Thursday 12th October 2023, 12:47pm
From Islington to Armthorpe. Just like that. Only in the world of BRAPA.
A first trip to this friendly mining town since Feb 2016 when I visited GBG regular Wheatsheaf. I had to return a dodgy pint. But they turned the experience into a positive by dealing with it so nicely. Seven years on, and taking back dodgy cask ale still is rarely this easy, and that saddens me.
But I wasn't sad today as this pub finally appears in my eyeline, I'd hopped off at the wrong bus stop to compund a morning of transport confusion which I'm blaming entirely on Doncaster, because I can.
Nice pub sign. Commemorating the time that RetiredMartin and Duncan went to Holy Island by horse and ticked all EIGHT pubs in 76 minutes before the tide changed. I wouldn't say Horse & Groom, Armthorpe (2461 / 4618) convinced me as the Wheatsheaf had all those years back, but it had South Yorkshire homeliness in abudance, the highlight being the clash of rouge patterns between carpet and bench seating. Lifts one's heart. A cheeky lad who was too young to serve alcohol but was stood behind the bar anyway smiled a lot and welcomed me, then uses his technological prowess over the boomer generation to unlock the til before his Mum/Grandma/Older Lady had a clue what was going on. Pheasantry beers, I don't always love them, but this particular brand of pheasant was plucking pleasant. Yet I couldn't afford to loiter if I was to get myself into more westerly climes by mid afternoon.
And despite two super human efforts to make my next train/bus connections, I couldn't help feel that time was getting away from me once the painstaking bus from Wakefield wound its painful way around to the never before heard of village of Crigglestone.
A walk down a slope into a typically West Yorkshire dip, through a huge dirt track of a car park, and this handsome and quite majestic sturdy old boozer was soon on my face. Bonus point for the Tets lantern.
I turn a sharp left, entering into an incorrect 'intimate' side bar populated by paint stained working men and hi-vizzers. "Alright mate!" they growl as one, their Carling's gleaming in the sun like amber lava lamps. Noticing zero cask ale on this bar, I continue walking right round to the foodier large left hand side, hoping the blokes didn't think I'd been intimidated by them in any way! Welcome to the Station, Crigglestone (2462 / 4619). A hard working honest gaff, but the grey loungey decor is a letdown following the high octane Yorkshire approach. 'Club' maybe more than Pub in atmosphere, there is no doubting the indefatigtable attitude of its locals to keep the spirit 'pure'. Morale boostingly busy for a Thursday afternoon. Eclectic mix. An old guy next to me orders a roast beef sandwich in a way which makes him sound like a northern Ross Kemp presenting an SAS documentary. Behind us, a boy has burnt his mouth on some evil tomato soup and his parents are telling him to go around the edges. A golf lover hops up out of his wheelchair to nip to the loo, furtively looking over his shoulder in case the benefit officers are present. An old blouse called Anne chuckles that she'd like a doggie bag because the portions were too big. Staff return with giant tupperware box. You could not deny this place was colourful, even if it was grey!
The prospect of taking that painful bus ride back to Wakey to then wait for another one to Ossett with rush hour approaching felt like a waste of my time considering that as the crow flies, Crigg to Oss ain't far.
Then I had a brainwave, taxis (and particularly Ubers) are very prevelent in this part of the world so I fire up the App and bingo. Immediate success. Launceston, you'll never sing that!
Cheap as chips too, bet I'd have paid double for a local company AND I'd have had to speak to a human being on the phone. Bloke is great, VERY interested in the concept of BRAPA for a guy who doesn't touch the ale, and when he drops me off, says he'll give me a 5 star review for being interesting to chat to!
Hang on, I thought he was the one under scrutiny? I give him a generous £1 tip(!) and step up to today's third pub.
A group of quirky coffin dodgers in the overly bright right hand window have noticed my photography so we have a laugh and a joke and I zoom in so they can see themselves. I like positive pub intros, so I skip to the bar at the George, Ossett (2463 / 4620) with all the lightness of a chick in the springtime, smile on my face, notice Tetley's on cask and I coo "Hiiii, ooooh Tetley's, you don't see that as much as you used to!" Well, let us just say that the landlady and the local man she is chatting with don't exactly reciprocate with the demeanour of natural raconteurs, so I reign my mood in and set my face to sullen for the remainder! Shame to have your wings clipped after such promising begins. She does however comment "we have lots of people from York coming in for the Tetley's" which is weird cos I hadn't revealed my hometown! Pretty decent pint, not perfect, and I notice the barrel is changed before I leave. Nice to witness the locals going through the stuff like a hyena pack at a wildebeest carcass. To be fair to our landlady, she later rushes over to help Craig, who is at the 'Deal or No Deal' machine but 'doesn't know what he's doing' - a nice touch of humanity. The pub itself is functional but lacks soul, not the best I've ever been to in Ossett. Dreary recent refurb gone too far would be my guess.
Well, the Uber manoeuvre had worked so well before, how about booking another one to my next nearest tick, Birkenshaw? Less than £10 again, kerrrching! Never has using taxis felt such the right solution. Normally leaves me feeling poor, guilty and a bit grubby.
But another chirpy highly fascinated non-alcohol drinking laddie soon whizzes me up through all those heavy woollen towns and before you can cry "IS THAT SHANNON MATTHEWS SECRETED IN A DIVAN BED?", a chunky pub is to be found, standing proud on a busy road jucntion, gleaming in the late afternoon sun.
And considering it is a GBG debutant and by no means a new pub, I was astonished with the quality on display here at the Halfway House, Birkenshaw (2464 / 4621). It really is the sort of tick which is symptomatic of the way the GBG has been going these past two years - a notable shift away from the modern, micro and brewery taps, towards the more traditional community focused boozer, and providing the ale is good, as it was here, this is surely how it should be. Plentiful ale too from exciting places, if that sort of thing impresses you. Innocent men are dotted about the large one roomer, saying 'alreet' to me as I walk my beer, giant beermat and new haircut ("punk on top, fluffy around the edges") to a far table in the sun and give a reassuring nod to a pair of bonkers hi vissers. They are not too close to me, but not too far away as to make me appear anti-social, the perfect BRAPA distance! My first beer had an odd flavour, like fragrant fruity sweet puke, but not enough to dampen my spirits. DJ Michael 'Micky' Fish was on at 8pm, and hanging around was tempting. My only regret being that local resident and work friend Joanna couldn't meet me because she was busy taking her kids to underwater polo or something. The excuses folk to come up with to avoid BRAPA eh? Cracking boozer though.
That should've been that but the bus to L**ds didn't show, I didn't fancy a third Uber despite my earlier enthuberasm, so I came back in 'ere and asked for half a stout but she deliberately mishears me and gives me a full pint! RetiredMartin had the EXACT same thing a couple of weeks later, still it is the kind of belt n braces boozer where 'halves' probably don't register! Good. Measure of the devil.
I fail to neck it in time, so I miss the eventual bus, and end up wandering down to Birkenshaw's less impressive pub, Golden Fleece. A bit foodier, glitzier and flouncy, but it still kept a very good Saltaire Cascade and choc-a-bloc full of spirited pissheads.
Bus finally arrives, bladder holds up miraculously well to L**ds, and then it is a train back to York.
Mopping up West Yorkshire has been a bit of a chore in recent years, but the quality of new entries in 2023 is above anything I've seen since circa 2016/17.
Cheers for reading, probably won't be back til Friday now despite giving myself a rest from #ThirstyThursday.
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