Greetings from BRAPA Towers, where I'm pleased to report that the longest of long January's is finally behind us and hopefully February will bring some morale boosting green shoots. Like a pub crawl of Carshalton, you've gotta have Hope.
33 new Good Beer Guide ticks for me this month. Modest by recent standards but not bad for January, especially factoring in my self-imposed Thirsty Thursday winter break and lack of holidays. I managed 7 pre-emptives too.
This pushes me back past the 72% completion mark. That's 3247 pubs in the current guide ticked, the same number I had in Bewdley early last July if you want an idea of how hard it is to make up the deficit on the #CruelChurn
Blog Watch
I've written about 99 pubs this month, which just illustrates how far behind I was (mid Nov). And I'd say this .... 'Can I even count the BRAPA tick until I've blogged about it? Does a squirrel hear a nut fall from a tree in the forest?' No one knows.
It's taken some discipline on these dark stormy midweek evenings and lazy Sundays, but I'm glad to report that at the time of writing, I'm only 16 pubs / 3 trips away from being fully caught up. And once I've finished this and cleaned my loo, I'm going to start writing about Stirling.
'Spoons Watch
My commitment to a big Wetherspoons push in 2025/26 continued apace in January with ten new ticks (5 in the Guide, 5 not). According to the rubbish App, this pushes me onto 412 out of 809 in total, the 50% mark passed in Southampton's Giddy Bridge.
The Lion and The Unicorn, Waterloo. My 'Spoons of the month.
Let us now look at the counties which I've made progress in, with the maps, stats, pub of the month and a bit of award winning pithy commentary / moaning about how hard pub ticking is.
Lancashire - 6 ticks done, 110 done in total, 11 left to do, 90.91% complete.
Hull City's trips to Preston and Blackburn allowed me to get my first six Lancs ticks of the season, not to mention six points for the Tigers, and a big thanks to Daddy BRAPA, Ian 'BeyondThePale' Sutton & sort of Matthew 'SeeTheLizards' Lawrenson for help in making it possible.
I'm looking at a train day to mop up the West Coast, and a possible Daddy BRAPA car day later in the summer for some northerly bits. I should probably make the effort with Wrightington and Mere Brow when I do Merseyside, but will I be arsed?
Lancs Pub (Club) of the Month - Fulwood & Broughton Cricket Club, Preston
Warwickshire - 5 ticks done, 24 done in total, 24 left to do, 50% complete
I said I'd finally make some effort with Warwicks this year, and although it's safe to say I've done the easier 50%, there's still some low hanging fruit to help push me forwards. 75% by September would be nice. Some right naughty buggers though like Five Ways, Norton Lindsey and Moreton Morrell which I'd love to do but probably won't. Couple of possible opportunities this month.
Warwicks Pub of the Month - Royal Oak, Alcester
Loch Lomond, Stirling & The Trossachs (5 ticks, 11 done in total, 10 left to go, 52.38% complete)
The best quality day out of the month was in Stirling where all three ticks were exceptional, Alloa 'Spoons had great beer and Larbert was a proper station boozer too. Falkirk 'Spoons and Bo'ness were 'tactical leaves' but I think the others will require an overnight stopover. Not got any plans currently, but it would be nice to get back out west before I get too old and achey.
Another map which needs a bit of colouring in, a Daddy BRAPA car day helped me knock off the north of the county and it was decent quality. My first new Newark tick since the great pissing incident of 2018 awaits, so that'll be 'emotional'. Crying out of my nob? Sorry, that was childish. Anyway, most of the rest is around Nottingham so I'm hoping to make more progress in Feb.
Notts pub of the month - Black Market Venue, Warsop
A brilliant trip to Saints and three points for the Tigers yielded four ticks but what a frustrating county. It was only 4th March 2022 when I ticked Southwick to 100% complete Hants and now I'm here less than four years on needing 40 ticks, even after Southampton.
One of my lowest priority counties in the entire GBG, but a month end trip to Pompey should help knock off a handful more, though it'll be but a mere scratch in the grand scheme of this whopping county.
Hants pub of the month - Bottle & Stoat, Southampton
Look, I just wanted to milk a rare January success by showing you this!
I'm not too fussed by my lack of recent county completions, I feel at my 72% stage of completion, I'm finding it more important to green areas with big swathes of white, like I'll be doing with Somerset in the summer, Aberdeenshire over my birthday, and sort of Shropshire sooner than that. Wasn't a great quality day out in T&W/Northumberland, but always a pleasure going back up there.
Tyne & Wear pub of the month - Red House, Newcastle Quayside
Best of the Rest
Edinburgh & the Lothians - 2 ticks, 6 left (86.67% completion)
Northumberland - 2 ticks, 6 left (85% completion)
North Yorkshire - 1 tick, 5 left (96.58% completion)
South Yorkshire - 1 tick, 1 left (98.73% completion)
Pub of the Month (and possibly best overall) - Thomson's Bar, Edinburgh
Looking ahead to Feb, despite my zero holidays, I'm looking to improve on Jan's 33. After all, I've booked a swathe of #ThirstyThursdays due to that helpful but short-lived 'Rail Sale' a few weeks ago.
45 pubs would be 1% of the Guide, so that'd be ideal, but the main thing is I hit the 73% mark which at the time of writing, would require me to tick 38 pubs. We'll see where I am a month from now.
Right, I've got a loo to clean. Thanks for reading, and if you don't do anything else this month, keep it pub.
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