'Is this the right place?' I wondered. Even for a club, it didn't look very 'beery'. Modern church? 'More chance of being brainwashed by a scientologist like on my first year in Sunderland, so stay mentally strong' I tell myself walking around the corner. A frail man is just entering, I manage to grab the inner door before it locks behind me. I apologise to a lady in flora and fauna blouse because I tread on her foot, and I'm in! Phew. An old guy with a Geordie twang greets me. I feel obliged to say I'm a CAMRA member so pretty please can I have a drink? 'Wot a lot of beers!' I add before he can reply, but he tells me the majority are 'coming soon', who knew? Unsettling moment when I pay as he takes my card to the back shelf, and taps away for a bit. Flashbacks to the time I was with Daddy BRAPA on the Durham/Northumberland border circa 2021 and the barman takes Dad's card to a back room. Next day, Dad's statement shows a random £25 Argos debit! We couldn't prove anything of course, so I didn't include it in my blog at the time, but how dodgy is that? I'll name the pub if you DM me. Safe to say, I was keeping an eye on my transactions for the next few days. Despite that, a feelgood breezy club where I'm youngest by about 30 years which is always nice, and ironically the only one JUST about remaining within BMI (Body Mass Index) levels. Getting back to gentle jogging this week though! 'Agadoo' plays, and I thought the jolly oldies were going to break out in a conga around the bar where they've all now congregated because a popular guy called Brian has arrived. Kind face 9/10. Uley beers are weirdly flavoured aren't they? This tasted like rich orange pig muck.
Maybe the billion pump clips are to disguise what they are doing with your card?
Olde Black Bear, Tewkesbury
The frontage is so typically Tewks, and the oldest pub in entire Glos dating from 1308 if you can trust anything the Good Beer Guide tells you. If ever you were to believe a pub has ghosts, it is here. Stinks of them. Regulation grey lady, boring cavalier, but more interestingly Birdie, a lady in black who looks so realistic, guys go to buy her drinks ALL THE TIME only to find her vanished when they return from the loo. I'm sure you've all been on dates like that. I thought I saw her but it was an overweight plush black bear mascot, who made friends with Colin. Barmaid greets me with a squeaky 'what you been up to so far today?' so mistakenly thinking she's a BRAPA follower, I reel off the agenda & vital stats. Ancient rambling multi-room inn this might be, but you can argue it has been made too 'nicey-nice' - to some atmospheric detriment. In fact the most popular area is a huge dining conservatory which leads down onto the River Avon where twilds can be dunked in to see if they float. I'd come back here, just because there's so many rooms / areas, you could have a totally different experience, in a Blue Anchor at East Aberthaw kind of way.
Definitely failing on the BMI
Did I actually take that? Looks sort of ...professional!
Wye Valley Inn, Tintern
When the Fountain at Parkend stupidly closed mid afternoon on a Sunday in the middle of June like a pub that actually doesn't want any custom / to survive, mine chauffeur Martyn the Family Rug says "we're that close to the Welsh border now, I may as well take you to a couple of tricky ones" and he should know, he lives there. After visiting a super rural pub also called the Fountain (which we'll get to), we finish off here. Closed between 3-6pm, even on a weekend. At least they advertise it I guess, but still irritating hanging around outside 17:59 like an overripe pork chop, the staff obviously aware we are here but hanging on til 18:01 just to prolong our agony. Eventually, a lady shouts from the far door "you can come in this way!" but right at that second, some old grump opens the near door with a grunt. The Kingstone beer is the temperature of an abandoned cup of tea because you had to go on a short notice Zoom call at work, but the pub itself beautifully unaltered by time / family run for yonks. Dusty old beer bottles cover every inch of shelf space and cute little snob screens and partitions give the large main bar privacy. The underdog you want to root for, even if it doesn't make it easy, like Hull City.
Rose & Crown, Charlbury
Rare to say this when I'm being driven around, but some pubs are best approached by rail. Never more true than in Davey Cameron's home town as Paul G. struggles to get us parked. We'd already gone around in a circle, when we get blocked because some precious posh twat refuses to go past a van dumping cardboard into someone's front garden for fear of scratching his twat mobile (despite having enough room to fit an army tank through). My bladder couldn't cope any more so I get out, trying not to scratch the passenger door on a wall, and leg it down to the pub - Paul, like Mrs Thatcher before him, isn't for turning, but at least he sees a lady he knows off Great British menu whilst waiting to park up at the Co-op(?) Considering what a silver spoon up the bum posh hole this is, it is remarkable it has so many proper pubs including this bonny wet-led boozer, a regular in the GBG for 38 years and deservedly so on this evidence. Recently sold to give it the kick up arse it needed according to some. Lovely drop of Little Ox Wipeout. As soon as Paul arrives, I leap up like a lizard to buy him a drink fearing he may be hot and bothered after all that. The bar blockers are rather entitled and as Paul asks if he can view the beers a bit closer, the one with a tanned tit hanging out murmurs "take yer sunglasses off then" and I'm like 'Paul has suffered enough'. Then we admire the road sign outside showing the way to both Stranraer and Nice. Is Charlbury really the centre of the universe? It probably thinks so.
Bell, Avening
Absolutely buzzing for my Avening evening tick, the first pub listed under Glos ..... I'd told myself I REFUSE to return home to York without it under my belt. Opening hours + location didn't make it easy And of all the pubs I mentioned to random strangers this week, this left the blankest expressions. A real CAMRA obscurer, you might say. I loitered around Stroud (eek) until the penultimate bus of the day at approx 5:30pm, a rickety old minibus driven by a cute old guy, bounced down country lanes to take me to the edge of Avening village (the only other customer, a girl in dayglo pink and make up who looked like she was trying to find a cheap back route to Glasto). The 10 min walk to the pub was enough to put paid to my chances of a quick 25 min 'in and out', I'd have to settle here for a slow two pint session. Thankfully, the HPA is on fire in a good way. It is a Friday, so there is a sense of gay abandon amongst my fellow drinkers. Up until 7pm, there's a family friendly (yuck) atmos that would normally jar, but I'm too gosh darn happy to be here to feel any negativity. Kids to my left play Harry Potter top trumps. I'm notified Dumbledore can't be beaten for 'wisdom'. 'Makes sense to me' I reply, Mum looks at me like I could be a potential cauliflower wielding paedo, and scoops kids up and they all leave - much to the relief of recently arrived curry couple to my right who'd come here for a romantic meal. Well, as romantic as curry can ever be sat in the vicinity of two old carrot heads watching cricket highlights - a West Indies appeal causing one of them to get a nosebleed. Look, I won't lie, I'm always slightly on edge when I'm relying on the last bus of the day in leafy environs, but I was as happy and relaxed as possible, and turn up it did. And for all Paul G and Martyn's chauffeuring brilliance a couple of days from now, the sense of achievement of doing a tough one yourself with no taxi cheat always gives me a quick thrill!
Hearts of Oak, Drybrook
I only have a smallish sample of pub material to go on, but early signs would indicate that Forest of Dean pubs are more satisfying than yer rival Cotswold classics. I'm forcing a rivalry, because quite frankly Gloucestershire needs the drama. This was the grandaddy of the lot. The kind of arse biscuit you could find in a bum of a town centre like Uxbridge or Rugby for example. The locals look annoyed at me for breathing, never mind edging their shoulders slightly to the right so I can see the handpumps. If you insist on sitting at a bar, you can't act all scandalised when your personal space is invaded. By gum, that Ledbury Bitter was a dream of cool fresh 13th century Herefordshire malt. Play darts, have a go on the fruit machines or colour in your own Care Bear and stick it on the wall. Much fun to be had. They only reopened in 2022 after five years of being boarded up, but you'd never know today. Oh, and just by the entrance, look at the cute ironwork awning closely like a magic eye puzzle cos it contains the name of the pub. And until Blackpool opens its 16th micropub called the Ebusua Cape Coast Mysterious Dwarfs Inn, this pub remains the UKs only which is named after a Ghanaian football team.
Sandford Park Ale House, Cheltenham
A decade on since becoming CAMRA's National award winner, there's nothing obscure(r) about this place which really does personify the term 'alehouse'. Almost as good as Reading's Hobgoblin which changed its name .... but can never remember what to. With its brewenanarama, snugs, alcoves and basic benches around a wooden floor, it definitely is a cut above the average boozer. Not Fat Cat Norwich, but it is the thought that counts. What stops it finishing higher in the BRAPA league table was a 'knowingness'. Cheltenham is the most south eastern place in the whole of Glos, and I feel it more keenly here than in any of the other eight GBG pubs, well apart from the Beehive perhaps. Good and it knows it. If winking Cristiano Ronaldo or Handball Maradona were a pub, they'd be this. Something else I pick up on, staff and customers don't really integrate. If you're being served and staff are openly chatting hot weather, surely you should be able to join in without everyone looking like you've tried to stick a finger up their anus? Maybe I'm just too northern. That sort of behaviour is encouraged in Barnsley. I never made it past the Oakham Citra (first of eight handpumps you see), and I returned for two more at the end of my Cotswold days, being dropped off here by Paul G, and I think the pub & beer quality improved each time. An old lady shuffles over in injury time "...Oi've seen you around town a fair bit, are you on some kind of pub crawl?" Very perceptive, though she's probably a witch.
End of day two
End of day three!
So there we go, I think that lot annoyed me more than the pubs in part six. Too late to revise my rankings but I'd take them with a pinch of salt.
The eagle eyed of you might've noticed this is now a ten parter instead of a nine parter - my maths went wrong.
So see ya Fri for part eight with six pubs ready to wow you with their genius.
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