Saturday 11th January 2025
Doncaster Rovers at home wasn't the FA Cup round tie to pique my interest, knowing us this season we'll contrive to lost it anyway. Daddy BRAPA agrees, so a 'Chauffeur Day' is planned, and Lincolnshire is often the page of the Good Beer Guide to which I turn in such situations.
My initial plan is changed at the eleventh hour - this had been to head to mop-up the new rural pubs around Grantham. But after a week of snow, sub-zero temperatures and the threat of freezing fog, not to mention Dad's lingering man-flu, I suggest an easier alternative in the north of the county, which of course, he much prefers.
Having paid a small fee for the privilege of entering a county as magnificent as Lincs, we realise we cannot see where the dickens we are going! A combination of the low blinding sun and frozen windscreen washer forces us to stop at the side of the road, and Dad scoops a load of snow & ice off a barrier and smears it across his windscreen to clear it up - Bear Grylls / Ray Mears style survival brilliance.
Our first pub, just south of Grimsby, is an early opener. Another reason Daddy B. approves of today's plan - an early start means we can do the majority of the driving in daylight.
I suspect that if the Farmhouse, New Waltham (2898 / 5382) was situated in say, rural Bucks or Oxon, it'd be a drab crap-hole. But in Nth Lincs, where folk are friendly and take no prisoners, it only goes and bloody works! After all, the mobility scooter never lies. "It's a love story, about a man and his schcooter" I say, approaching the bar, channel my inner Lancashire Hotpot. Staff are buzzy positive souls, singing to themselves and having a laugh about Yorkshire Tea which you wouldn't think could be an amusing topic but actually is. Makes a big difference to a pub when the staff are happy. It is an unflinching chain family gastro affair, but 11:20am, early Jan, freezing cold, and already full of four generations of families. Good to see. Nice and warm. The Wainwright Gerld (Gold) is not bad, but was better in York's Golden Fleece on Tuesday, and they'd never dream of putting that in the GBG. But believe me, when you've been to as many identikit Lincs roadside gastropubs as I have, you can sniff out above average ones like there.
Time to pop up the rerd (road) to Grimsby, out by the docks in fact, for a tick which I've had on my radar for years but somehow was de-guided last time I was in town and then I ran out of time to do it post-emptively .....
I just knew Docks Beers, Grimsby (2899 / 5383) was going to be a cut above your common or garden brewery tap when I was doing my pre-visit online checks, and I saw they were opening early to accommodate the lunchtime kick off between the Mariners and visiting Notts County. Game is now frozen off, but this has only served to enhance the throbbing atmosphere in here this lunchtime, Notts Co. fans jubilant they now have extra pub time. "...I'm actually here more for the pubs than the game, and this was top of my list!" crows Mrs Magpie in the queue for the tiny loos from her Rook like beak, a brazen Raven statement, but I can relate. Daddy B. struggles to enjoy brew taps even more than me, but even he's saying stuff like "this darn place has sure got it going onnnnn" though I suspect I'm paraphrasing him. The cinder toffee porter drinks exceedingly well, and a plasma tells us they've got a big events room upstairs and people like Pink, Barry from Eastenders and Chesney Hawkes are going to do some bits here in 2025. Astonishing times. A Magpie Minibus appears at the front to whizz our visitors off to some other Grimsby classic (Rutland Arms I hope) and that's our cue to get ourselves Brigg bound.
Parking isn't immediately obvious, so Dad drops me off and instructs me to get him an orange juice whilst he finds a spot .....
Look, I'm not saying the White Horse, Brigg (2900 / 5384) is a poky pub, but in Wetherspoons terms, it certainly isn't the largest out there, and it seems the whole of Brigg and surrounding villages is in here enjoy the cheap beer and scran because it is heaving. I betcha that you'd struggle to fit the entire quota of Detroit Villains in here .....
.... I order the OJ, and for myself an Adnams Broadside which always surprises me by just how much it kicks me in the Broadsides, and find a ledge, and then Daddy B arrives. reporting he's been able to park just around the corner after all that. Enforced standing room only for the duration, I cannot recall a 'Spoons experience where this has been the case before, and tsk Brigg, absolute tsk, because it just ain't good enough! Even the carpet is an unsatisfying 6/10. But the happy note on which to end should be that pub 2,900 means I'm just 100 away from the magical two thirds of the GBG (again!)
Next stop, Owston Ferry over in t' Isle of Axholme and on a day where I was scratting around for my 'daily six ticks' without being too ambitious, I recall that local hero Axholme Rob told me that the other pub in the village is also worthy of a visit, beer scores suggesting it is decent post-emptive shout.
Furthermore, my online research claims our actual tick in OF (not OnlyFans) doesn't open til 3:30pm, and it is only 2:20pm now, so everything slotted into place nicely for it.
Beautiful location on the banks of the Trent, Crooked Billet, Owston Ferry (still 2900, but 5385) is an instant classic. Landlord apologises for the lack of ales on ... they only opened at 2pm, didn't get rid of last night's punters til the small hours, he does look tired bless 'im .... "Our work here is never done, even when we are closed!" chimes in Mrs Billet, but it is fine, cos Bad Kitty is the one beer which is good to go, and even then, he won't give me it until we are both satisfied it tastes right. Another ale is being pulled through in next few mins, and the third follows later today. If I was a CAMRA Inspector Secret Squirrel, yup I'd be impressed. This introduction plus the pub interior would be enough on its own to take the 'Pub of the Day' crown, but he's a very engaging chap, showing us the pub history scrapbook, telling us about a pesky neighbour who keeps hitting them with unfair noise complaints, recommends a few local pubs like the White Hart at West Stockwith we did last summer, and seems confident our other OF pub will be open when we get there i.e. not 3:30pm. Dad uses his special super power of narrowing his eyes to picture the building in the 16th century when when the internal walls remained, before the 'great opening up'. A superb all immersive pub experience.
Just around the bend, a bit like me, also backing onto the river, we find our official Owston tick .... and our Crooked Billet mate wasn't wrong, it is only 15:06 when we arrive and it is very much in full swing. Never trust Dr Google for a diagnosis. The pub's Facebook is accurate, however.
Now we'd both been expecting something slightly gastro from the White Hart, Owston Ferry (2901 / 5386) having been told it was the 'food' pub in town, but in some ways it is rougher and readier than the Crooked B. The greeting is warm, the locals look like the types who wear vests and have hairy shoulders in the summer months, and the pub is so bluddy rock 'ard, the pumpclip on the Theakstons Quencher is hand drawn. Oi oi! It is perhaps the best pint of Theakstons I've had in the past ten years. Quality edging the Bad Kitty? Ooof, now I feel like I'm cheating on the Crooked B. Meanwhile, Dad narrows those super power eyes once more and reveals that yes, this pub actually retains more original walls. The Sky Sports FA Cup scores are coming through on a plasma, and Michael Dawson looks like a man who is trying to forget that he ever played for Hull City, which might be easier if he can bump off his brother Andy. Funny the thoughts that pop into your head after five pints innit? Bring back the 1980's GBG Darley's pub and the one that shut in 1918 (thanks Axholme Rob again!) and I think OF could be looking at 'BRAPA pub town of the year 2025'. Norwich? Derby? Sheffield? York? Who even are you!
What progress we'd made. Not even 4pm and five pubs done. No wonder that no Daddy B. arm-twisting is required re our sixth pub, which I'd only put in brackets in my notepad because I didn't want to push my luck!
Just over the border back into East Yorkshire, not far from Goole, this place even has its own train station (Saltmarshe) to make life easy, though from a BRAPA POV, it represents a nice 'stepping-stone' on the way home to York. 'The Saltmarshians Have Landed' says a sign in the carpark, I approve ....
It actually didn't look the most promising of pubs on first glance, but once we'd found the main pubby pub pub pub area, Bricklayers Arms, Laxton (2902 / 5387) is the kind of glorious low-key cosy gem which had me scratching my head as to how come this is only making a GBG debut now. After all, this part of the world is a real ale desert, you can't deny. I might well have asked our friendly host this very question (we are the only customer's sadly), but if she did answer I can't remember. Neither can I remember the name of the #PubDog, an early candidate for #PubDogOfTheYear, takes a real shine to Dad and blends in with the pub carpet (9/10) if you've narrowed your eyes to try and look for original inner walls, so careful where you tread! With the Doctor Morton's and presumably the two Wold Top's drinking excellently, here's hoping for many consecutive GBG appearances for this underdog.
Just time for me to slip on some black ice in a lay-by having a late wee on the way home, bum and right hand still hurting now, but I didn't feel it until the Sunday morning which is testament to the beer quality, I'm looking at that Broadside particularly.
I invite Dad up for a cup of tea and Gala Pie whilst we hope Harrogate do something heroic v L**ds (they didn't), and that was that for another fine BRAPA day out.
Si
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