BRAPA in the ... SCHOOL OF ROCK-LIFFE (A TRIP TO NORTH TYNESIDE)
Sunday 17th December, 2:39pm
A rare BRAPA Sunday outing as I'd been at my first Bottomless Brunch the previous day in L**ds. Notable for not being strictly bottomless (two hours to drink as much as you want and limited to one food item!) Not to mention the fact that 3-5pm isn't really brunch time is it? You could order cooked breakfast items, but I went for a strawberry waffle.
Anyway, enough of my waffle (ha, ha, thanks, 2024 and I've still got it)
Feeling fragile, I hopped off the Tyne & Wear Metro at South Gosforth and trudged grey skinned and fuzzy mouthed to pub one.
Might've been a good day to disguise myself as a corpse and aim for my elusive Crown, Surfleet tick
Pub appears close to a peculiarly positioned junction eight minutes later ......
Victory, South Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne (2568 / 4726)
Three South Gosforth pubs ticked in recent years, but I have no record of this chunky monkey despite it having a real GBG mainstay look about it. The drawback of Sunday daytime ticking is Sunday lunches. They are flyin' oot of the kitchen, visible from the bar, like hot cakes, despite a sign warning 'we are not MaccyD's or Burger King you impatient scumbags so don't be complaining dickheads, good food comes to those who wait' but I paraphrase. This Castle Rock Harvest Pale is 'hair of the dog' at its finest, and my table is available until 3:30pm. I like how the inner walls allow me to enjoy a 'quiet pint', all comfortably numb and detached even in this roast potatoey cacophony. Good pub.
I'm not a Tyne & Wear Metro stop ticker, but no doubt someone is. Nevertheless, rather than walk back to South Gosforth, I walk on to the scarier sounding Longbenton (kinda place where Spuggie would come at ya with a switchblade), and onwards to Whitley Bay.
Ah, Whitley Bay, for the third time in BRAPA.
Mixed bag here in recent years. Two excellent micros, a pretty shoddy seafront bar, and most recently, a boring micro which doesn't let you poo solids which quite frankly is an unreasonable demand as if you've gotta go, you've gotta go. Two of my best pub poos have happened in micros incidentally - Post Office Tavern Birmingham & Wibblers, Southminster.
Anyway, with this recent history logged in the BRAPA annals, you can imagine why I stepped up to today's newbie with a heavy plop of skeptism.
Rockliffe Arms, Whitley Bay (2569 / 4727)
And now for the happy face of the Sunday pub coin. I'm talking about that lazy mid afternoon thrum and pubbub. It hangs like an invisible fug in perfect street corner boozers like this. Whilst it is well populated with punters, it is peaceful. Full up on their Sunday roasts, the rigours of Friday night and Saturday finally catching up, not to mention the threat of work in the morning leading to a subconscious need for self preservation, they cling to their final weekend pints like lifejackets, and sup it slow. It reminds me of a Black Country Ales house but rather than being bostin' babs, everyone is a canny gadgie. 'Full House!' was being called on the pub aesthetics bingo card. One for the lovers.
The spell is immediately broken as I step back into the street, only to have the ends of my toes clipped by a mad tricycling twild, followed by a Mum who does the most realistic steam train impression ever to leap from a human mouth! Her child doesn't appreciate her skill. But I guess he has never heard lesser steam train voiced Mums.
A bus takes me to Blyth next for a rare Northumberland tick. A statement of BRAPA intent for 2024 ya buggers. Sadly, it is too dark to admire that gorgeous coastal scenery, but I could still remember it from my Seaton Sluice / Old Hartley trip in early 2020.
I only have 32 minutes before the return bus so it was a bonus to find a shortcut over a precinct which Google Maps doesn't realise exists.
The Lounge, Blyth (2570 / 4728)
Twinkling back at me from an isolated street corner, I enter to live acoustic music, the assembled local bar blockers are huddled in toe-tapping appreciation. The best I can do is look awkward, apologetic and order my pint in a loud whisper. Metalhead brewery keep the music theme going, I go for a 'Pretty Vacant' because it is the punkest beer on offer. I creep over to a seat trying to be all invisible and respectful, but Colin the naughty Cauliflower hasn't read the script and decides to eyeball the singer for the duration! Oh Colin. As Ed Sheeran once famously commented, playing in front of a sold out O2 Arena is easy compared with being stared out by a solitary plush cauliflower. She's got a nice voice, breaks off to say hi to any local duffer who enters, and throws in a bit of Rick Astley for the giggles. I leave as silently and gracefully as I arrive, I think I'd played it just right. Shame about Colin though.
The bus back to Whitley Bay does what it is supposed to, and after a piss on some dark grass going out to sea, I head back inland to Monkseaton, another one of those Metro stops which likes to give tickers plenty to think about.
The latest offering has quite limited hours even on a Sunday, being a micro n all, and is our final tick of the evening.
Crafty Cold Well, Monkseaton (2571 / 4729)
It is warm. Relief! Never trust a pub with 'cold' in the title, however innocent their intentions. Deceptively large, you climb three steps, scale the length of a bannister, and enter a busy main area where some gadgie with a premier league hairdo pulls an Irish Stout so dry your tongue goes crinkly. The loos are right here, and once you've peed, you find yourself washing your hands in half view of the entire room. Oh well, at least it exposes the non handwashing scroats for public shaming. Then, as you attempt to escape to the calmer lounge lizard 'downstairs' section, Kojak the dog blocks you off and you have to be patient, because Kojak won't be rushed, and Kojak's owner won't make concessions to visiting York losers. And finally, your Cauliflower mascot will be mistaken for a pea, by two canny baldies who seem quite taken with him. The Crafty Cold Well, it is worth a punt.
Well that was jolly wasn't it?
Join me on Thursday for tales from the Yorkshire Dales. I'm not #ThirstyThursdaying because 4th Jan has 'SHUT PUB ALERT' written all over it and I wouldn't deserve ANY sympathy if I got caught out.
