Back in those hazy glory days of 74% GBG completion and warm sunny weather, I decided to bravely go where several men had gone before and tackle six of the eight pubs I need within the vicinity of Milton Keynes. It wasn't to prove a particularly 'lucky' BRAPA day out.
After a hearty breakfast aboard the LNER .....
MK BonBonBonBons
.... I waddled down to Euston to take the train to Wolverton, which is sort of MK : North.
Today unravelled before I'd even reached my first pub, as the ticket inspector shouts 'tickets AND railcards please!' and I'm surprised to find I've not renewed my Network Railcard as I'd thought (was getting it confused with a Two Together Railcard which expired around the same time).
I quickly go to renew it there and then, but we're in a phone signal blackspot and he reaches me whilst it is still trying to load, so he fines me. £100 plus my £19.80 fare for an invalid ticket. He tells me he's been harsh(!) so recommends I appeal it when I get home. Signal has returned and my railcard has renewed before he's even finished taking my details! So unfair!
What with mole removal, too many BRAPA trips, Bristol, and a crazy expensive bonus weekend in Edinburgh coming up, I'm haemorrhaging money of late and I don't like going into my savings but sometimes there's no other way.
At least a morale boosting close-up heron and the pretty Grand Union canal cheer me up slightly ....
A pervy ice cream van man and a cockney wideboy say ''allo" as I march north, leaving Bucks for Northants for today's first tick ......
Not for the first time in my pub ticking career, a dull Everard's canal side dining pub was the fruits of my labours, Barley Mow, Cosgrove (3299 / 5785) won't live long in the memory. I choose the guest / house ale Junction 21, but it is farty. I get used to it, but even then it tastes more like lager shandy than ale. The garden is the highlight, thankfully the weather was good, and I swat a naughty wasp with my ailing 2025 Good Beer Guide. A path leads down to a gate onto the canal, but is useless unless you are approaching by boat. A big group of ageing walkers / boaters / bikers arrive, and with so much space and choice with regards to outdoor seating, they hover near me like naughty indecisive wasps and struggle to make a decision. Mascot wise, Kale Joseph was in the hot seat. His last chance to make an impact, now under pressure with Owlie McBurnie's imminent arrival.
Still in the GBG? Yes, it is! Phew. CAMRA must've had a less farty pint than me.
Where I'd have sat if it had been raining
Time to trudge back into Wolverton. Oh hang on, I KNEW I shouldn't have had that breakfast .... breathe in.
It is by a complete fluke that I find pub two. I've speculatively gone down some steps near a grim multi-storey carpark, emerging in a weird courtyard surrounded by fishwives hanging out their washing, babies bawling, like a 21st century MK remake of Cathy Come Home. Looks like there might be needles and drugs of an evening. But then I see my pub.
'Surprise back entrance, right?' I think, but no, having walked around indoors, I honestly think this was the only way inside the MK Biergarten, Wolverton (3300 / 5786), which might explain the lack of any custom. The young dude is sound, but can't hide his surprise at having a customer - and a pint drinking one at that, as this is more bottle-o as we say in Australia. There's either zero or one cask on, something might've been key keg or not. I was confused so order some hazy shizz from Worthing, another annoying town, which is hard to drink. Liberty has reserved nearly every table in the joint from 2pm, but it isn't even 1:30pm yet so I'm ok, although it would've nice to see if she is as insufferable as she appears in my mind's eye. "Bijou, darling!" she says from behind her shades clinking a prosecco glass, holding a tiny dog. I hate my imagined Liberty. Why didn't I make her kind and gorgeous? Anyway, no time for such trivialities, I have a bus to catch.
Still in the GBG? No! Their lack of cask emphasis must've upset the local CAMRA. You can't be surprised.
Thankfully, I find another staircase up through a different bit of multi storey madness and emerge onto a high street, where I race towards the nearest bus stop. I'm not confident I'll make it, but the impatient faces gathered around tell me it is delayed anyway .... hurrah!
Time to check Hull City's score, they've kicked off early. Despite the recent 'feel good factor' around the club, no one is feeling it this week because a virus has ravaged the squad and we're forced to pick an 18 year Irish debutant midfielder at centre back and amongst other madness. Even so, 0-3 was even worse than I'd expected!
Kale Joseph on to score 4 late goals and be a hero?
Oh well, maybe my next tick can cheer me up over in leafy Stony Stratford? Home of the phrase 'cock and bull story' named after two local pubs. I saw one of them, can't remember which, think it was the Cock.
When your mood is lower than a tiger's belly, a rather uninviting looking Con Club wouldn't be my first choice to brighten my mood, and an old lady wasn't making life easy for me at Stony Stratford Conservative Club (3301 / 5787) ... a real nervy, law abiding shambles of a human being. Bad enough that her male companion wasn't a member "I think you'd better sign the book, George, I'll sign you in", but when I ask her if she'll sign me in too, she runs off whimpering and muttering "I think you really need to speak to someone". Was this a slur on my mental health? Well, the barman is as chilled as his Guinness Zero tee shirt. "Don't worry about it mate". A couple eating stewed veg, pie and mash smile at me. An old lady sidles up, determined to show me her NatWest bank card. "The proice of woine in 'ere is fackin' expensive .... excuse moi French!" For the first time today, I felt happy and the gentle hug of humanity all around. Place was a bit grey but now wasn't the time to be picky. Cosy enough. Even the beer was semi-pleasant despite looking a bit manky, and it was that chalky Northants Roman Way stuff which tastes like licking Emperor Nero's ballsack.
Still in the GBG? Yes! And I'm pleased to say it just about deserves it.
I trot back to the corner and catch a bus to take me in the direction of our fourth pub, but I'm yet to master the arcane arts of outer MK bus geography.
Over a grassy knoll I leap, the sky now fully overcast, an ill Buckinghamshire wind (the illest of all winds) fluffs up my hair, and after much industrial unit confusion, I finally find it in the last place I look .....
I'd left my hopes and dreams in the Biffa bin to protect any expectations I might have, but what a warm welcome from mine host considering a row of bar blockers and overly familiar mates create a barrier between us. Our interactions were brief, but sometimes you just know a person is made of the right stuff. Blackened Sun Brewery Tap, Stacey Bushes (3302 / 5788) couldn't recreate warmth in any other way, the most stereotypical of indie unit gaffs. and the pile-inducing high stools were 0/10 on the comfort scale, 7/10 on the 'blood in the toilet bowl' probability. Look, they didn't have a carpet, I need to rate something out of ten. The homebrew was pint of the day so far, think a smoothflow Lambton's in modern cask form. A pink Bedford van parked outside provides the grade II heritage, and in the grand scheme of today's struggles, I was pretty content here.
Still in the GBG? Of course it bloody is. CAMRA love a homebrew local, whatever it tastes like. Though 'good' in this case.
Uber cheat time. Bashir comes through for me. A ten minute ride. Problem is that Great Linford is part of old Milton Keynes, quite leafy, and not so joined up with public transport. Not from here anyway. I walked to a different pub here with Daddy BRAPA many years back, but even then, an elderly dog walker jumped out of an autumnal hedge to tell us we were brave.
Attractive thatch + scooter, so this time I had no choice but to raise my expectations to unreasonable levels. Not that I loved Nag's Head, Great Linford (3303 / 5789) but at least it had a proper pub atmosphere. Or at least, everyone had a chesty cough and shouted randomly despite being sat 2cm from the person they were talking to. Abbot Ale has a lot to answer for here, I suspect. And if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Tastes of glue and whisky. Warming. Takes me a fair old while to sup up. Hidden in a cubby hole, boring rugby on in the background, a chessboard built into my table, which I'd rather had been a cheeseboard. Must eat soon.
Still in the GBG? No! Do CAMRA not like Abbot that tastes like glue & whisky or what?
I could walk to this final pub, god willen! In fact, I needed to walk off that Abbot, oof. Maybe not quite in a straight line, but I tried my hardest.
And then it appears, on the horizon, looking all detached from reality like so many Ember Inns do.
When barman Josh passes me a TripAdvisor card and encourages me to give him a good review, I'm thinking 'steady on lad, you've served me a good pint and been fairly pleasant, but this is hardly above n beyond behaviour ..... it is what I'd expect!'. Maybe the Ember bar is low. Mad Goose Purity is pint of the day, always amazes me what a classy pint it is when served this fresh. It hadn't been a day where I could take beer quality for granted so it was pleasing to end on a high. It wasn't the greyest or gloomiest Ember ever, far from it, but the shape of the pub, namely the pillars and partitions made for such an anti-social atmosphere. You'd never get talking to a stranger in here. Good for privacy at least, by which I mean smuggling my brown sauce sausage roll. I'd not really eaten until now. I'd even remembered to cut it into bite-sized chunks, so I could slyly pop bits in my mouth one by one in case staff walked through! I once got called a pikey in L**ds Stick or Twist for doing similar in the early 00's - still a claim to fame.
Still in the GBG? Yes! And although if I was editor I'd remove all Ember Inns, beer quality means they've got this one bang on. And I never have to go back, unless they move it brick by brick next door, which they probably will.
So there we have it, back to MK station, back to Euston.
4/6 on the churn. The two pubs I 'missed' were both in Newport Pagnell. And they were both binned anyway so hurrah, could've had only 2/6 if I'd approached the day differently, scary innit? Though they'll no doubt return to haunt me in 2027 and beyond.
With Parcel Yard's cruel but much needed refurbishment still causing it to be closed, I wandered up to an old favourite - well, I've been here twice, the Skinners Arms on Judd Street. V. nice even if a Japanese couple did usurp me from a table for no good reason. Proper Job on form, carpet 9/10, not in the GBG though from what I can see.
Join me next time (Sunday if I'm satisfied with my ticking haul tomorrow and don't feel the need for more bonus Sunday madness) for a bit of Bristol beginnings.
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