10th May 2025
When I saw this peculiar mutt on the train to Nottingham, I say to Daddy BRAPA 'that's a good omen for one of our pubs today .... Blues Dawg!" But pub ticking doesn't always go to plan.
Our day starts off easily enough, once we've avoided the racegoers (didn't even know Nottingham had a course), blue sunshine beating down as we cross the city centre, a short bus ride taking us north to Sherwood. Not as close to Sherwood Forest as you might think, although everyone has the same hair as Selby's favourite son, Steve.
Complacent after a week in West Sussex, I press the bell a stop too late and Dad tells me to get my act together and focus, I'm not in Chichester now. Harsh! But I needed telling.
Samuel Hall, Sherwood (3128 / 5613) is a cut above your avg. 'Spoons, I guess it has to be to make the GBG cut in these high quality Notts/Derbys borderlands, which in my mind, includes Nottingham itself, but not Derby. Thornbridge Jaipur .... well hello my old friend! I actually have a pre-Jaipur wobble (as opposed to the traditional post-Jaipur wobble) as it is only 10:40am but Dad is 100% certain, and I need very little coaxing. Scintillating quality, which strikes like a crossbow in the chest cavity, £3.58 for two pints. The carpet is a poorly conceived 6.5/10 but in happier news, the curvature on the staircase up the the loos is phwoooaarr and weirdly, I could imagine gliding down it in my pyjamas. Had the excellent BBC drama Sherwood been set here rather than that keg only WMC, it may have lost something of the gritty integrity, but I was still hoping to get called a filthy scab before we left. And as the GBG tells you, sitting upstairs in the window affords beautiful vistas over the Mansfield Road. CAMRA compilers are actually bonkers ain't they?
With nearby Mapperley not due to open until 2pm (grr), a bus back to Nottingham and a connecting train to Beeston was our next move - and I'm glad we had time to spare because the platform it went out of was about a mile walk in itself!
A few years back, probably before one of Hull City's many victories over Forest (we have a strangely great record at the City Ground), I marvelled at the Crown, Star and Victoria ... well two of the three were gorgeous, the other was 'okay'.
How could today's new micro fare?
The best single word description of Pottle, Beeston (3129 / 5614) is 'stoic'. Unlike most southern chatterboxes, this micro didn't need a jaunty dude in tropical shirt and surf shorts 'how's yer fathering' all over the gaff. People sit in happy communion, flicking the pages of the morning broadsheets, clunking tankards of murky Shiny as the sun sneaks through the cracks. A Metallica fan briefly blusters something about the world being a better place if carnivorous dinosaurs 'return to the planet' .... like they're currently holidaying on Saturn. Then Daddy B puts the cherry atop the Pottle cake when he tells me about his honey bee infestation / York's leading pest controllers.
Back to Nottingham it is, where strangely, and perhaps symptomatic of my #CruelChurn, I had TWO new central pubs visit despite having been using the GBG to discover Nottingham real ale pubs since 2004 when Fellows, Morton & Clayton and the Bell Inn (8% beer, fight outside) thrilled me before a Groovie Ghoulies gig at Junktion 7 where I ended up with a thong on my head and lead singer Kepi dedicated 'Freaks on Parade' to me.
Just a bit further down the canal, past one of my most visited Nottingham pubs, the Canalhouse, which looked heaving today, we deliberately power-walked past a group of dorky young professionals who we suspect are also en route - look I even had time to pose outside (showboating!), before we enter the airy, buzzy, bare-boarded, sage green Navigation Inn, Nottingham (3130 / 5615). We made the right call, service is a bit of a scrum, I can't really see the beers, but spot something Oakham, order two pints of it, but it turns out to be this deep brown red thick malty thing which just ain't the right ale for the moment - well kept n all though, lacings are superb. Within 5 mins of our arrival, the dorks are queuing single file back to the front door, which does nowt for our 'experience'. A poor table layout sows the seeds of doubt in their minds. I think it is a Timmy T's pub actually. Not bad, but if I was on a Nottingham crawl, this wouldn't be near the top of my list.
Time to walk back up through town for the second time today, so we are in striking distance of the bus for Mapperley ..... Dad remarks that today is the first time ever which he's appreciated Nottingham as a pleasant place to walk around, and it does feel extra 'pretty' today.
Cook & Hoop, Nottingham (3131 / 5616) was another 'perfectly fine' Notts pub selling GBG standard ale, with a vaguely irritating backdrop as you can tell from the name which would be called Cock-a-Hoop if it was doing its job properly. I miss most of the irritation as I rush off for a quick wee, but I return to find a fraught Daddy BRAPA chuntering about a woman asking for a taster of every cider, which was all standard stuff like Aspall, and he wouldn't be surprised if the Carling drinking man behind her was about to do the same, harrumph! RetiredMartin tells me that Holt's pubs LOVE it when you ask for a taster of their bitter .... is he joking, you can never tell with that man?! I'll try it next time I'm in Prestwich. Sat down with our ridiculously bitter Raspberry Titanic Pales, the decor is a further irritation .... 'portraits' of animals dressed as colonels, duchesses and the like - reminds me of that Brum pub on John Bright Street and it is sinister and never 'cute'. A pub I found it hard to love. Quite boring too, note the lady opposite who dozes off.
Back to the bus stop from where we'd gone to Sherwood earlier , this time we 'forked off' slightly right and end up in Mapperley.
From across the road, we see a woman wiggling the door handle in vain, uh oh, doesn't look good .... Daddy B. rushes over to do the same .....
SHUT PUB ALERT!
Time to think on my feet. It is approaching 3:30pm, we'll soon be needing a wee, 4pm is a time pubs often open so still hope for Blues Dawg, and I spy a cafe bar next door called 'Nine Six Two'.
Running the risk of sounding like a disrespectful arse, I immediately ask the guy behind the bar, barista by day, barman by night, if he has any clue why next door is unexpectedly shut. He doesn't of course, and handles my question with such good grace, we stick around. Coffee for Dad with a little side biscoff, fizzy Meantime for me, Dad can't understand why I've not gone coffee too. He has a point as I'm still burping 24 hours later.
After 4pm, I send Dad out to see if Blues Dawg looks any livelier. He returns, giving me a gallic shrug .....so 'taxi to Eastwood! it is. Always good to have a back up plan, and Sebastian arrives in just THREE minutes (meaning I have to neck my fizzy Meantime) and dispatches us swiftly. 5*.
As for Blues Dawg, they never did open that day which is some small crumb of comfort .....
Why do I read 'couldn't be helped' as 'couldn't be arsed'?
Could it REALLY be true they are Notts Co. fans off watching the playoff defeat v Wimbledon? Guess we'll never know. Echoes of that banter micropub in Kimberley.
ANYWAY, wanna see a micropub that is open, just for the novelty factor?
Named after a steady 80's-90's Notts pace bowler and the original Steamhammer bassist, Pick & Davy , Eastwood (3132 / 5167) went a bit No. 189 Allestree in the early stages, with one of those "does it actually have an entrance or are you just supposed to fight your way in any which way you can?" The remnants of a boozy earlier afternoon are strewn everywhere, I can barely see the pump clips for empties. I think there has been some VE festivities on judging by the attire / headwear of the barmaids, not to mention a couple of snoozy old boys in suits with medals. All eyes now on my 'Langley Mill Manoeuvre' (LMM) which prevents a return to Nottingham, and must try not to get distracted by any more micros with funny names like Bunny Hop en route.
The LMM works a treat and we arrive back in York quicker than either of us could've anticipated.
We briefly flirt with a York Tap nightcap, but the place is crawling with Hull KR fans, who've just beaten Catalans in York, which made about as much sense as if Hull City played a Championship playoff final against Pompey at Glanford Park.
I'll be back tomorrow to tell you about the day I got some sea air up in Northumberland.
Ta for reading. Keep it pub, Si
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