BRAPA is .... SAVING THE BREWS : SCHINDLER'S ROSLISTON (DERBYSHIRE COMPLETION)

Thursday 31st July 2025

In 2024, I fell one pub short of completing Derbyshire. That pub was the Bull's Head at Rosliston.

I made a pact with myself that if it remained in the 2025 GBG, I would definitely get it done this time.

It kept its place, and by the end of July it was once again it was my final tick, having mopped up more obvious Derbyshire newbies in places as diverse as Long Eaton, Matlock, Chesterfield and Bakewell.

Truth is, Rosliston is more 'Staffs'. The only way you can approach it using public transport is a train to Burton and then a two hourly bus.

After a swift Bass in the ultra reliable and down to earth Roebuck .....

... the bus turns up. Well, I say bus, but it is one of those 'care in the community' hopper taxi style thingies .....

Down-sizing on my 2019 bus out here to tick Lulington and Coton-in-the-Elms (both also in this year's guide), I resent Rosliston's existence for forcing me back out here to obscure Sth Derbys!

A proper grump sits down just across from me. "You'd have to be idiot to sit beyond the wheel arch at the back of this bus!" he huffs, and having accepted the fact that I'm officially an idiot, I try to lighten the mood but he is the most negative man ever.

"I ended up on painkillers for back pain for 3 weeks last year from being on this bus .... no existing back issues, all caused by THIS thing, my doctor said so!" he harrumphs as we bounce through pot holes down the country lanes.

I'm relieved when a couple get off at Walton-on-Trent and he moves to sit towards the front, so he can chew the ear off the driver and some poor old lady.

However, I get chatting to a lovely woman who's just finished her shift at Home Bargains and lives in Rosliston. She says she'll help me get off the bus in the right place and point me in the pub's direction. That's the kinda stranger we LIKE to meet on BRAPA days!

She temporarily scares me by wondering out loud if the pub closes after lunchtime, but I'd not seen anything suggesting that, and she's thankfully wrong ....

I turn left into the lounge where an old lady is bent double in the window seat groaning from too much food. You can smell the foodie particles in the air, I suspect Bull's Head, Rosliston (3266 / 5753) was a hive of luncheon life less than an hour ago. The sigh of relief on the face of staff is visceral ..... 'lunchtime rush over ....now breathe!' But not before they've pulled me a second Bass of the day, obviously. It is good, but I think Roebuck was a step above. My toilet wanderings help me discover just how superior the right hand side of the pub is, lots of wood and green upholstered seats carved in sort of beer barrel shapes. And a lively smattering of drinkers in short shorts who all say 'ey up duck' when I scoop up my BRAPA paraphernalia and move round here. Meanwhile, overfed window seat lady's mate has arrived to roll her home down the hill, so the left lounge is now totally deserted My next bus ain't til 5pm, ugh! Bus lady had suggested I do some pre-emptive ticking t'other side of Rosliston out in Swadlincote, keeping up my 100% record of Sth Derbys people recommending I go to 'Swadders' even though it sounds shit for pubs & beer. But I decide to try booking an optimistic Uber as far as Stapenhill. I don't fancy my chances, but he's only bloody 7 mins away so I neck the rest of my Bass outside, collide with the corridor chattering staff as I rush for a final wee, and then I'm outta here ... Derbyshire complete for the first time since 2018.

Why Stapenhill? Well it is marginally closer to Burton from here, and contains my favourite (and currently open) pub from my previous Burton trip, the Elms.

It is on good form today, but fails to repeat the magic of that 2019 visit. The Bass is good, but not as stunning as it was on that day. Barmaid is proper weird, she was incredible six years back! Perhaps had a different face too? I don't feel like bursting into tears with drunken happy emotion like I did then either. And a strange bloke manages to convert a gentle little chat about herons, moorhens, locks and canal boats into how England will be a Muslim state before the year is out and we'll all be kneeling for Allah outside an Anglican church in Burton converted into a mosque. When I tell the nice couple next to me I'm leaving, their eyes plead 'please stay!'

Time to walk over the bridge into Burton proper, where I had a boring sounding tick to complete the town (which was good because it made my Rosliston day more appealing, having something to link it with).

Open at 4pm, I'm first customer inside Beeropolis, Burton on Trent (3267 / 5754) and mine welcoming but slightly awkward host pulls me this incredible 5.5% dark strong mild from my favourite non-grudge man lovers up in Thornbridge. Bacon Fries to soak it up = much recommended. After all that Bass, this pint rides like an 8.3% For all Burton's pub genius, it loves popping in a Johnny-come-lately micro in with the classics, but this had enough cushioned benches to make it preferable to the Last Heretic, which was my 2018 version of this. A group of blokes who sound very 'Derby' arrive and I'm like 'ah good, #PubMen, finally some atmosphere' but even though they sit at the far end, and I have no interaction with them, I get the impression they aren't very nice men .... you know like when your instinct just kicks in, like that painter decorator chap that time in Wokingham's Queen's Head, when your skin starts irrationally crawling. Reminds me of Pudsey Sarah at work circa 2004 who had bad feelings about Rolf Harris during in his Animal Hospital 'National Treasure' prime and the rest of the office were like 'what you on about, Uncle Rolf, utter legend, one of the good guys'. I still think about that a lot!

With a couple of hours until the pre-booked train back to York, I work out a third tick is possible if keep my discipline ..... for I have a pub to mop up in Tamworth, a short train ride away. Let's go!

It didn't look much like a pub, and what's the world coming to when you have to rely on a blue plaque to tell you that you're in the right place?! Old Bank House, Tamworth (3268 / 5755) didn't feel much pubbier inside. More like an art open studio crossed with one of those curio local museums which gets 147 visitors a year, but just so happens to have a bar. I break free from the shackles of dog leads and middle aged women with pursed lips and floral prints and clamber up the staircase with my milk stout from Hebden Bridge - a fitting beer choice I reckon as this pub could easily have been in everyone's favourite haunted hand crafted knitted woollen lesbian West Yorkshire twee town. Upstairs is much better, this is where you feel the benefit of the fine Victorian building. I could imagine Dogtanian and the Three Muskahounds having a debrief with Commissioner Gordon in a room up here. BRAPA settee of the year. People kept popping up, peering into my room, saying 'ow do' (or Brummie equivalent), and then wandering off again. Worth a visit.

I was doing so well, I even had time for a pint in two times CAMRA award winner, Tamworth Tap. Possibly even more impressive than I'd remembered it from Christmas '22, mere hours before THAT Colmore incident which I don't like to talk about.

I even let the sparkly barmaid talk me into a pint of the L**ds Utd themed guest ale from Wilde Child, with a Daniel Farke pun attached .... 'You're Farke-ing off back to the Championship in 12 months ya Dirty C*nts'' or similar. It was gorgeous.

The train home went to plan and I only then I realised I hadn't eaten all day, but weirdly wasn't quite hungry enough, so I popped into York Tap for not one, but two pints to sharpen my appetite, staying until last orders listening to Carter USM on my airpods, before a very late KFC and a few repeat episodes of 'The Thick of It'.

The Only Living Cauli in New Cross

Ladies & Gentleman, I give you ..... Sheriff BRAP-man

Needless to say work was a struggle on the Friday, but for Derbyshire completion, it was all worth it and as my mate Rich said 'first proper county you've completed this year' which really hammered home how much work I've still to do before I join the pub ticking elite!

Join me next time, hopefully Friday, when we'll talk Bromsgrove.

Thanks for reading, and keep keeping it pub,

Si