BRAPA in .... GUINEA-PISSAU (BRISTOL PART 4/8)

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 morning.

One recurring theme of the week would be my inability to stand still in Bristol for more than thirty seconds without some deadbeat goon asking me for money.

The most memorable instance being at this juncture, as I wait for a bus to take me to Frampton Cotterell. There must be ten of us waiting, but I am the ONLY person who he asks. I must look wealthy, but more likely, gullible (and yes, I DID look that word up in a dictionary at school when my mates said Collins had failed to include it).

To prove how 'pukka' this shady guy is, he shows me his phone screen, giving me a visual demonstration as he tries to ring someone called 'babe' - heart emojis galore - only for an automated message to tell him he doesn't have enough credit. Elaborate ruse!

When I refuse to help, he doesn't ask any of the other bystanders. He walks to the back of the shelter and smokes an expensive looking cigarette, then boards the bus due before mine, and hey presto, he taps his phone and it has worked! His credit must've miraculously reappeared.

Why is the human race like this? I need a pint.

Rising Sun, Frampton Cotterell (3322 / 5808) is our early riser. Even in hip-happening Brizzle it is tricky to find a pub open at 12 noon on a Monday, hence my need to leave the city. This pub opened at 11am Monday, so already a deserved recipient of the local pub of the year award. Homely parlour of a pub. Sturdy carpet, old piano, sexy horse brasses. Horse brazzers? Sorry. Beer from Hop Union, £3.80 a pint. I'm impressed. I tell the barman. He tries a pithy reply but can't get his words out. Although we don't have the usual Monday morning pub scenario of 'having to lift my feet up whilst a cleaner sticks a Henry Hoover nozzle between my legs' (see, pub ticking CAN be fun), there are a bunch of blokes wandering around with pints of lager doing odd jobs listening to Heart radio. They occasionally stick their heads into the bar room to say 'hi', though what they really mean is 'wot's your game pal? How come you can sit down a relax? Why aren't you helping move this scaffolding?' Anyways, a solid start and it was about to get better, before it got worse!

Back onto the same bus, up to Yate Shopping Centre, and a shortish trek east over the River Frome to Chipping Sodbury, which most of you called Sodding Chipbury cos you think you are hilarious.

A highlight of the week, Horseshoe, Chipping Sodbury (3323 / 5809) should be the blueprint for how to be a proper pub in 2025. Garrulous, bawdy, some may say tipsy, or pissed as farts, locals are already filling the main bar room, wet-led Monday lunchtime joy. The sort of scene which gives you cause for optimism ..... pubs ain't dead yet! Though the fact that this it is so notable tells you how often I witness it i.e not enough. Everyone is on the red wine, and their cheeks are a matching colour. Facial cheeks anyway. A beer & Schwepps delivery is in full swing too, plus the staff are voicing concerns because there's a rumour circulating / someone's put something online that suggests CAMRA members get a free pint off them or something highly improbable! I'm in the way so I'm forced to retire to the quieter outers, but the pub being brilliant, people do wander over occasionally to check that I'm having fun. With the sounds of Johnny Cash, Colin's zany banter and the best quality ale I've supped so far this holiday, it was a wholehearted 'yes' from me.

OF COURSE the heaven's open the second I leave the pub to walk back to Yate. The weather had been, and would be like this for most of the week. As I struggle to put on my £8 Temu 'thin like wafer ham' raincoat on, I notice a lady doing the exact same thing across the road so I cross and we have a bit of cheeky weather bantz despite the monsoon.

Then at the road crossing, an old lady tells me how much she loves my fisherman's hat, and another lady joins in. Sociable crew this Yate lot. After a quick Tesco piss, I decide a bus rather than train back to Bristol makes most sense. I've identified four pubs which open, or are soon to open, this afternoon.

I sit at the front of the top deck. Best spot innit? Someone has put a giant rock on the bus seat next to me. Weird lot this Yate crew!

It might've been the 'Monkey Puzzle, Paddington' approach, perhaps the steep downstairs loos with 'German language lesson' soundtrack, or even the transient wheely suitcased clientele, but there was something decidedly 'London' about the Bank Tavern, Bristol (3324 / 5810). But not shit London. Decent London. Any pub with a newspaper rack isn't going to be terrible. Like seeing a mobility scooter, fish tank or dude with a fifty a day cough, eye patch and dog with the face of Tony Mowbray. What WAS terrible was my Bass, yuck. Started room temperature but sort of ok, but by the end, I'd wished I could go back in time so I could return it on arrival! "You're about to witness some bad DIY mate" say two blokes trying to reattach a door handle. I tell them there's no pressure. The chattiest one, having seen my GBG, spends more time quizzing me on BRAPA, and even gives me a handshake and 'good luck' on the way out. The sort of guy who'd drive you around West Wales if you asked nicely. So despite my poor beer experience, I kinda liked the pub.

As we've reached the halfway point, I want to tell you that these three pubs all retained their place in the 2026 GBG, and despite that unlucky Bass, I approve.

My final three however would all be dropped. Two deservedly, one slightly cruelly but you can sort of see why. Let's get into the second half of misery.

Recycling is out, door's wide open, lights are on, couple o' workmen finishing lagers, FIVE minutes ahead of 4pm opening time at the Golden Guinea, Redcliffe, Bristol (3325 / 5811). Happy days! But in pub ticking, there's an ancient proverb dating back to Dick Turpin's clean sweep of the real ale pubs on the old London-York road. 'If it seems too good to be true, it fucking definitely will be'. "Gimme a few minutes to get mi shit together mate!" cries our sweaty vested guv'nor running throughout the pub like a maniac, and I'm directed straight through to the back courtyard to wait. Thankfully, we're not in the midst of one of this week's downpours. At 3:59pm. I'm called forward, like a bloke about to have a finger stuck up his arse by a man in a white coat, so I still made up a minute, ha! No sign of lager workmen, an apparition or guys who'd been doing some odd jobs and got a pint before time for their troubles? Our landlord is a fellow Simon. I often find my fellow Simon's a disappointing breed with notable exceptions like Dewhurst, Pegg and Sharma. But I end up having one of my most meaningful chats of the hols and warm to him, a real nice guy. Mainly about nieces going back to school, to which I can't relate, but heart warming nonetheless. We've all had that last minute dash to WHSmiths for a protractor and compass. And Daddy BRAPA would be rating the thru-draught 10/10 if he was here. Simon asks if I can smell drains. No. I thought it was the beer. I'm on the Attic. It is increasingly dreadful, but I keep schtum, having learnt absolutely nothing from my Bank Bass (not to be confused with banked Bass in Stockton on Tees ..... jeez, why is beer so complicated?)

Looking back, this little spell of pubbing represented my poorest pub/beer run of the holiday, I suspected Bristol was better than this, but it wasn't getting better any time soon!

I love a striking pub frontage, so I was semi-optimistic for this electric blue lover, but maybe the shit alliteration or forced attempts to present themselves as ye olde medieval inne should've been a bigger clue. Portwall Tavern, Redcliffe, Bristol (3326 / 5812) was up there with Westbury Park for 'random wildcard GBG inclusion of the week' but without the winning Timmy Taylor's. I like the barmaid, mainly because she finds it hilarious when I ask for a pint of 'Mystery Tor' and then after a two minute pause, follow up with 'ohhhh, Mystery Tour, Mystery Tor, just got it!' Glasto beers aren't great at the best of times and this is particularly babby after a promising bland mineral water(!) beginning, it drops off hugely. Probably brewed out the back of the smug Eavis duo's tent after patting themselves on the back for booking Olivia Rodrigo & Neil Young. And the less said about the pub interior the better. Could it be more bland? No wonder such a striking pub in such a prominent location is near empty 4:45pm on a sunny weekday afternoon. And why does it smell of parmesan cheesy sick in my corner? This'd happen in part 5 too. Jeez Gloucs people, STOP puking in pubs and leaving it to fester.

8/10 flooring though

Could we at least end on a high? Please?

Hmmm, well perhaps not a 'high' but at least LHG Brewpub, Bristol (3327 / 5813) was a marked improvement on today's recent pubs, and perhaps more notably on Wiper & True which I'd disliked immensely on my opening night. The atmosphere is zingy, young and pizzaish. Staff hard working and smile a lot. The seating is pile inducing Pret a Manger style. You can take your pint walkies in a lift to a higher level. I did it just for the laugh. I quite like Left Handed Giant ales, perhaps not as much as Right Footed Midget, and I'm not sure cask is top of their best seller list. Golden Mild. You don't see a lot of that down here so respect. Good drop. I'd like to say the barmaid gives me a winsome coquettish smile as I order it, lowering her Taylor Swift top to reveal a bit of right shoulder, but I'm not sure my memory is accurate. Look, I'm over a month behind on my blogs. It is a wonder, with limited notes, that I'm remembering the level of detail I am. Decent, but I'm not stunned to see this, Wiper & True and Stroud all binned from the '26 Guide. Nice to see CAMRAs not putting brewery taps in for sake of it, which has been a concern of mine since Covid times.

Plenty of recovery time for me to follow. I had a purposefully late start tomorrow because a kind man was driving me around rural stuff and some of them don't open 'til mid/late afternoon so there was no point starting bang on noon.

Conscious I've not told you about my neck injury which I don't like to talk about. A sign it was maybe on the mend today? But I tell yer what, the top of my left foot was starting to give me a bit of gip too.

More on all of that in part five, which I'll try and bang out on Wednesday because it is my one totally free night this week. What we need is another 'circuit break' lockdown so I can catch up on the blogging!

But otherwise, keep it pub. Si