Sunday 31st August 2025
I didn't surface until 10am on Sunday morning, I needed the sleep having barely stopped since I arrived in Bristol at 9pm on Friday night.
Rested, showered and fed, I felt almost human again. Almost. I still had this stiff neck which I don't like to talk about which was a particular nightmare when crossing Bristol's busy roads, as turning my head left or right was agony. The Nurofen wasn't helping much.
During a leisurely breakfast, I considered my Air B 'n B rug. If this was a 'Spoons carpet, what would you give it out of 10?
I had one other issue. I could not for the life of me get the TV on despite pressing every button on two remote controls in various combinations, and trying the classic 'switch it off and on again' at the plug. I'd messaged Air B 'n B host Lou (not Carpenter), but no reply as yet. It is Sunday, fair enough. She might be religious.
But I also notice one of the cables is being held together by Sellotape! So pop into 'The Galleries' shopping centre. Robert Dyas are unhelpful bastards, but Poundland comes up trumps, £2.50, out of my own pocket but worth a try. Six pubs before that though.
A bus out to Clifton next, a little trot up to the Clifton Suspension Bridge viewing point, bright sunshine soon turns to heavy rain, so I leg it to my nearest GBG pub. You could enter the pub from upper or lower level. I chose upper .....
Which was the wrong decision because the bar is down a dangerous staircase anyway. Portcullis, Clifton Village, Bristol (3316 / 5802) is a cosy quirky homely rogue, intimate, quite European, with 10/10 cushions based on Hollywood movies. And I'm no cushion stan. I'm the first customer in and have zero clickage with the barmaid which is frustrating as I'm up for a chat, perhaps the fault of my fisherman's hat (!) and then it becomes awkward when she tells the pub has a £5 minimum card spend rule, but the price of a pint is £4.90. Made no sense. Just bang it up to a fiver, no one will mind. I hide around the corner, do some neck exercises and struggle to get along with my Bristol Beer Factory ale, wishy washy perfumed nonsense. Thankfully, this couple, John and most notably Tricky Nicki are here to save the day. What a lovely pub chat we had, JUST what I'd been crying out for when I'd arrived. Looking at that weather, I'm tempted to linger, but the thing about pub ticking, you've gotta keep moving like a shark or else you might die.
It isn't a short walk to pub two, and the rain is unrelenting. Only a path covered by thick tree growth offers any respite .....
I enter Port of Call, Clifton, Bristol (3317 / 5803) a soggy mess to be greeted by a cavalcade of Sunday roasts - the pub is famous for them apparently, just my luck (well, bad planning!) With Nicki's comments about the stinky loos ringing in my head, I swerve that on remaining free seat in the bar and head to the more dining led right side. I'm in luck! But not for long as a camp lad pops his head around the corner to apologise, this should've had a reserved sign on it. "Where do you recommend that I should sit then?" At the bar. Ugh, Colin loves it but I'm no fan of being an inadvertent bar blocker! But a grumpy old #pubman has commandeered the stinky loo seat by now so I have no choice. 10/10 staff save this from being a really testing pub experience. Young, friendly, smiley, full of positivity despite being overworked. Note to Miss Portcullis. And it is very much a pub, plus the loos aren't as bad as I'd been led to believe. Even better, the sun is back out, the lunches have been eaten, and there's a mass migration. Tristan has agreed to help mother move some garden furniture, meaning that I can sweep in for a window seat and enjoy a much calmer pub for the final ten minutes, the staff visibly sighing with relief as the pub empties - their day gets easier from here.
The 'burb of Redland is a short walk from Clifton, containing a brace of GBG pubs. And like Clifton, this is genteel Bristol as opposed to my 'get jacked up on a park bench' Cabot Circus locale.
I exchange stoic nods with a young lad, dungarees half hanging off him to reveal an ironic Talking Heads tee shirt. He was perhaps the most Bristol person I encountered all week.
The trap door to the beer cellar is open, and although it is cordoned off with a yellow thing for elf n safety reasons, it gives me an excuse for some healthy banter with our soporific wryly deadpan host, exactly the right barman for a sleepy sunny Sunday atmospheric lull. Good Measure, Redland, Bristol (3318 / 5804) might've been the most basic of micros, but I experienced a real 'moment of contentment' here, help greatly by the Good Chemistry beers which always do well by me. I know one of the brewers is called Kelly because she always checks that I'm enjoying their ale, and best part is, I so far have so don't have to lie. Comfort may've been 6/10 but I could've easily fallen asleep here, the tinkly plinky plonky jazz music helping too.
Looks like the sun was here to stay for today, but in any case it is only a short walk to my other Redland tick ......
Narrow, darker and deeper, I'm conscious I'm being followed into the Red Monkey, Redland, Bristol (3319 / 5805) but of course I can't turn around suddenly due to this neck I don't like to talk about, so I act like a lorry reversing (I may as well have said 'beep beep beep, caution : BRAPA reversing'). The man who'd been smoking outside is the landlord. And is it just me who feels slightly guilty when I break staff off their ciggie break, even if I am extending their life expectancy by 0.00001 yrs in doing so? Despite a winning Oyster Stout from Mumbles, and hearty floury cheese roll (I can't believe they call them cobs in this part of Bristol, I might be wrong), I just cannot get along with this place. A weird eggy bottom of the ocean smell permeates the smothering silence. Hauntingly gloomy and empty for a sunny Sunday afternoon, I note this place is formerly known as Chums, did it change because it just wasn't chummy enough?
Not far from Redland, in a Cabot Circussy direction, were two more pubs to bring my tally to six which means I could be back nice and early for my TV experimenting / early night.
Original 'Smoke Room' window etching and lantern above the door, as I roll down the hill, this looks interesting, very interesting. And then inside, 'look at its face, just look at its face'. Hillgrove Porter Stores, Kingsdown, Bristol (3320 / 5806). The Franny Lee of pubs that today had been crying out for, and my favourite since the Swan with Two Necks on night one. A huge beer range. That can set alarm bells ringing in an Edinburgh, Norwich or Wellingborough but how did I just know this was going to be A- on the old NBSS? A lively and predictably eclectic mix of folk are in, thinking back to the empty Red Monkey, it was quite the contrast. One dude has managed to dress as both a punk rock drummer AND a local cabbie - or Travis Barker meets Travis Bickle as I said at the time which deserved a lot more love than you TwXtter ingrates gave it, whilst expecting me to laugh at your dreadful puns. It was pint 5, so some of the more nuanced details wash over me, but with Otoboke Beaver getting the pub (well, me) jumping, all you need to know is 'must visit'.
There was a Banksy just around the corner, a tribute to a dining pub in Bourton on the Water or something, but no time to dwell or even try and understand. More importantly, today's final tick was here too, looking like a florists.
After the Lord Mayor's Show was always the likely outcome here, the barman greets me with a smug smile suggesting he's holding in a particularly evil fart. Hare on the Hill, Kingsdown, Bristol (3321 / 5807), a perfectly serviceable micropub but dinosaur heads stuck to the top of the handpumps can't hide the fact that there's only one (good quality) cask beer on - which in Bristol, I'd imagine makes it an unusual GBG choice. A posh old guy has found an innocent Frenchman and is schooling him on British history and making it sound as if he deserves personal credit for the Battle of Trafalgar, the War of the Roses AND Samuel Pepys diaries. A fluffy dog keeps lolloping around the floor and getting in people's way but the conclusion is 'cute, so awww'. Colin tries to garner a similar reaction, but no one's interested mate.
All done for 6pm, my ideal kinda BRAPA holiday day. Maximises recovery time so I can 'go again' tomorrow.
The TV lead worked. Or, so I thought ..... I then unplugged it and plugged in the broken lead and it is still working! So my working theory is that Lou (not Carpenter) pressed something from her end to get the smart hub on, but didn't want to admit it. Within seconds of me messaging again to tell her stand down, she's straight back in with 'great news, have great rest of week Si x' despite having not replied to the first one!
Oh, and of today's six pubs visited, only one didn't retain its 2026 GBG place. Hare on the Hill. Oh, and I now have new pubs to tick in Kingsdown and Clifton, grrr, as well as one in Bedminster.
I'll try and bang day four out tomorrow cos I'm out Tue, Thu and Fri this week.
Thanks for reading, and keep it pub.
Si
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