BRAPA in .... BUILD ME UP BUTTERTON (LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS IN STAFFS/DERBYS)

Saturday 26th March 2026

International football weekend could mean only one thing ..... Daddy BRAPA car day (woop, woop).

Let's hope Hull City fluke promotion so my calendar is full of similar blank Saturdays caused by the Premier League's 38 game season and even more ridiculous kick off times than we currently suffer.

Dad might not be so enthusiastic about this prospect when I ask him to turn down a dirt track on the North Yorkshire Moors in the pitch black so I can have a pee in the snow whilst a sheep bleats for a fourth consecutve Saturday.

Back to today, and it was down the M1 / A38 for my first North Derbys/Staffs ticks of the 2026 GBG season.

The coffee was 8/10 helped by a flask with a woodland mammals design, Mummy BRAPA's homemade scone an overly crumbly 7.5/10. Not wishing to sound ungrateful but back to the drawing board for her methinks.

I'm not sure Ashbourne could be classified as North Derbyshire whichever way you squint at the map / SatNav but as it is an 11am opener, time was on our side to whip it in early doors.

We park up further from the centre than anticipated, and Daddy BRAPA strides out jacketless. Worra lad, it were freezing! Thankfully, 11:01am and a lady starts wrestling a pub blackboard into the street seconds after our photo, maybe she saw us.....

"We don't normally have anyone in this early!" she chirrups, as her background extra husband shuffles the furniture around towards the back of the pub down some stairs. But it ultimately will be her hospitality that is our abiding memory of House of Beer, Ashbourne (3343 / 6183), in and out of the Guide for many years but sadly out when I ticked the glorious Smith's Tavern a few years back. Titanic Plum gin? Dangerous to tempt me with drink offerings like this at 11:02am! "Goes well with ginger ale in the winter" she twitters like a happy Chaffinch with exciting vowels. A huge shiny Untappd plasma gets my mind back onto beer, and speaking of Shiny, I go for a pint of their 'Girl Dinner', which if you wondered, is Gen Z speak for a snack-based meal- cheese, crackers, pickles, that kinda thing. They also refer to 'charcuterie' as 'shark coochie'. Youth of today eh? We're encouraged to sit in front of the heaters whilst the place warms up, but we can't differentiate music speakers (Post Malone ain't doing it for us) from heaters so shiver our way through the next 25 mins. Bijou cinema in style, I can imagine bringing my own red wine & Wotsits in and watching something French and complicated. A pub style suffering from the early hour, but the two of us were unanimous that'd it'd be a great place to be on an evening, full of warm bod(d)ies.

Ashbourne is so western, it is practically Staffs. Although it is still a tough rural yomp to our second pub, almost as Leeky and it is Peaky. Wanna see a man looking sneaky?

Black Lion, Butterton (3344 / 6184) achieves what few isolated pubs in this part of the land do by retaining a rustic boozer feel. Inner stone walls to match the exterior, beamed ceiling, horsebrasses, 9/10 carpet and a chunky wooden settle. The Bass is practically sentient, a perma-bubbly frother which would have my southern followers crying about full pint measures once again. The barmaid gives 'timid student who's never sunk a Bass with the lads in her life' but she's so polite and deferential to be a winner, bringing Dad's coffee over which he rates 9/10 which is 9.75/10 in most people's money. On the way out, she says 'have a good night ..... oops I mean 'day' ..... it IS daytime isn't it?' and that really seals a top pub experience. Recommend, if you can find someone with four wheels & patience.

Our other remote Staffs tick is at least on a bus route, which might partly explain why we saw some other customers for the first time today ......

Get yer GBG front cover updated lads, 2023 was AGES ago. I'll do you a custom BRAPA one with my big face on if you like. Greyhound, Warslow (3345 / 6185) is an interesting one. As we stand at the bar, my early thoughts are 'weakest pub yet'. Feel like the guv'nor is giving us short shrift, but having observed how the pub operates over the following 25-30 minutes, I'm convinced he's just a stolid no-nonsense northerner with a grey beard hiding a whimsy which occasional pokes through (ooo-err). One surprise is learning that they have their own microbrewery. 'Wilsons of Warslow'. I go for a Fiery Fred, a punchy 5.4% and not necessarily 'Trueman' themed. That's the other surprise, the homebrewed beer is excellent! It probably helps me warm up to the pub. Well, the pub warmed up to me. Best temperature yet, evidence our previous two really were quite chilly. That gorgeous flooring is the beating of most carpets, you won't hear me say that very often. A Polish walking lady gets wished 'ta-ra duck!' on the way out and looks thoroughly confused. Then a couple wrestling with a gigantic OS map are asked if they need any help. "NO!" they bark. Jeez, he was only asking! He smiles in that whimsical bearded way I mentioned early. Good pub. Best yet?

Today was going really well. Too well. There had to be a comedown .....

We'd have sat in here if I'd remembered taking this photo five mins before we were suffocating

Carefully treading, Daddy B.

The first warning sign was that Dad was able to name this pub when I told him the next location is 'Millers Dale'. He adds that it is famous, prime walking / biking territory etc. Oh crumbs! Because Angler's Rest, Millers Dale (3346 / 6186) wasn't a bad pub in truth. Just a victim of its own popularity. The staff couldn't have been much more pleasant, but it gives us a stuffy doggy Lycra clad main bar and the sort of clientele who lack spatial awareness. Compounded by our arrival at a time when the final remnants of beef gravy and sticky toffee pud were being wiped from the chinless chins of the greedy Strava freaks, we found ourselves shuffling from seat to seat to try and find somewhere breathable. The Chatsworth Gold drank excellently. I tell a passing waitress that someone has left a pair of scissors on our table. But she tells me this is deliberate. To help people open sauce packets. Which really sums up the milquetoast nature of these punters. Look I know these things ain't easy, but use your teeth if all else fails, graaarrr.

At least they matched my Stablio

Time to head to that tip of North Derbyshire perilously close to South Yorkshire. Two pubs required either side of Dronny Dronny Dronfield.

For this next one, I must've checked my spreadsheet three times during last September's cross-ticking, the name was so familiar I'm sure I'd been. Dad then pipes up "I'm sure we've been, or at least I have" as he's got about 500 friends called Brian who live nearby.

But once inside Rutland Arms, Holmesfield (3347 / 6187), no it doesn't feel familiar to either of us. Dad concludes that we must've driven past it that many times when it's been shut, it just feels like we've been in. The young bar dude is a chatty lad so we quiz him. "Were you closed for a long period of time?" ventures Dad, but apart from Covid-era, he's not aware of anything. Still, he is about 18 yrs old so probably not best placed to answer. A funny sorta pub experience. Looks the part. The accents and vocals have gone up a notch as you'd expect when you start seeing road signs for Sheffield, Chesterfield, Rotherham and Barnsley. But we're back to that slight chill in the air, and as time goes on, there's a strange element of cliqueiness we both pick up on. Focussing on the positives, the carpet a slightly 'Spoonsy 8.25 and the Bradfield Farmers Blonde is crystal clear .... though not an ale I enjoy as much as ten years ago which I blame hazy tropical interlopers for, damaging my taste buds.

One to go then, not far from here and thankfully I'd not heard of this one before it popped into the GBG last September.

Even better, a 4pm opener even on a Saturday so a nice one to get done.

Past the defib and under the Tetley's lantern we go, two hallmarks of pub quality in the same way the presence of a mobility scooter is ...... WAIT A GOSH DARN SECOND, who is that sneaking in behind Dad? Windy Miller? Kurt Cobain? And how have I never seen them before now? Cross Daggers, Coal Aston (3348 / 6188) takes all that was good about the Holmesfield Rutland, and adds a dollop of old fashioned WMC hearty cordiality. If an alien crashed landed here with a broken navigation panel, it'd know it was in North Derbyshire ..... providing said alien had extensive UK knowledge from previous trips. My senses are slightly impaired by now, which probably explains how I didn't realise the pumpclip's 'hops v sprouts' joke was staring me in the face, so whilst Dad and the two barmaids are fully aware of what's going on, I feel the need to mansplain that hops and Brussel sprouts are two different things that could be mistaken. Great pint though, and a last gasp contender for pub of t'day.

No time for a late Fox / Volunteer pint back in York, we were approaching from the wrong angle and quite frankly I was imbibed to buggery.

If I'm well enough on Sunday after what's shaping up to be a complicated/messy and lengthy BRAPA day out tomorrow, I'll get stuck into my Easter epic in Oxfordshire.

K.I.P., Si