Wednesday 22nd October 2025 A pleasant breakfast at last, at the third time of asking. Prepared by my own fair hand. Nicely done scrambled eggs with REAL butter (Anchor, so not Scottish because they are based in dire Westbury, the greyest of all Wiltshire towns including Swindon, please don't argue). Haggis from a tin cos it's nice and easy and I had a 'raised' microwave. Greasy and spicy. Great mouthfeel like an double imperial stout. Two types of juice in a vague attemp

Greetings from December! 72 (SEVENTY TWO) new Good Beer Guide pubs ticked in the month of November, my third best ever monthly total, bringing me up to 631 for the year, already a BRAPA record even if I do diddly squat in December. My total is now 3,181, which represents 70.69% Guide completion. Clawing back that deficit one pub at a time! Back in credit by May? Let's have a look at the counties where I've made gains, with the pubs I enjoyed most (and least) ..... we'll hav

Tuesday 21st October 2025 It was an early Hallowe'en scare-a-thon on day three of my attempt to tick every Good Beer Guide in the Greater Glasgow & Clyde Valley region. Every BRAPA holiday, it happens. There's always ONE day where I feel that the pub gods aren't particularly smiling on me, that luck isn't in my favour, like 'why did I remove that lucky rabbit foot off the BRAPA keyring?', 'why did I walk under that ladder in Gorbals?', 'why did I adjust the horseshoe on tha

Monday 20th October 2025 I forgot to order one of those yummy looking Adagio Aparthotel breakfasts, so after my own healthy Scottish brekkie of porridge and blueberries, I went down to reception to book myself in for tomorrow which I'll tell you about in part three. But this is a pub blog we mustn't forget, and the next alphabetical Glasgow & Clyde Valley pub I need takes me to Biggar, so southern, it's practically Borders. I had to take a train to Lanark, and change for a b

Sunday 19th October 2025 'Spoons vouchers at the ready as I embark on a six day tick-a-thon of Greater Glasgow and the Clyde Valley, with a view to Ayrshire if things went really well. Various levels of excitement, anticipation and anxiety always precede a BRAPA holiday, but for this I was '100% buzzing' as unlike say Norfolk or Cornwall, transport links and pub opening times are plentiful and kind. With local lad Owlie McBurnie ready for his homecoming of sorts (hailing from

Saturday 11th October 2025 Victoria Hotel, Norham (3066 / 5907) Outdoor drinking on the Scottish/Northumbria border in October? Who says the polar ice caps melting is all bad? A friendly pub but with limited space, plus Dad's sudden craving for a smuggled Melton Mowbray pork pie and a fine village green and such warmth, outdoors was a no-brainer and made a mockery of Bath's Coeur de Lion barman who claimed 5th September was the last warm day of 2025. And an excellent Jarl

Thursday 9th October 2025 Before we head to deepest Borders, we'll start with a reassuringly thirsty #ThirstyThursday yielding six ticks across three different parts of the north west. Such is the plethora of pub options available to me in the first month of the new Good Beer Guide year. Pack Horse, Affetside (3057 / 5898) My one Greater Manchester miss of 2025 that's retained its place in the GBG. Truth is I couldn't be arsed to travel up to rural Bolton-Bury just for one

Saturday 4th October 2025 The Bass omens were good at Marylebone as I headed NW to Prinny Riz (Princes Risborough to you uninitiated oiks) for a pub heavy day along the Oxfordshire / Buckinghamshire border. BRAPA debutant and chauffeur is Sladey / Dave / David / Komakino, who lives locally at Chinnor and kindly offered me this opportunity several months in advance ..... I was simply waiting for the 2026 Good Beer Guide to 'drop' (ugh) to ensure the churn wasn't too concerning

Saturday 27th September 2025 A wise man called RetiredMartin agrees that there's nothing more joyous in life than an early Autumn mop-up of Central London's new Good Beer Guide entries, of which there's always thousands, even if you're an experienced completist like him. And I had the perfect excuse, Watford away with Daddy BRAPA just two days after the official GBG release date. A quick note on why I think C.London's churn is so brutal. Two reasons. Firstly, it doesn't

Friday 19th - Wednesday 24th September 2005 I found myself within the pub ticking corridor of uncertainty. After five quiet disciplined days at home, I'd finished cross-ticking the new 2026 Good Beer Guide ........ Somerset woz robbed .... but wasn't allowed to reveal any GBG contents until the following Thursday due to this exciting slip of paper ..... Embargoed to buggery ....so I had to spend six days pub-ticking 'under cover', where I managed a record breaking 17 ticks to

Happy Hallowe'en pub fans! I am breaking off from my 'terrifying' festivities to bring you the results for October, a great month with 65 Good Beer Guide ticks plus 9 pre & post-emptives, all of which could easily make the 2027 GBG. I have passed the 69% mark once again, and I'm on course for a record-breaking BRAPA year. November is all about passing the landmark 70% by next month end - 45 (1% of the Guide) is the bare minimum I'd hope to achieve. September's #CruelChurn

Saturday September 13th 2025 To recap from part one, I was in Scotland (Melrose to be precise) on a long enforced weekend due to train disruption. I'd just had my first sighting of the new 2026 Good Beer Guide pages for Borders and Edinburgh. And perhaps most thrillingly of all, FIVE consecutive pints of high quality Scottish cask, a new BRAPA record .... Make that SIX as the Tempest Armadillo is on fine form, as it had been in Alnwick a year ago. I'd also had it at the fi

Friday 12th September 2025 On the eve of my first sighting of the new 2026 edition of the Good Beer Guide, I was 'forced' into a long weekend in Scotland due to a dearth of trains between Newcastle and Edinburgh on the Saturday or Sunday. I set off from York after work, the highlight & lowlight of the journey being my first ever can of Madri. My Air B 'n B was out in the Fountainbridge part of the city, and I was suspicious of it from the get go due to the wealth of Glade plu

Friday 5th September 2025 Greetings from sunny Bath. I'd completed Bristol a day ahead of schedule so needed something else to fill in my final day. It felt like an afterparty .... a Bath-terparty (yep, still not sure it really works). Six central pubs are required, the perfect BRAPA score. I had been here previously in 2012 for the letter 'B' of 'Si's A-Z Aleway Adventures' - the natural pre-cursor to BRAPA. Pubs like the Star, Bell, Raven and Green Tree had impressed-a-

Thursday 4th September 2025 An anti-clockwise tour of Bristol was the plan for my penultimate day down here. Six pubs to go, and if you can work out what 1-6 are, or CS or SS or 'NB Pre-emp' without looking too far into the blog, congratulations, you are a Bristol pub king/queen. Yet again, I failed to reach McDonald's in time for a breakfast muffin. They must've changed the menu at literally the exact same time I arrived. Double cheeseburger and fries for breakfast it was

Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Despite an easy Tuesday being chauffeured around rural Gloucs (thanks once again to Martyn the Family Rug), I slept in too long to be in time for my Sausage and Egg McMuffin. Porridge with Blueberries and a dreadful coffee but a 9/10 Tropicana had to do. Oh, and mydaily Neighbours catch up of course where I could ask pertinent questions like 'why has Elle Robinson got a new face?' and 'did it confuse her Dad so much that he signed up for this yea

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 A chance comment from part 2 hero Maltmeister on seeing my photo of salubrious Cabot Circus last time out made...

Monday 1st September 2025 A new week dawned in cloudy Cabot Circus. 30 pub ticks the aim before I depart back for York on the Saturday...

Sunday 31st August 2025 I didn't surface until 10am on Sunday morning, I needed the sleep having barely stopped since I arrived in...

The Maltmeister wagon chugs south from Henleaze to Bedminster, a Bristol 'burb perilously close to Ashton Gate, home of today's game...