Ready for our mid-table finishers? The Swansea, QPR and Bristol City of this countdown.
I really know how to sell my blogs don't I? Right, let's get on with it.
Station Hotel, Oakengates : Telford
Olde Fighting Cocks, Crown Inn and now this. Are there three Good Beer Guide entries anywhere in the UK in closer proximity? I doubt it. All rough diamonds, befitting those Telfordian environs. Shame I needed to come back for this one, having done the other two when they appeared in the GBG last Easter. Sloppy beer is the sticking point. Ronnie Pickering Pale by Empire. I'd been trying to create a positive Hull narrative following our (Tony) gubbing by Millwall earlier that day. But it never pays to be clever with your beer choice. Salopian, Oakham, Purple Moose, Phoenix all staring me in the face. Idiot I am! I guess such beer quality is why it wasn't in last year's GBG along with the other two. Someone pushes a second hand newspaper towards me, not for emergency bog roll I don't think. The tiled floor is majestic, as is the bubbling wood burner. Smooth pated locals dot the perimeter like an Easter egg decorating competition. Would've made top 15, possibly even top 10 with a quality pint.
Unicorn Inn, Little Dawley : Telford
As I stride purposefully through to the bar in the holiday's final pub, passing a retro space invaders machine, I'm thinking "ooh yeah, bit o' me is this pub, honey!" I'm thinking Baileys Head Oswestry but with that Telford ruggedness that the other so desperately lacked, the perfect balance. My optimism continues at the bar during a convivial chat with an accommodating barmaid (the week's third Angie off of Eastenders, 'my sweet!') about exactly where Green Duck are based (it's Stourbridge, but we only narrowed it down to that Telford-Brum corridor of uncertainty). I pull up a pew on some upholstered bench seating facing out into the pub, admiring its excellent 8.5/10 carpet stretching for miles. All seems set for a top 10 finish. But then the doubts set in. It's chilly. Despite the weird heater plonked at my feet. The Green Duck is soupy. The previously cute extended family now seem positively Addams. Pouting lip-filler Morticia and D.I.Y. Gomez sit silently side by side. Lego Pugsley has a strop cos Grandma is threatening to break up his creation. Wednesday and The Thing rush over to intervene. The 'Come on Eileen' gag in the loos doesn't land and comes off a bit aggressive and rapey. Fester festers, silently. Cousin It is vaping. Careful of all that fur mate! How've we gone from quality quirky estate pub to one I'll be glad to see the back of? Perhaps being all pubbed out from a long holiday was a contributing factor? But I just found it all a bit creepy and kooky, mysterious and spooky. And let's be honest, altogether ooky, the Telford family.
Only Gomez and Fester are in shot at this moment sadly
Dog & Pickle, Lavister
I'll be honest, this one was pretty uneventful. But on a day where pubs and beer sucked so much North Welsh arse, it was nice for our Tuesday guest star Daddy BRAPA to experience one well kept pint (Wye Valley HPA) unless you count his late celebratory Peroni in Wrexham Premier Inn. The barman was deferential, there are some colourful leaden windows and private nooks and crannies if you, for example, had the remnants of a cheese & ham roll to snaffle, and the building despite being empty has chunky sturdy roadside qualities. Called the Nag's Head until recently, which suits it far more. And that's a compliment. I mean, if the Lavister dog in question was the one who found the World Cup in 1966, the pub would actually be called the Pickles and Pickle, and that'd just be plain wrong. Had I visited this any other day though, I doubt it'd have finished as high as 20th. We were grasping for positives.
Phwoar!
Glengower Hotel, Aberystwyth
It was an eleventh hour decision to visit Aberystwyth on the Sunday, borne out of a total dearth of Shropshire buses. Train day it was. And when I'd decided I'd do the three pubs in Newtown, why not stay on 'til the end of the line and do the three here to make it my daily six? Despite some very Welsh coastal weather, I'd rate Aber as my second favourite place of the holiday after Bridgnorth. This hotel bar was my first stop. One of those grand old buildings further down the prom. An army of student lasses (wo)man the bar, ready for a Sunday lunchtime surge which never quite materialises due no doubt to the inclement conditions. With the local slop Moho lacking any kind of mojo, it is staff positivity plus my big bay window sea view which raises this to 19th position. The loud Norn Irish lass can't brush her teeth for long because a pigeon is living in her boiler. I couldn't quite grasp the mechanics, but I went off Coffee Mate for a decade cos I found a slug on my jar at Sunderland Uni, so can relate to #PestilenceAndStudentProblems No wonder they all get meningitis is it? Pot Noodle scoffing scrubbers. Despite the weather, a bunch of glittery dudes in gold capes wander past ringing bells. It must mean something, but Aberystwyth has a relaxing quality that encourages you to accept life and all its foibles, and not question a gosh damn thing.
Wrekin Inn, Wellington : Telford
Pronounced reekin' like their gents loos, and named after a big windy hill I'd see near Little Wenlock on my final day. "We's can tell you ain't local not knowing tharrt!" chide two old geezers earlier in a Shrewsbury pub which will feature in my top five - no spoilers. They add that I shouldn't stay in the locality of this pub alone after dark. Slightly dramatic ... but by gum the Wrekin Inn had balls like few others this holiday. Proper 1980's purple neon disco fun pub, selling those yummy outer space themed Rowton beers I'd enjoyed in one of the two Oakengates pubs last April, though here I had a top Goff's Jouster instead). The sort of boozer which feels flat-roofed even if it isn't. The sort of boozer which dangles off the edge of a roundabout like someone forgot to knock it down as part of some levelling of the land. The sort of boozer where OF COURSE you have to run the gauntlet of pool queues as you fight your way to the bogs. 2014 BRAPA would've been terrified and self-conscious. 2026 BRAPA was glad to find a pub that made him feel alive. And you won't get folk in there referring to themselves in the third person.
Coracle Micropub & Beer Shop, Ironbridge, Telford
This Telford heavy part three continues in earnest at the third pub of my final day in exciting Industrial Revolution heartlands. I'd envisaged being forced to impatiently hang around for opening, but that Leighton-Little Wenlock-Coalbrookdale trek meant we'd just hit 3pm opening time when I arrived. A micropub of some character, in that it felt like a genuine old building. Bar, tables and chairs suggest they expect everyone to have weirdly proportioned long bodies and stubby legs, but we'll let them off. I could fully imagine Abraham Darby III banging on a bit of iron, and calling over to Thomas Telford to pull him a pint of Buckley's top with half an ounce of shag. The main dude is human, bespectacled & smooth, and ain't that New Bristol Cinder Toffee Stout being milked (pardon the pun) these days? Another new variation here was a Salted Caramel edition. Crazily sweet. I recommend it to the three old boys "if you like Crunchies!", they all stick to the Chain Reaction pale, though in my experience, Fixed Wheel pales ain't all that. It is the trio's chat, plus breezy basic surroundings which stop me from loving the Coracle. They try to be all 'normal down to earth blokey blokes' but keep coming out with stuff like "isn't Benidorm wonderful, full of leathery skinned northern comedy folk like on the TV series!" or "have you seen Joyce's agenda for her upcoming Mongolian expedition?" Or "I was going to book the sleeper train to Inverness, realised it'd be dark and I might not be able to see anything, so booked the Blue Mountains instead!" I chuckled silently, shook my head gently, rolled a few eyes, grimaced a fraction, and was relieved when my Uber arrived because buses are surprisingly sparse in these parts.
Dog & Davenport, Worfield
Monkey-off-my-back in terms of this being my first 'difficult' Shropshire tick since 2014's Baschurch, which I've rarely if ever seen in a GBG since. I'm not counting the legendary Anchor-Anchor cos Dad drove me. I still had a decent yomp down from the bus stop on the main road to the village, and it should've been a rural classic, but frustratingly fell short. A lugubrious old boy in a smart white shirt silently serves me a Three Tuns ale. He pours the first down the sink. Maybe he should've poured away a second too cos there's a sulphury unpleasantness lingering. I rarely have any luck with Three Tuns beers. Overrated due to nostalgia, don't @ me (whatever that means). I'm the only customer present during this silent 40 minute stay, nursing my pint as I psyche myself up for an even longer walk to Upper Farmcote. We're kitted out for dining but it feels 100% pub. The smell of grease around the loos clogs up your arteries. Think I went three times. I'd had a pissless two coffees + pint and a half in Bridgnorth before this in quick succession. Tunes by Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock don't fit the mood. Finally, I creep back to the bar quiet as a pub-ticking mouse, softly placing my empty glass on the bar, whisper 'thanks', and opening the door without making the hinges creak, don't slam it, and finally I'm free, back into the Salop countryside. I think 16th place was generous now I've written all that.
Mill at Leighton, Leighton
This has absolutely no right to finish above the pubs that've gone before, being a 100% nailed on unashamed gastropub, but when you have that human touch, and do it with class, you deserve all the plaudits. It starts with an impatient bus driver flinging me into a hedge around a hairpin bend outside the pub. The gorgeous couple in charge must have seen, remarking "Enjoy that bus ride then?" with a bonus 'lol'. Then it's all "the sun has come out for you" and "I'll bring yer pint over to your table". It is a 5* Hobson's Town Crier. As perfect as any ale I drink all week. There's an exciting corn mill from those Domesday days down by the loos which I go and have a gander at. Don't trap your bits in it! An eccentric wizened ancient arrives. She's drinking brandy and berates a cat cushion for making her forget her shopping, but she later apologises when she realises the cat cushion isn't to blame. I'm chuckling away, until I remember I've been chatting to a tiny knitted female cauliflower about good beer quality for five minutes. She (the lady, not the cauliflower) tells me she's spent the morning admiring daffodils. "Spring is here!" I reply, but she looks at me like that's dangerous talk.
Well done for getting through the difficult middle blog.
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