31/10/21 - More Good Beer Guide Ticking in Oxford

Good Beer Guide Ticks - #603 to #605

Proud father alert - if you're not impressed by Son Number #1's new college exterior, you will be by the canteen.

University College

Where he eat his Pickled Onion Monster Munch

I think his Chemistry PHD lasts 4 years, so this will provide plenty of opportunity for Good Beer Ticking in a City last visited four years ago.  

I predicted then that the Bear was the pick of the pubs and this is in the 2021 Guide, providing a bonus retro tick.

We arrange to meet in the Boy's new local, The Chequers.  20% off for Students on a Tuesday.  Its only a matter of time and budgets, before he succumbs to JDW's keen pricing.  He can't keep on paying more than a Lady Godiva for a pint.  I believe that from this week, it would get you 5 in Timbo's gaff.

The Chequers, High Street, Brew York X-Panda 

This takes some seeking out.  Not least, as its down a little alley off the High Street.

My sort of pub...

The real problem was that when I put Chequers into Google Maps, my phone navigated me to St Thomas Street.  There is a launderette that looks suspiciously like an ex-pub but the person living next door could not confirm it's history.

Mrs M was delighted to have a third traipse around the Premier Inn.

For history lovers, it was worth seeking out.  C16th, wall etchings, heraldic shields, stained glass windows.  A Nicholson's that provided me with the third chance to sample a Brew York Beer. 

And I could have watched the Vile get trounced by the Hammers

Rose and Crown, North Parade, Old Hooky

With a table booked at Pierre Victoire, I decided to take the troops to the GBG ticks in the North of the City.  Like all good plans, it collapsed at first engagement with the enemy.  Well, with closed pubs.  Both the Eagle and Child and Lamb and Flag opposite are historical pubs that have or are troubling the GBG.  Both are firmly closed.  Eagle and Child more permanently than the Lamb, according to Google Maps.

It became quite a trek to this little gem of a pub, located down a pedestrian only, narrow residential street - allowing them to take over the street with tables shared at the pizza restaurant next door.

Rose and Crown

Some but not all of the Covid rules are still applied here.  The front check in desk remains, but is unmanned.  Table service and table booking is still provided.  This made for having a mooch around a touch tricky but I did get to see the unspoiled, Victorian two rooms and rear courtyard.  Even if I can tell that the eyes of be-masked bar staff were screaming "for god's sake, just sit down will you".

Great Old Hooky.  Board detailing the available wines

Gardeners Arms, Plantation Road, XT Brewing Animal Roadrunner

Unbelievably, there is a Gardeners Arms along the same street as the R+C.  This was closed.  My two co-travelers refused to believe me that there was another about 10 minutes walk away.

Suitably for a pub in Plantation Road, it is a vegan/vegetarian restaurant. 

It also annoyed the hell out of me by having a thick rope across the entrance.  Wait at the threshold and see if they will let you in.

When will this madness end?

Mrs M working out how to get in

All other punters were there for the food.  Despite a pubby look and feel, it wasn't a pubby experience.

Turf Tavern, Holywell Street, Black Sheep

After fine French Food at the Bistro, it was back into town for a must visit Oxford Pub, that while it has such poor stock keeping, will never trouble the Good Beer Guide.  The majority of beers were off.  My son almost made the mistake of ordering a Greene King IPA but I quickly stopped that.  Not whilst I was paying.

Everything you need to know is on the sign behind the dead soldiers

It's always the sign of a historically important pub when it has its own wiki page.  What can I add to the stories?

1. Students buy drinks individually, rather than in rounds
2. This is very annoying when you are behind 8 of the egg-heads
3. But not as annoying as the low beams.  I was one of three over 5ft 7" people to use language that would give me a life ban from Malvern's Nag's Head
4. Food is not served after 9pm
5. Amusingly, this rather annoyed the American who tried to order a sweet at 9:10pm.

The Black Sheep was in a much better condition than I could have hoped for.  

Definitely a must visit boozer.  It was good enough for Richard Burton.  And Thatcher.

You didn't expect me to say Inspector Morse, did you?

Mrs M and the boy patiently waiting for the next Head Banger

24/10/21 - The Bridge Inn, Tibberton

Distance - 5.5 Miles

Walk Inspiration - Pub Walks App

A message received on the Nottingham to Birmingham train. Mrs M would like to go for a walk that finishes with Sunday Lunch out.   Good job I have yet another source of information in the Pub Walks App.  Available for free download, it contains walking routes from around 100 pubs.  Simple to use and without it, I may never have found Tibberton, least of all the Bridge Inn - one of two pubs in the village.

The walk is very straightforward and surprisingly mud free.  A stretch along the Worcester/Birmingham canal - accessed from the pub car park - and then through fields to the ridge that runs along the south side of Trench Wood.

Easy Canal Walking

The Ridge at Trench Wood

Pubs need our support and the Bridge probably needs it more than most.  Imagine taking over the running of the place in the middle of the Pandemic.  That's what the new landlord did.... brave man.

Solid Country Pub

Its now earning a reputation as a food venue and the Sunday Lunch - to which Mrs M is something of a connoisseur - was highly rated.  Lovely service too.

Beer wise, there was a Hobsons and Wye Valley HPA - selected, and in fine condition.

Booking details attendees, not the number of HPAs consumed

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.  

22/10/21 - Ye Olde Trip to Nottingham

Distance - 8.5 Miles

Geocaches - 7

Walk Inspiration - Urban Rambles 

After a night at the Nottingham Playhouse to see Britain's finest Kate Bush Tribute band, I find myself in a Premier Inn with a whole day to explore the City.

A walk from the Urban Rambles seems to provide the best way of getting to know the city.

And it finishes at possibly Nottinghams best known pub.  Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem is high on all pub tickers lists for it's claim to be England's oldest.  Of course, it's not the only one to self promote this.  I've been a long time visitor of St Alban's Fighing Cocks and this year, actually crossed the threshold of Stow-on-the-Wold's Porch House.

First the walk.  For an Urban Ramble, it largely leaves the City alone but I will be exploring the Lace Market, Sneinton and the Meadows when I start Good Beer Guide Ticking on the evening.

Instead, I am routed first North and West, first through Nottingham's Cemetery and aiming for the mightily impressive Wollaton Deer Park.

Cemetery closed to new applicants in 1923 - already home to 150,000 Souls

Rutting season at Wollaton

Wollaton Hall - C16th

Some claim it to be the home of Bruce Wayne

Exiting Wollaton Park to the South, it's over the A52 and into the grounds of Nottingham University.  The only clues to it being open to the public are the buses and the fact the OS map suggests is is on the Robin Hood Way - a 107 mile long distance path terminating at Edwinstowe.

Nottingham University

The Beeston Canal, picked up in a rough looking industrial estate (they rarely come in any other flavour) delivers me back to the City and post walk refreshment.

Beeston Canal

Much has been written about Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem and its one of those places that seemingly provides a different experience on every visit.  Today, it was lightly populated and an iron gate seemed to stop exploration of the upstairs rooms.  Instead it was a choice between bench seating chiseled into the rock face or outside.

1189AD - Making it England's Oldest?

A Greene King Pub, completing the theme park experience by offering several T-Shirts for sale.  The beer had more than than usual range and the LocALE Nottingham Legend was a decent 4% traditional session ale.

Certainly one of the more interesting pubs to visit.   Is it the best in Nottingham?  Not whilst the Salutation is going strong.

Visit both, that gem is just the other-side of the ring-road.  But of course, its much better to go there after dark.  

When the Nottingham freaks come out to play.

09/10/21 - Crook Peak and the New Inn, Cross

Distance - 6.5 Miles

Geocaches - 2

Walk Inspiration - Country Walking Magazine, September 2020, Walk 3

Crook Peak is the Western end of the Mendip Hills.  It juts right up against the M5 and more or less represents the half way point on the journey from Plymouth to home.

A handy place to stop for a walk then.

From the layby parking, it's up through a hedge and get the elevation out the way first.  A stiff climb up the craggy slopes, with fine views across the Somerset plains.

Up we go!

The views, the reward

With the height gained, its a fine ridge walk along the West Mendip Way, until dropping down through Kings Wood.

Follow the Wall

Cross is a tiny little hamlet, although it once was on the main road to the South West, long superseded by the M5.  This explains why it has not one, but two fine coaching houses for mid walk refreshment.

A what a delight it is to choose the New Inn, enjoy a cracking pint in the sunshine and then get home to determine that it is in the Good Beer Guide.  Seemingly, I can sniff our a tick without completing any research.

The New Inn, Cross

I agree with Somerset CAMRA - this was a cracking pint!

The return is easy walking across farmland, in the shadow of the hills that have been conquered.  The church at Compton Bishop a waymarker for the end of the walk.

And what a beautiful walk it was.

Under Crook Peak

08/10/21 - Back on the Hoe - More Good Beer Guide Ticking in Plymouth

Distance - 4 Miles

Geocaches - 15 Adventure Lab Caches

Pubs - 4 in total, New Good Beer Guide Ticks #594 and #595

Plymouth is an awful long way to go to scratch a 3 year live comedy itch.  Might as well make a weekend of it, after seeing if Frank Skinner has still got it.

Work up a thirst by completing Adventure Lab Caches that take me on a tour of street art, the culture and history of the "City by the Ocean".  The art is vaguely rude.  The culture is the Beatles having a sit down on the Hoe.  The history is mainly celebrations of people leaving or returning.  The Mayflower.  The Tolpuddle Martyrs.

It's called hope.  I'm hoping its not in the Camra Sutre (ha!)

Loving the two tag ons

The views from the Hoe

A check on Whatpub..... the Pub on the Hoe is a 10 O'clock opener.  Thank you, thirsty sailors.

Pub on the Hoe, Citadel Road, Bays Brewery Top Sail

Doing what it says on the Tin

Of course it's not open at 10am.  For the 2nd weekend in a row, I find myself waiting outside a closed pub for the scrape of the bolt.  

External photos taken and I decide that I will make my way to the best seat in the house - that little terrace above the extension.  Except, that is the out of bounds to the midday drinker - attached to the room they let out for B&B.

Not much happening early on a Thursday Lunch time, so I have a mooch, admire the expected nautical theme and rather enjoy a good classic English Bitter.

Ahoy there

Like old friends, I cannot pass by with a revisit to the Dolphin and the Minerva.

The Dolphin, packed again with a proper drinkers crowd.  This stops external and (most) internal photos but I take my gravity poured Bass to a little corner and try and capture some of the wall mounted art work.

For lovers of the Red Triangle

Billy

Don't think this one is a Beryl Cook

The Minerva, a disaster.  First off, you have to prove you are double jabbed to come in.  Although I fail to see what security this will provide, it is a good test for the first gig I have next week, where Anna B Savage is demanding the same passport access.  

Getting a signal in a low beamed C16th pub proved tricky but an eyeball scan of a QR code proved enough to be served with one of the worst pints of cask I've had since last week in Southwark's Ring.

Battle of the (lack of) lacings.  Hanlons Brewers Blend

I'm beginning to wonder what the point of the GBG is.

But maybe the Vessel holds the key to the future.

The Vessel, Exeter Street, Bamberger Schwärzla and Deya

Micro shop conversions are the future

The landlord is super knowledgeable and last week's Oktoberfest has been replaced by a Deya Takeover.  How amusing, I travel all this way for a brewery almost on my doorstep.

The landlord is my first new friend of the day - explaining how he is one of only 8 venues in the GBG that do not have cask.  I know someone who may be able to fact check that.

Certainly, no-one would argue with their inclusion after the Minerva 

Home from Home - Sunny Spells later

But first, a Bamburg Smoked Beer

In venues so small, I cannot help but make my 2nd friend of the day.  I get on famously with another solo drinker, partaking in rounds.  Then he shows me an inventory of his street legal weapons secreted around his person.  A number of evil looking, yet less than 3" bladed knives.  A 1000 lumen mini-torch for blinding his quarry.

Fortunately, the death inducing gadgets remind me, I have people to meet and seats booked for James Bond.  I can legitimately make my excuses.

But not until I finish my crisps.

The only thing is, will those last couple of 8% Deya's cause me to fall asleep on a comfy seat in a darkened room? 

I'd have a had a chance if the new Bond had any sort of discernible plot. 

I dream of what I have learned during the day. 

James Bond consumed more units than me in as similar time frame.  Cask is dead.  Don't get into rounds with strangers.  At least until you've frisked them.

03/10/21 - Eagle and Serpent, Kinlet

Distance - 5.5 Miles

Geocaches - 1

Walk Inspiration - Country Walking Magazine, July 21, Walk 9

A local walk into the Shropshire Countryside.

As we are using the pub, we are able to take advantage of their car park.  Note to future self/blogfans - if you want Sunday lunch, you need to book in advance.  They cook to bookings and potential problems are not space, but the amount of food they have prepped.  Fortunately, we were able to take advantage of a cancellation.  Otherwise, I would be blogging from a hospital bed.  You don't want to promise Mrs M lunch and then fail to deliver.

The walk - it starts off on a metaled track with St John the Baptist the obvious target.  This Norman Church stands completely remote from civilistation - with the village it once served long disappeared.  Kinlet Hall, now a school, is close by but covered in scaffold, so unworthy of photographic recording.

The Path to Kinlet Church

St John the Baptist

Once this reference point is explored, its wild walking through mature woodland, copses and the occasional agricultural field.  However, there are problems.  Even with a GPS.  The way-marking is poor, signs are missing and annoyingly, there are many fences/locked gates running directly across the rights of way.

Later, we learn that the new landowner is not keen on ramblers.   He has been re-routing and possibly trying to cancel the rights of way. The Country Walking instructions also state that land is no longer Forestry Commission Open Access Land.  You can see from our route that a few mistakes were made and rerouting was required.

A path through Birchen Park

No problems with paths in a the arable fields

If you are up for a little adventure and clambering, then don't let the lack of signage and easy access put you off.

For your reward is a honest community pub, where the friendly landlord know most by name and keen to engage muddy ramblers and make them feel welcome.

A choice of three real ales - with Hobsons Town Crier in good condition.

Just remember to book in advance for your Sunday Lunch.

Eagle and Serpent, Kinlet