Cruellest month of the year is January, whether you are talking about pub ticking or just living your freezing life in general. So to come out of it with 34 ticks, especially factoring in the BRAPA #WinterBreak isn't a bad outcome, even if it was my lowest Jan total since 2020.
This takes me to the nice round tally of 2925/4500 - exactly 65% completion, edging ever closer to the magic 3,000 mark which represents a third of the Good Beer Guide and where I was last September before the #CruelChurn
With the first BRAPA holiday of 2025 looming (keep an eye out on X and BlueSky next Thursday), I'm in a pretty good position. And my overall highlight of the month? Catching up on my blogs. 'Have I really visited a pub until I've written about it?' is a question I often ask myself.
Back on 2nd Jan, I was FIVE WEEKS BEHIND, but now I should be entirely up to date going into this holiday.
With transfer deadline day looming, we've said farewell to two BRAPA mascots this month. Look, it's FFP, don't @me! Marvin the Melon who'd arrived from Germany in the summer found first team appearances limited. And whilst Toady Drameh came to Dumfries & Galloway with me, his inability to stand up unaided cost him. Plus his reputation was (unfairly) sullied by the poor beer quality I experienced up here. They both depart for British Heart Foundation F.C. with our best wishes.
On Monday night, the paperwork should be complete on our new signing so watch this space!
'My GBG, is falling apart, again'
Yes, despite being only four months into the ticking year, the spine / binding on this year's GBG is proving problematic, especially in that middle section around West London and early Greater Manchester (Altrincham is particularly under threat) and I think page loss could be a reality in the coming weeks / months.
Not since 'Minor Ruin at Ruan Minor' where an exploding water bottle in Cornwall weakened my 2022 Good Beer Guide have we seen such problems. The front cover eventually fell off in Whitstable's Ship Centurion, and I had harsh accusations levelled against me like "you don't know how to look after your Good Beer Guide properly" which obviously stung so #BeKind please.
For the rest of this piece, let us break things down into counties, pick a highlight, and see how I'm progressing.
Merseyside - 11 ticks - 98.5% - 1 pub left to tick
#ThirstyThursdays have been mainly spent in and around Liverpool, aiming to repeat my 2024 full completion. Just the one away, and the way I look at it, Birkdale is pretty much Southport, and Southport is pretty much Lancashire, so I should be able to pair that one with some stuff up there.
It has been a strong showing from my Scouse mates, with a special shout out to Woolton (Cobden), Haydock (Reading Room), St Helens (Lamb) and Waterloo's Volunteer Canteen which may well have won my top award had it not been for phone charging issues on the day stressing me out. Instead, I'll pick this beauty...
West Midlands - 6 ticks - 78% - 26 pubs left to tick
Not that I've really ever gone at the West Mids with any real gusto, but this must be the best progress I've ever made. December's Coventry completion was followed up by a clean sweep of that pesky West Bromwich area for the first time ever.
How does that Stourbridge to Wolverhampton corridor have so many new pubs for me to do? I go there every year. Annoying, but I know it'll be full of quality, and maybe a nice train day with Daddy B.
Making my Dudley debut was a high point in Jan, especially as when I arrived, it was Hull City 1-3 L**ds and a few mins later, we'd drawn 3-3! But I think my favourite pub was this low key understated back street classic .....
Greater London - 5 ticks - 90% completion- 27 pubs left to tick
London is one place I'm determined to get fully 100% greened, look out in April because I have a few nights down there to watch us play Watford and celebrate BRAPA's 11th birthday. He'll be off to big school soon. Don't they grow up quick?
And if I get bored, there's always Staines, Aylesbury, Chesham and quite specifically, Biggleswade 'Spoons. Why there you may ask? It is the first pub listed in the GBG which I haven't coloured in!
My January London highlight was one of high beer quality, super busy pubs full of pissed up young people, which is great to see, and a shock win at Millwall, my first this season. Hard to pick a winner but for sheer interest and thrumming hubby throngingness, I pick this one .....
South Yorkshire, 4 ticks, 100% completion - hurray!
Four ticks in Sheffield and boom I'm done, only my second county completion this year after West Yorkshire which is a bit shameful, but I guess county completions ain't the be all and end all until you get to the latter stages of the GBG. (Though I quite like the challenge, because it is a discipline all of its own i.e. it forces you not to shirk the real difficult stuff).
The biggest challenge here was actually holding them over until Jan when we were due to play Sheff Utd on Dad's birthday weekend, and not get twitchy, lose discipline, and polish them off on a Thursday before. So well done me I guess(!)
My highlight would be this Irish beauty .....
Lincolnshire - 4 ticks - 85.5% completion, 16 left
With only one more Daddy BRAPA car day scheduled in 2025 for Lincs, looks like I'll have to do a lot of the hard work myself if I'm going to get close to Lincs completion this year. I'm thinking spring/summer Thursdays.
I don't think it'll be a clean sweep though as I can't be arsed to go to Louth for a a 58th consecutive year for a pub tick that sounds like it'd fall down if you sneeze on it. And yes, I'm aware I made a pact with myself that if they dropped the funeral banter pub in Surfleet (which they did), I'd go for full completion in 2025, but it is only myself I'm letting down!
Good day in the north of the county this month, Docks Beers in Grimsby very impressive but I think my overall highlight was awesome Owston Ferry, especially non GBG listed Crooked Billet.
Also ......
2 ticks in Greater Manchester, 93.7% completion, 10 left
1 tick in Derbyshire, 96.8% completion, 3 left
1 tick in East Yorkshire, 97.7% completion, 1 left
Aspull (Colliers) and Ashton-in-Makerfield (Hingemakers) were both proper solid good boozers, couldn't choose between them. Laxton's Bricklayers in East Yorkshire was a low key classic. Killmarsh's Guzzle Micro less so, but top barmaidery once they opened!
I might've finished EY but Howden's Tailor's Chalk did the classic 'January holiday closure' even though they only open like 10 hours a week anyway #HobbyMicros - the Bird 'n Barrel at Barnehurst in South London was the only other pub I looked up that shut in Jan, a slight improvement on recent years (had 4 in Merseyside alone in 2024).
I'll keep plugging away at GMR now I'm pretty much done on Merseyside. Oh, and over in Derbys, time for my regular monthly reminder that Rosliston continues to live rent free in my head! A guy did suggest driving me combining it with a bit of cheeky outer Nottingham, so ya never know.
So there we have it, Feb should be a return to BRAPA form so when I join you a month from now, I hope to be within shitting distance of that magical 3,000 mark. Let's go 45 ticks bare minimum and say 2,970 (66% completion)
Thanks for reading, Si
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