Thursday 4th December 2025
Sick of the sight of London after too much recent exposure, so I look slightly further afield for my remaining 2025 Grand Central cheapo day tickets.
Bedfordshire was the initial hope, but when raining cats & dogs like this, I didn't wanna be stood on a swampy roadside waiting for an unreliable Grant Palmer (bus, not man).
And I must not feel cheated every time I see a sign like this .....
.... it (probably) wasn't me who first coined the term. Besides, that's hardly a generous offer is it? Ale drinkers get thirsty too.
St Albans is the destination, home of CAMRA. Bit of talk on the old Discourse recently about how SA deserves a greater GBG allocation. Personally, I think they have enough.
Three new ticks for me today, I hadn't been here since 2021 when I ticked EIGHT pubs across three different trips.
A boggy walk into the eastern backstreets provides our first ..... Royston Social Club, St Albans (3182 / 6023)
Bloody clubs! Forced to ring the buzzer whilst an awning drips down my neck. Jemima (not her real name) releases the door quickly, and I don't have to explain myself, either outside or in. Just as well. Listening to my own voice whine "I'm a CAMWA member, pwease can I come in for dwinkies?" is the cringiest thing you'll hear. My opening wet weather gambit diffuses any potential tension. Besides, it isn't too 'Royston Vasey', although one gent insists on roaming the floor like a caged lion, often coming to a standstill behind me whilst I'm trying to take a fun photo or stroke my mascot. A grey interior, but plush enough to be pleasant. The fruit machines provide colour, though I doubt it is a design choice inspired by Laurence Llewellyn-B. YouTube videos of 'Beard Meats Food' on the plasma are a surprise inclusion. Another roaming old boy arrives, this one sits on the radiator and complains about aching joints in the wet at his age. The beer is that bastard northern Tim Taylor/Northern Monk stout. Superb here, which further illustrates what a mess they made of it in Boroughbridge's weird Tap on the Tutt last year.
If I thought the rain was heavy before, it is now a deluge! And a long walk back into town, made longer because I cannot use my phone to navigate due to the heavy blobbage. And my Tim Walter jacket (Hull City jacket now sadly associated with the worst manager EVER) might keep my top half dry, but the wet funnels downwards. From upper thighs to feet, my jeans are sodden. Trainers swimming with water.
Wettest 2025/26 tick so far incoming ...... and it is the Beehive, St Albans (3183 / 6024)
Considering the soggilicious state I arrive in, I deserve better. Barmaid gives me nothing. She should be welcoming me in, raising my spirits, passing me a beer towel or at least some tissue. Symptomatic of a crummy pub, it's down to me to do the cheerfulness. The first words I hear actually come from a table behind me .... "Pinot Grigio? No, you go to the bar, you are braver!" It was December and the pub part-timer Christmas lunch blue touch paper was lit here. A guy with a 'New Zealand 2011' shirt has impressive hair (can you see how I am clutching at straws for positives?) My Tring Tea Kettle stout is fine, but could be fresher. Proof in my mind that St Albans doesn't need any more GBG entries if this is what they are sticking in for 2026.
But I wasn't down for long because pub three was a vast improvement, and I think the rain was easing even if I wasn't dry until pub five .....
Boot Inn, St Albans (3184 / 6025) was chock-a-block for a wet Thursday afternoon. Felt like a pub on Christmas Eve. A merry, tipsy atmosphere is helped along by low lights and wonky beams. I felt woozy before my time, pure 'last pint of the day' feel. They brand this place 'Boot Cantina' and it was just a few strangely shaped headed trumpeteers away from being the Cantina in Star Wars. I was even served by a lady with blue skin and gills. A bearded barfly chats to me briefly, but I'm keen to sit down so hope I don't appear rude. But how is it that this Kernel Brown tastes identical to Plum Porter? I've had this situation before. TTPP I suspect is a beer so potent, that even when they think they've cleaned the lines, it remains present. Like when you eat garlic and can smell it on the soles of your feet five days later. Or is that just me? And who smells their own feet anyway? Our bearded friend from earlier confirms that this pub often has Titanic Plum Porter on so my theory holds up. Our blue gilled barmaid gurgles 'goodbye' and seems genuinely sad I'm not staying for another, which of course, is just her RADA training shining through.
Time to catch a bus to maximise my Thirsty Thursday tick count. I accidentally sit on the wrong one, we're due to depart for another 10 minutes and others shoot past. Darn it! The only other customer, a Yoda-esque little old dear tells the driver "All the time in the world, I have".
Lucky her, I can't wait til I'm RetiredSimon.
Surprise Ember Inns aren't my favourite pub genre, especially when they look as brickie and promising as the Three Hammers, Chiswell Green (3185 / 6026), an ode to Roger Protz, Jarod Bowen and Simon Dewhurst. Two people want to be my secret fourth and fifth hammers - Paul Godden and Daddy Dewhurst. Fight it out lads. Matthew Lawrenson comments "where's the pointless brick pillar out the front?" EXACTLY. I'd been blindsided by Ember, but carry on regardless and ya know, it ain't too shite. The carpet is actually the only feature that made me realise I was in one, but the Herts locals are incredibly upbeat. Same can't be said of the staff, my barmaid already had one foot of the door .... jacket half on and watermelon vape hanging out of pocket, I was her final customer of the shift. She didn't end on a high. And the London Pride isn't drinking well, more like 'spiky soup' according to my notes at the time. Doom, Hophead and Landlord with the other choices.
The same bus continues south, and drops me in a peculiar location for a pub, a 30 second meander through some trees just off the London Orbital.
Pub of the day! Black Boy, Bricket Wood (3186 / 6027), where have you been all my life? Bar looks like its about to take off, what with its underside strip lighting glowing brightly. Felt like the type you'd walk an hour to find, very independent and down to earth. "Corrr, your 'ands are bladdy cold!" cries the landlady as I pay in shrapnel cos it feels like the kinda of place where you'd get called a willy woofter if you whip out your pink contactless. The TT Landlord (I wasn't making the mistake of swerving it again) is top tier, get this pub in the 'Champion' club if it ain't already. My 99th pint of the stuff. Here's hoping my 100th is as good. My final retweet from Pub Curmudgeon, I take that as a sign I was definitely on the right lines when declaring this pub a hidden gem.
The day ended with a bladder busting bus ride and walk across Watford to Vicarage Road, where I saw my first away game as a Hull City fan back in Jan 1988 (FA Cup Round 3), but it didn't have a micro then cos micropubs hadn't been born.
Buzzin' for Two Trees Micro, Watford (3187 / 6028) because it is one of this year's 'favourite five' (key pubs living rent free in my head which I promise myself I'll visit before the following September). I'm surprisingly drunk. In a hazy happy way, but I hadn't seen it coming. It made this a positive experience, the interior slightly funkier than the reality. After some convivial yet inane weather chat with barmaid, I say 'arite' as a guy sat low down dressed as a polar bear. I'm conscious just how interesting and amusing the chatter is in here. I have no hope of remembering it, so make a note in my phone with this blog in mind. This was the result ..... "Double wispa cheddar cheese sandwich tell truth about existence .... judgement free zone". Any idea? Me neither!
Despite that photo, I was sober enough by Euston to sneak a cheeky pre-emptive at the fairly new Captain Flinders Wetherspoons. Despite some decent wood panelling and well kept Black IPA, lacking carpet and the commuter chaos (too many tables, cases and travel bags blocking any walk way) mean it ain't that pleasant. Maybe it just needs a decade or two to bed in.
Anyway, all good and I'll be back tomorrow to tell you about six more as the big blog catch-up continues. I'm only 38 behind now.
Keep it pub, Si
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