof from an upstairs karaoke bar?  Probably not, until you wonder how strong the temporary support struts holding the building together really are.  

So having found my pick of the Nottingham pubs early, I start again the night after.  Without the bible to guide me, I doubt I would have found the Barrel Drop - a tiny micro down an even tinier alley.

There you are....

Kernel beers constantly get rave reviews.  After a study of the mandatory chalk board, I see they have one on - a 5.2% sessionable pale ale.  Order a pint and have it explained to me that the prices on the board are for 2/3rds.   This isn't what Brexiteers were promised, surely.

The beer looked ropey on dispense.  The server's eyes met mine, as she dared me to complain.  I didn't but I should have trusted my instincts for they don't tell lies.  On leaving, the Kernel had been furiously scrubbed off the board.

Water going down better than Kernel

Fox and Grapes, Southwell Road, Jaipur

Couldn't resist popping into the Bell and also was intrigued by the Six Barrel Drafthouse that I had noticed in the day, whilst completing an Adventure Lab Cache.  The former, an ancient, multi roomed city centre boozer that wears its history well.  The latter is what I believe is called a "pre-emptive tick".  We will see if it is in the delayed GBG 2022.  I know a place that could be substituted for it.  Delirium Tremens at £4 a bottle gets my vote.

Fortified for a walk to the sketchier part of town, I find the Fox and Grapes - another Castle Rock house.  Free standing on a junction of roads, with plenty of indoor and outdoor space.  A little food servery, 13 hand pulls and an interesting collection of whiskies that are stacked at a height that probably requires a health and safety certificate before dispense.

Handsome Castle Rock

Didn't get past the Jaipur on Cask.  It was excellent

The King William IV 6 Eyre Street, Oakham Citra

Just over the road but nowhere near as impressive is what is labelled as the King Billy.  The bible provides it with a glowing reference but maybe I picked it on a bad night.  

Took an age to snap when the pedestrian light was on.

Look at my Oakham Citra - normally a quality drink.  Look at it perched on your nan's dining room table.  What's the first thing you would say?  Probably, barmats.  What's the second thing you would say? Where's the lacing in the Lace Market?

Entertainment options, recreating the Olympic Ring

Newshouse, Canal Street, Burton Bridge Stairway to Heaven

Where the news headlines were read to Nottingham's illiterate

Two roomed traditional pub, with some fine external black tiling.  To the right is the pool room, which looked a bit hectic.  The demographic closer to the plague carrying teenagers than I was prepared to risk.  

To the left a more sedate lounge, populated by old boys reading papers.  

The place reminded me of a Black Country Ales pub - prevalent in my native West Midlands.  Keepers of all things traditional.

We are the Mods.  We are the Ice Hockey-ers.

The walk back to Lenny's Purple Palace took me past the Sally.  I couldn't say no.

Its still the best pub in Nottingham.