Saturday 15th November 2025
Flask of coffee, crumbly Mummy BRAPA homemade cherry scone, and a blank football weekend.
It simply had to be.
A Daddy BRAPA Lincolnshire car day. One of my most eagerly anticipated of all outings in the pub ticking calendar.
Lincs churn had for the first time ever, been fairly kind in 2025/26 and I can only assume they've run out of random village pubs making their GBG debut despite having been open for centuries doing their own thing.
It was a challenging agenda, so I was grateful that Dad was up for it from the get go. We were hindered by pub opening times meaning we couldn't start at our furthest point, and work our way gradually back towards York as would normally be the case.
At least we had an early opener on the outskirts of Lincoln to kick us off ......
Always pleased to get the weakest entry done first, the Waggon & Horses, Branston (3133 / 5974) was an expansive identikit sports pub of little charisma or charm, and the left hand bar is very Lincoln City orientated. Impish. Not a team I'm particularly fond of, thinking back to our League Two days, they always beat us much like Stoke City, and are red & white with angry fans spoiling for a fight. The barmaid with poor complexion could do with smiling once during half an hour. One weird quirk was the pub's inability to change a pump clip. They simply stick a label over the old one! Thanks to Mudgie's research on the day, I became aware that I was drinking a brand new Joule's called Best Bitter, as if they didn't have a Best already .... but now I think about it, I normally go Slumbering Monk cos of how pale and pissy their others are. This was in decent nick, I'd have it again, and I was more than ready for pub two.
Time to head east, where it becomes that little bit darker, swampy and boggy.
Best Lincolnshire thatch since that dead lass from Grantham, Royal Oak, Mareham le Fen (3134 / 5975). Despite some twee twinkly foody undertones and shocking wallpaper, the multi roomed low ceilinged interior provides the perfect autumnal atmosphere. Service takes a while as Dad's gone for a coffee, made with meticulous precision. "Looks like you've got a fan!" winks Dad as an aside .... yes the barmaid had been particularly smiley towards me. But I'm not getting too excited, I can only assume the Mareham le Fen male populace are gilled six fingered mutants. The Bateman's Yella Belly slides down effortlessly. Well done Lincs, you have delivered in the strangest of locations once more. Forget the Edinburgh attraction, these guys are the real CAMRA obscura.
Time to head to our furthest point today, right out on the coast at Skeggy. This pub was in last year's GBG but I never made it because by the time I was ready, it was August and past experience told me kids summer hols is NOT the time to visit this particular town.
Delightfully grey, damp and morose this afternoon, Dad drops me at the traffic lights (I should've taken a coat, brrr) with the aim of negotiating a tricky one way system, says he'll meet me at a similar spot in 25-30 mins.
Nothing like the name suggests, the Crafty Local Ale House, Skegness (3135 / 5976) resembles a veterinary practice, full of thick sticky grey carpets, sick overweight teddies and plush seating. I take my excellent Orkney Puffin (beer, not mascot) to the large side lounge. The warmth is a welcome relief, but the cloying close atmosphere accentuates the stink and lack of hygiene. B.O city! A family break off their mildly heated domestic to nod and say 'ow do', which is nice, and one couple at the far end have ordered a MaccyD's takeaway, and from a seated position, are pressing the touch screen on a games machine with their juicy burger fingers. Ewww, all I could think of was how nice it'd be to get a pack of Dettol wipes and give every surface the once over. And then have a Dettol bath. But for comfort and beer quality combined, this gaff must be in the upper echelons of micros. I guess that's the trade off in the back streets of Skeg.
3pm had ticked around and that meant pub four was finally open. Lincs must have more late opening Saturday pubs than any other UK country, surely? Another of my four Lincs 'misses' from the 2025 GBG, at least ticking it means I can stop repeating my dreadful joke about Halton Holegate sounding like an England U21 international.
Bell Inn, Halton Holegate (3136 / 5977) is worth the wait. Now I wouldn't call Daddy BRAPA a spiritual sort of chap, certainly not a believer in the supernatural, but he was absolutely spot on when he said these walls talked. This is old Second World War RAF airmen country, yet even in this calmest Saturday afternoon slumber, the pub seems alive with an intangible energy you couldn't see or hear. I swear that I can faintly smell old cigarette smoke, mingled with the occasional whiff of the local lasses perfume, maybe even hear the snap of the odd elasticated stocking .... wahey! Oh hang on, that was just a bloke dropping his keys. Pretty magical anyway, I'd love you to go and tell me if you feel the same. Helps of course that it is still a proper pub, bench seating stretching for miles, aching beams groan for mercy, oh and they had Bass on. Good Bass too, not sure I've seen it in a Bateman's house before. Not to mention a quarry tiled bar top. Yes, I think we'd found a winner!
With the light starting to fade and Dad understandably not wanting to be stuck in bog swamp Lincs when it is pitch black, I'm trying to drink up in 25 minutes prompt and do my bit! Tough life this being driven about.
Next stop Wragby, something of a metropolis (but only because it is in Lincolnshire). In fact, we were here a couple of years ago to tick an 'Ivy' which had a weird leafy bondage theme. Now, Wragby had the temerity to whip a new pub into the GBG.
One thing you should know about Dad, he loves a trellis .....
Adam & Eve, Wragby (3137 / 5978) wasn't particularly memorable. Not rubbish, just a bit too bright and open plan. So after our last pub experience especially, that's quite jarring. The highlight was a fine pint of White Rat. Not quite York Fox Inn quality, but worthy of GBG inclusion. The barman was one of those rare birds absolutely determined to ensure I get a full pint measure. I don't mind a bit less at this stage of the day and a nice big foamy head if it takes 1% of pressure off my bladder as we bounce up the A15 later on! But I appreciate his diligence. According to my notes, we had a 'meaningful East Yorkshire chat to chivvy things along' but that was six weeks ago, so you'll just have to imagine what that entailed.
Today's final tick was, of course, our furthest north but whether it was north enough to be classed as 'North Lincs' I'm unsure.
It may've been the pitch blackness, but by 'eck, this felt a particularly remote location, making Mareham and Halton Holegate suddenly feel 'Birmingham Suburbs'. It put me in mind of the approach to the excellent Dog & Gun at East Butterwick which I remember fondly. It felt like every village curtain was twitching as we negotiate our way into the narrow pub carpark.
Sadly the passage of time and beer I'd already drunk on the day means any specific memories of the Butchers Arms, North Kelsey (3138 / 5979) aren't easy to recall, but I can tell you thoughts such as 'apart from Halton Holegate, this is the pub of the day' and 'how come I've not seen this in a GBG in the past few years?' flitted through my sozzled brain, as I suck on a meaty but rewarding Wensleydale Gamekeeper (a beer, not a man) amongst more quarry tiling and some of the more thoughtful bar blockers I'd witnessed in the year of our lord 2025.
It had been tough going travel wise, so huge thanks to Daddy BRAPA. No time left even for a stop off at the Fox on the way home, a staple of so many past Lincs days, but I'd had my daily White Rat so wasn't that bothered.
We might be able to eke out one more Lincs car day when spring/summer comes around, but it'll probably need pairing with a bit of Notts / Leics / South Yorks to make it worthwhile.
Join me on Sunday for an East London mop up, including some snow and a boiler scam! And join me tomorrow on TwXtter/BlueSky for the first BRAPA ticks of 2026.
Keep it pub in 2026, Si
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