Saturday 5th July 2025
Earlier release time today cos I'm off on 'dice night' in a few minutes having had no electricity all day.....
Word up from the 'Yellow Peril' (Mummy BRAPA loaning out her car to us because Daddy B doesn't wanna clock up too much mileage on his), for the longest drive in BRAPA history! Coming in slightly under 3 hrs, surpassing the previous record set when we twice went to Castle Bytham in ultra South Lincolnshire.
I was only after three ticks and a highly speculative pre-emptive, had I been looking for 5-6, Daddy B. would've quite rightly been within his rights to tell me where to get off (maybe literally).
The drive takes us dangerously closer to Newcastle than anyone would hope or expect, but only really becomes a drag when we hit rural isolation in the form of the Northumberland National Park, with its dark skies and beautiful bleak landscapes.
As always happens on such rural trips (the Tan Hill Inn and the Anchor Anchor in Shropshire would be good examples), paranoia starts to set in ..... 'please be open, please be open, please be open'.
No need to worry, in fact you can tell it is going to be welcoming and brilliant before you've even stepped inside .......
The air is cool and damp and I can hear Cooking Lager's voice in my head chiding me for not being able to afford full length trousers as we enter this former drovers inn, Holly Bush, Greenhaugh (3241 / 5728). So what a welcoming sight the real fire is bubbling away in the grate, adding extra atmosphere to a largely unspoilt stone gem. If you'd have told Gloucestershire Si only a week previous that he'd welcome a pub fire, he'd tell you you're havin' a giraffe mate. The main man is superb, what a gent, what a host, accompanied by a local who is so built into the fabric of the pub, he should be stamped on the forehead with his own ACV. Completing the trio, a puppy called Tilly. So still and sleepy, neither of us notice she was there .... in fact Dad thought she was a blanket. "She normally gets very excitable when we have visitors so you've done well!" we're told. Well until I come back from the loo and she goes berserk. We're talked through the ales, all brewed within a 30 mile radius which is no mean feat in this location. We both opt for an Alnwick American IPA. Sadly, as it progresses, this 'hoppy tanger' becomes a 'floppy twanger' and no one wants one of them. They've spelt 'Mosaic' as 'Mosiac' on the pump clip .... and I'm the first person to notice cos you can't teach experience like BRAP. But the pub and people were so good, it barely affected my overall positive opinion.
I briefly consider a pre-emptive brewery tap in nearby Bellingham which Duncan Mackay had mentioned in the pub tickers WhatsApp group ('tis pronounced Belling-jum ...... Greenhaugh hadn't been pronounced as expected either, possibly Greenhoff, can't quite remember what the guv'nor said) but it didn't open until 2pm anyway.
Happily, Dad tells me a car day up here next season wouldn't be out of the question if the GBG requires it (ain't he great?) so instead we head for my definite second tick , about 3 miles south of Hexham down a country lane .....
Hexham must be one of my unluckiest pub/beer towns, nearly every experience (and there's been plenty now) has been weak. Even those pubs that people on Twitter & BlueSky tell me time and time again are 'pretty decent'. I just can't agree. I thought my luck was about to change when we park up here at the nice looking Dipton Mill Inn, Hexham (3242 / 5729), selling their own Hexhamshire ales no less. But the curse continues. Abysmally disinterested staff and dreadful gloomy atmosphere within (no chance Dad could find someone to make him a coffee). It's a real shame because internally, despite being a tourist foodie haven, they've 'retained some of that old fashioned pub character'. Even a bar billiards table loiters in the back room. After about five seconds of squashing into a small seat and being stared at, and deciding we'd need to whisper our way through the next 27.5 mins, we head for the leafy garden. Immediately, a canny family say "ho'way lads" and we feel better. A mizzly flurry of rain descends, but we decide to sit it out which was a good idea as it doesn't last. The beer is dreadful. No tang, or twang thankfully, but like flat warm gall bladder soup - this recent hot spell plus a lack of cask drinkers in these parts were proving problematic. It resembles a farmhouse cider. We choose to focus on the wasp's nest in the chimney and the pleasant location. One of the keys to successful pub ticking is remaining positive when times are tough!
Time to cross the border back into North Yorkshire for today's third and final tick, it could've been four but nearby Ravensworth is one of those annoying community run places that doesn't open until 5pm even on a Saturday in the summer. I think Sunday hours are more generous so I vaguely sounded out the (masterful if he's reading) Daddy BRAPA about that one!
Instead, it is Skeeby. A pub that failed us last time out, deciding not to open on time on account of a delivery which hadn't arrived, which seemed pretty lame reasoning.
What a killer of a village to park in. Mainly because it is just one main through road with nothing off to the side. But we made it.
Travellers Rest, Skeeby (3243 / 5730) looks half shut today too, so when I push the door which creaks on its hinges, and enter a small but empty pub to the sound of 'Ghost Town' by The Specials, I have to laugh. The barmaid gets the irony, hurriedly telling me "it'll be rockin' tonight when Pottsy is playing" and I wonder if I should know who Pottsy is. But she's a fabulous people person, everything lacking at Dipton Mill, and Dad agrees, it cannot be understated what a difference a kind, bright, welcoming personality can bring to your pub experience. Sadly, the Wensleydale Semer Water is a vinegary salty mess, more like Semen Water, and after struggling through two sub par pints, I'm definitely taking this back. She seems rather too unsurprised(!) and my Black Sheep replacement is spot on. Again, outside is preferable, in fact the garden here is better than Dipton Mill. Two parents say 'hi' and just behind them, their two teenage daughters are cracking open the giant Connect 4. "Oooh look Dad, giant Connect 4!" I say a bit too loudly. Did they think I wanna join in? In any case, they suddenly get all self conscious and pack the thing away, shame. But a decent pub this, one of those 'back from the dead'' following a local campaign to save it.
Took me a while to figure out a 'pre-emptive' fourth between here and home because either I'd already been to them, they were long term closed, or their hours were totally obscure.
But one I spy on WhatPub offering a couple of ales and getting decent reviews was the Angel, Topcliffe.
If you're strictly judging it by beer (which I guess you should), this should be in the GBG because the quality on that Timmy Taylor Landlord was stunning. It is a Champion club member no surprise, best beer of the day by far. But it was an absolute restaurant hellhollllleeee! We walked one way, got told in no uncertain terms to politely piddle off cos a party was in here later, and we got trapped trying to get out the other way cos so many kids, old folk and staff polishing the shiniest cutlery ever were stood in t'road. The hand soap too, greenest I've EVER seen in BRAPA, and I've ticked Surrey. We finally get outside and sit on these almost comfy hay bales, but I get told off by a farmer on Twitter because they are straw bales. End.
Well, I tell a lie, it wasn't quite the end. Despite the extra mileage today, the fewer pubs mean that Dad decrees it 'only reasonable' to pop into our favourite Fox, York for a cheeky White Rat to remind us what pubs really are capable of.
See you next time, which I'd love to be tomorrow though it might come too soon, when I'll tell you about a stunning town called Bewdley.
Keep it pub, Si
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