BRAPA might have been officially on a 'Winter Break™' until the second week of January, but that didn't stop me from falling accidentally into a couple of pubs over the Christmas/NY period.
Colin was getting in the spirit.
Take Saturday 17th December for example, with 'no appetite' for BRAPA, I joined Daddy BRAPA for a rare Hull City home game, which allowed me to tick off my penultimate East Yorkshire pub of the 2023 GBG.
I knew that Station Inn, Hull (2265 / 4169) was going to be a bit special, as Daddy BRAPA had already become a semi-regular pre-match pubgoer here this season and had sent me photos whilst I was in a dull micro in South London. The landlady, formerly of Hop & Vine, seems a canny lass, and soon another canny lass, our Tiger chum Christine, star of previous BRAPA adventures such as 'Gorton & the Wellies', 'The Dead Wasp of Salwick' & 'Gleethorpes' joined us and got to do the important Stabilo'ing. The fire was in, but in these sub-zero temperatures, it was struggling to warm us. I tried three ales, because different pre-match rules and all that, all excellent. First GBG appearance since 2002, and first time I've ever seen it open to be honest!
There was also time to pop into the New Clarence, which I wondered why the other tickers were treating like a 'newbie', but this actually hasn't been in the GBG since 2003 so when I went in 2009 before an Everton home game on the Sunday, I must've been doing it as a post-emptive. Back then, it had an MOR soundtrack and posh diners, today was a world away as a small group were trying to recreate the classic Wellington (remember the Wellington? Best pub ever? RIP the Wellington!) in more chilliness with good ale.
Christmas then came and went, as it so often does, back in Hull on Boxing Day I said an emotional farewell to my favourite pub in town, the Whalebone before it becomes a sports bar:
But dry your eyes mates, four days later the first ever annual pub tickers convention was upon us, in the Brampton area of Chesterfield.
I was last to arrive but I took a train beer which exploded and made me smell of stout all night, and with the tickers already ticking in different parts of the town ('tickers gunna tick' as the kids of Michigan say), I capitalised and got a 'moment of calm' in this place before the invasion:
'Twas blowing a gale on arrival, and that extended into the pub, creating a wind tunnel as I was forced to hold the door open for a group of about twenty bozos with doodah dogs to leave, four of whom thanked me, which was a decent percentage I was forced to admit. Anchor, Brampton, Chesterfield (2266 / 4170) was thus peaceful early doors, although a mad bald man with a giant dog did call over "ho, ho, ho, is that a cabbage or cauliflower?" exactly the kind of banter you get in outer Chesterfield. The alphabetti-spaghetti bench seating gave you a headache, but it was a proper sort of boozer. My beer tasted like it had pulled from a hedge full of wild berries. Now, if you were offering odds on 'the first person I'd recognise', Will the Sheffield Hatter would've been like 50/1, but it was he, arriving on a BRAPA trip for the first time since Mick Citra's voiced controversial Titanic Plum Porter views in Eccleshall's Ale Club in Sept '21. "Martin & Christine were waiting for you in town!" he says, ooops I hadn't seen the message. And yes, it is Retired Martin and the erstwhile Mrs RM who do arrive next. Since completing the GBG, Martin has a more relaxed outlook these days, and after Colin and Alfie Baaland make 'friends' (Colin found him a bit aggressive in truth), he tries a bit of showboating to psyche out the tickers by ordering a craft can of banoffee. He offers me a sip, both delicious and horribly sickly all in one go. What a lad! Then, a porthole into a ticking dimension opens and the whole of ticking Christendom is upon us. The happiest and drunkest of course, is Duncan, wearing a beautiful peculiar woollen jumper. "Scandinavian?" I ask. "Rikke knitted it for me" he replies, before chuckling and I'm still not sure whether this was a joke or not. We had Jim up next, looking a bit dishevelled having ticked 3,000 Portsmouth pubs the previous day. He looked like he just wanted to sleep in the corner. We had , of course, the hi-vis legendary figure of Eddie. Ian / Alfie lurks mischievously and punkishly behind the crowd. At the bar is Maltmeister, I go in for the firm handshake, trying not to mention that Newmarket is really in Cambs and Nigel Pearson is the man to lead Bristol City to glory. Meeting him means I've now ticked all the tickers. I decide not to Stabilo his forehead, a bit too informal, this being our first meeting. And then there's Alex Quosh, not a ticker, but a first sighting of him in years (the Grey Shrike of #PubMen) not being very active on Twitter anymore it is lovely to have a catch-up with the great man. And to top it all off, a random Scottish man who seems lovely but no idea where he came from. Did Duncan pick him up from a Darvelroadside? Probably.
What scenes! Tickers. You can't beat 'em.
Col doesn't know what to think! The group then gets separated again as some cross the road to visit a pre-emptive micro which a few people have been to earlier in the day, but I'm persuaded to join the breakaway group in Brampton Brewery Tap. Again a pre-emptive, normally shuts to the public at 7, but they have a birthday in which has overrun so 'your lucky day' says the kind landlady - must have been the power of the tickers! Are we allowed sit down? Are we allowed to share these sandwiches on the bar? Why are the loos so hard to find? Why does my bum hurt?
Eddie, Quosh, random kind Scottish man, and an obscured Maltmeister The ale was well good, but I can't see this place making the GBG as it feels more of an 'events venue' with very limited hours. Just as we are leaving, a few of the other tickers arrive, and the mischievous Ian/Alfie steals Colin from my bag but luckily Eddie is on hand to retrieve the scared Cauli.
I need a tick, maybe two, back in Chesterfield proper, so me and Eddie start striding out but who should appear out of nowhere but Sheffield Hatter Will, and at this point, I'm convinced he's cloned himself so he's in every GBG pub but also on every street corner offering helpful walking directions like a pubby street angel cos he knows his stuff just like he did in Sheffield. He soon dissolves again into the night sky just as the pub comes into view .....
Martin and Christine are somehow already here, to make Chesterfield Arms, Chesterfield (2267 / 4171) even more special, but not quickly enough for my liking - I've missed the Bass which is hidden in another bar! Martin takes me to see what I could've won to prove he's not lying. Never mind, the Kaldi Coffee Stout brewed very local is gorgeous, the four of us settle down and I decide I'm too comfy to rush off after 25 mins and try and tick the 'Rectory'. Note to self, must stop overnight at next year's convention. Again, a few tickers finally catch up with us and I realise I'm disgracefully sober in comparison to most, and now have to catch my train, which I do with Eddie over plenty of top intense ticker chat. A great night, but a bit of a whirlwind!
New Year came and went, as New Year's tend to do, and my next brief ticking expedition was on Monday 2nd January 2023, before an away game at Wigan.
2023 didn't get off to a good start, because despite EVERY source on social media saying 11am, and Ember Inns being a boring enough chain to do things like 'be reliable', the Bull's Head, Astley was very much closed. Booo!
Nope, as I say time and time again, the only pubs you can rely on to open before 12 on any given day are Wetherspoons. And this was a good one to kick off the year .....
Great photo from Daddy BRAPA to get the full splendour of this former Grand Theatre, Thomas Burke, Leigh (2268 / 4172), and inside, it had all the hallmarks of such a place with high ceilings and perfect curvature. The oat stout from Brightside up near Bury was a stunning first pint of 2023, the barmaid jocular, and the locals more demure and relaxed than anything I'd previously witnessed in Leigh, which I can only put down to a 48 hour New Year's hangover. An old man briefly stood up and warbled operatically for five seconds, but it was an isolated incident and I suspect he was a ghost anyway.
Next up, Lowton, and as I posed in a hedge at a tight road junction, the main question was 'how the dickens do you get into this pub?' with no front door open, but people obviously inside.
It was in fact an unlikely back door through the car park, over a deep puddle and dodging a kitchen which might or might not have been in use since 1785. Ram's Head Inn, Lowton (2269 / 4173) was a rough and tumble local pub for local people, I kinda liked it! The barmaid says something in an accent I cannot decipher. But no worry, a man straight out of the 1970's (or modern day Featherstone) replies to her in a similarly incomprehensible tongue. I can breathe easier as I take my pint of Handsome Top Knot (the only one on) to a distant table. What's with the subsidence in the bench seating? "They need to subsidise pubs more" says Daddy B. "Was that a joke?" I ask him, secretly thinking it was pretty good. Nice enough pub, a bit watchful, very local, I recommend scruffier clothes than what I was wearing (Rupert Bear chic) if you are making a trip there soon.
The less said about our final tick before the match, the better! But being BRAPA, I can't pretend it didn't happen.
You may be able to tell from the frontage, but the Posthouse, Orrell (2270 / 4174) was a desperate place in every way. Airy wine bar in feel, sticky tables, disorganised, just how long did it take to get served? A group of cocktail drinkers who for some reason, have decided to sit out front despite the sub zero temperatures, manage to push in front of us due to a lack of staff concentration. They are so busy mixing them, they tell us to take a seat and they'll be over shortly (five more minutes, place wasn't even busy), and then tell us to return to the bar and pay 'when we are ready' rather than bringing anything over. The two ales on are both by a brewery called Wily Fox, and I don't particularly enjoy mine. I know it is only pub #3 of 2023, but it'll be interesting to see how many worse GBG pubs I visit this year!
I love Wigan, but because we are on the football stadium side of town, it doesn't make sense to go into the centre, so for our last act, we check out a pub called Old Springs Inn that probably isn't that 'pre-emptive' as it didn't have cask on (Marston's on weekends!) but a very nice pint of Guinness in a warm no nonsense pub with some nice features, I preferred it to the Post House by miles, but obviously it was not a patch on Anvil, Swan & Railway, Raven, Wigan Central etc. Dad wonders if you can buy a Madri / Guinness half and half scarf.
And then we won 4-1, which was nice.
I'll leave it there for the night. I'm burnt out - I think reliving the pub tickers convention has taken it out of me!
Daddy BRAPA's birthday celebrations begin from tomorrow, so look out for #ThirstyThursday on Twitter as I'm 'kindly' allowing him to drive me around North Yorks (to keep it simple, ya know).
And I'll be back on Sunday for part 15 to tell you about a day in Lincs and most a day in Notts.
Happy pubbing, Si
