BRAPA is .... OUT OF (NEP)TUNE : ALL ALONG THE WATCHMAKERS (HOVE PT 2/2)

Saturday 31st May 2025, 3pm

Three pubs to go in our Portslade / Hove bundle, and a bus with a number like 1 or 1X takes us out east, towards 'Hove Proper', from where we hop off and head down a posh street full of imposing white Victorian houses, lesbian art teachers and monkey puzzle trees. A coastal mist hangs in the air as it has all day, taking the edge of the humidity.

Today's fourth tick is just across the road at the bottom, almost on the seafront.

"Corr, doesn't look like that Pentrich doughnut beer is on, I'm not going in"

The assembled crew outside might have had their doubts, so we power through like Ricky Hatton entering the ring in his pomp, and I find my pub of the day here at the Neptune, Hove (3155 / 5640). A real nautical parlour-cum-live music throwback, presided over by a landlady who looks you in the eye. Soft carpets, I don't wanna quite say 'spongey', or make a shag joke, even the steps down to the 'break yer neck like you're in Central London' bogs are carpetted. A juicy 8.5/10. It is just about Mild May still, so I sneak in a delicious Dorking Dark brewed 2 years before Jack the Ripper caught the stagecoach from Hyde to Whitechapel. A bloke puts his hand in the small of my back and says "ya should pick the Guinness, lacings are superb" and it was so like my Quosh/Dukinfield moment last week, it was uncanny. Then he declares loudly that he's going for a walk, and everyone felt relieved.

Dave Gilmour of off Pink Floyd fame lives nearby people kept telling me, because his daughter was playing a gig here recently and he randomly hopped up and joined her on stage.

It must a generational thing, but I've always thought former Falkirk (my Scottish team) striker Jimmy Gilmour was more famous. I mean, THAT winner at Celtic Park in '87. A Saffron Walden bairn I may've been, but I was at Brockville in spirit.

ANYWAY, we had a fifth pub to visit which wasn't a massive walk, but far enough ......

Oi mate, turn around!

But he didn't, Dad rushed straight off to the loo whilst I get the 1.5 pints in at Poets Ale and Smoke House, Hove (3156 / 5641) - a smart, semi-homely, tinkly Harvey's pub. My main issue is that I'd taken the name rather too literally, and with my imagination growing more fertile with each pint, I'd expected to find a bunch of salty sailors in yellow oilskins (like that ghost I saw in 2018 - Driftwood Spars, Trevaunance Cove) hunched over waxy candlelight writing prose to their loved ones on dry land, whilst matronly wenches bring over smoked kippers like in Craster. Surely I'm not the only one who's expected the pub to be like that ..... guys? Guys? Harvey's Dark Mild was the exciting guestie, and having got a taste for mild in the last pub, at 3.0%, this really was doing a solid. Unlike poor Daddy B, who's been gone a while. I ask if he's okay. He winces and points vaguely towards his bowel. Kinda ironic in a Harvey's pub, BEFORE the beer's been touched, don't ya think? Not sure how Alanis would work that into a verse. Decent place.

One pub to go, nearest Hove station, and again not a bad trek on foot .....

Look how happy I am! Celebration time as we'd worked out that we can board an earlier train to Victoria than we'd ever dare dream this morning, the bonus 7th pub was on. Morale boosting for BRAPA that you can travel to the furthest south coast tip, and get six ticks in with time to spare. Watchmakers Arms, Hove (3157 / 5642) was a very ' East Sussexy' micropub to finish on. Cute owners, very welcoming, lots of terrifying modern cask options. Reminds me of the lovely Jolly Fisherman in Hastings with a personality defect. My beer is a struggle, furry muted modern hops. A recovering Dad loves it, obvs #Hipster. I ask him if he can see a pirate and a three headed alien in the top of my pint. He says if I post that on X/Bluesky, everyone is going to think I'm mad, or worse, drunk. I'll let you be the judge ......

SEE, it is obvious!

After a smooth passage to London, we still had time to shun £7 a pint rip-off merchants at the P.Y. and head to the better value Charles I.

Highlights include momentarily thinking AMEX was a type of real ale which wasn't available. And sitting outside with this genteel couple, monitoring the progress of this injured insect. I suggested Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan could present the next Springwatch from this pub - an 'urban special' to really test them, but the couple weren't convinced it would fly. And neither did the injured insect - BOOM!

Anyway, a top top day and it just makes me all the more determined to make one of my holiday's later this year straddle the East/West Sussex border and get some of that tricky stuff ticked off. But at the same time, Shropshire. Oxfordshire, Borders, West Wales. Hmmm, decisions, decisions.

Busy weekend coming, and ZERO BRAPA ticks, ugh, but I'll endeavour to be back on Monday night to tell you if South Lincs is worth shouting about.

Si