BRAPA .... STINKS OF LINCS (NOT LYNX) : A NICE LITTLE IRNHAM

Saturday 22nd March 2025

A blank football weekend for supporters of teams as good as, if not better than Hull City. If you can imagine such a thing.

It meant a Lincolnshire Daddy BRAPA car day. Hurrah! Time to see what this year's outer Grantham / Sleaford GBG selection had in store for us. Lincs churn is seriously the worst! It feels so randomised.

But up first, opening at noon, my first Nottinghamshire tick of the 2024/25 season.

Orston, not to be confused with Orston Ferry (actual spelling = Owston Ferry) is a gorgeous village. We park between church and the pub, which is opposite. As we cross the street, we compare our new shoes. A young lass walking past says 'hello'. In 90% of UK villages, she'd be thinking 'I bet those shoe weirdos are gonna stab me' and quickly shuffle on, but Orston has a real optimistic fibre to it.

New shoes, look!

The fibre continues inside the Durham Ox, Orston (3009 / 5494) as we are greeted by an upstanding host in tie and waistcoat. CAMRA motion to enforce compulsory smart dress for all publicans. I'm taking it down to Torquay. Ghost Ship is the ale for me, Dad manages to get a 0% one, encouraged by a 0% Northern Monk enjoyed in York last week. His is actually more citrus than mine, but mine is darker and has a bit more body. Beer, bloody weird arcane shit innit? Can't speak highly enough of the pub. Walks that tricky tightrope of 'reet good n proper' whilst being a classy highbrow professional establishment. One of the chips on the neighbouring table actually says 'ow do'. Dad is sad that I've packed us some Scotch Eggs .... so we can't really justify ordering food, but once he realises I've popped them in the oven, and rolled the breadcrumbed outer layer in last night's oven grease, he'd be lovin' it! It had been a fine start, but the Lincolnshire border loomed, so BRAPA history is telling me not to relax just yet .....

Our furthest point south is Castle Bytham, as in Blytham St Annes, and I'm irritated to see this pub in the GBG because it is on the same street as the Castle Inn, a GBG regular we did a couple of years back.

In fact, if you zoom in on the photo I took that day, you can see today's pub in the misty distance. I can't be bothered to share that one, so here's the pub's garden ornament that looks a bit like Mummy BRAPA .....

My Durham Ox pose, a pub too late

Stinks! Daddy BRAPA didn't really notice but it overpowered my entire experience of the Fox & Hounds, Castle Bytham (3010 / 5495), presumably locking in a 16th century fart to preserve it for posterity, like that pub on Dartmoor that claims its fire hasn't gone out for 300 years. There were two friendly barflies full of horse racing excitement, the Famous Five gang looking for gin to drink outdoors, a stoic landlord who pulls the drinks with a slow steady precision, and a visiting duo who added an injury time scampi fries onto their drinks order. But you couldn't even smell these above the pub's ancient fartiness. Funnily enough, my review of the Castle Inn down the road mentions a bloke who went for a giant dump, so I'm wondering if Castle Bytham has a bowel problem. My Abbeydale Absolution didn't taste anything like its 5.3% which is always a worry. The pub had a comfy deep red, beamed interior, and a handsome globe. but I just couldn't get past the smell.

I'm not blaming you mate

Globe alone

Annoyingly, my Swayfield tick close by doesn't open til 5pm so we had to skip over that one. I'm hoping these are 'winter hours' which will be rectified in the coming weeks to something more 12 noon friendly, but Lincs being Lincs, 5pm really might mean 5pm.

Instead, it was onto Irnham, and by gum, if Orston seemed classy, this was positively posh.

The wall circling Irnham Hall is incredible, and the 'pub' looks like a high class restaurant and had us brushing our clothes and combing our hair before we left the car. I was reminded of that place just north of Portsmouth, Southwick(?) where you have to write a letter to the Lord of the Manor if you want to live there.

Well, at least we didn't have lunch menus forced into our hands as Daddy BRAPA had feared. In fact, we warm to the Griffin Inn, Irnham (3011 / 5496). Barmaid's a barrel of laughs (that's sarcasm) as Dad orders a coffee and jokes about how he didn't see the giant coffee machine - okay, so it wasn't his zingiest zinger but was worthy of a modicum of chuckled approval. So I overcompensate. And probably sound like an oik. But then a smiley barmaid arrives to ease the tension. Furthermore, a cute little bench for two, unreserved for dining, is calling our name. We face a huge portrait of Lord of the Manor of yore. 'Four in a Bed winner' it says underneath. 'I bet he is, two of them probably his cousins' I think, but no, it is actually a trophy relating to the Ch 4 programme, and if you've never seen it, it is a giggle, but don't go out of your way : 6.5/10. Could BRAPA TV reviews become a thing in the absence of carpets? No. My Grainstore tastes like a muddy pair of jeans left outside overnight. An IPA apparently. Who knew? Dad's necked his coffee so goes back for a swift refill, unsure whether it is the 'done thing' in such an establishment. But we later muse, whilst admiring our mahogany table, that we slot into these high class dining pubs effortlessly, I reckon it's five years living in Saffron Walden wot done it.

Colin : "I wish he'd look at me in the same way that he looks at his coffee"

Our next tick ain't far either, though I couldn't shake the feeling that rural Lincs was increasingly creeping ....

The rural Lincs equivalent of the O2 Arena! Blokes swinging their amps, guitar cases, cymbals and tambourines around a tight-knit pub. Local ale and music mag Rhythm 'n Booze warns us that Johnny Rotten is performing across the area. I read it more as a threat than a promise. Plough, Horbling (3012 / 5497) provides the best quality beer so far. It is only bloody Bateman's XB but it performs better than even that Absolution. Makes a mockery of all that time we waste at the bar eyeing up the options, trying to choose what you reckon is best based on past experience. Cask ale. Funny old game innit? No point choosing a beer cos you've enjoyed it in the past, just try and ascertain what is freshest. A well kept Doom Bar is streets ahead of a vinegary Oakham Citra. Bite me. Not literally. But I don't mean to poke the beer bear, it is the effect of Mr Lydon staring at me. Punk rock! With Country Life butter spread liberally on the top. Dad's gone back to the car to eat his crispy, greasy Scotch Egg, he always was more of an ABBA / Frozen 'Let it Go' kinda guy. His departure tunes me into the local chit chat for the first time today, and Mr Silverback's lengthy yarn about posting a key back through a a letterbox pained all who bore witness, with the emphasis on bore.

"Never Mind the Florets, here's the BRAP Pissed Doll"

Wonder what the 'E' stands for in EPA?

Our final tick in Lincolnshire really ramped the Lincsness up to 11. The now faded 17th century Tweenies mural in their carpark needs an ACV slapping on it before it is lost to time.

They were actually called the Weenies until someone watched an episode and realised they were all twats. That is a BRAPA fact.

Far enough east of the A15 to have you imagining swampy bog monsters with webbed feet, Ship, Billinghay (3013 / 5498) provides the most motivated welcome of the day. A series of gurgling 'alright mates!' as we approach the bar. Their brand new giant clock takes up most of the wall space, sort of ironic as it was impossible to ascertain whether this pub opens 3 or 4pm on a Saturday, but it was 4:15pm by now so it didn't matter. Locals seem so deep in their cups, I'm presuming it must've been 3, surely?! A 60th birthday party is brewing, for a Wolves / Boston Utd fan judging by the balloon display. We're allowed to sit in the function room which feels a safer haven. Spicy home cooked party food soon wafts through the pub, making an already peculiar Bateman's Mild taste like Thai lemongrass curry with a dollop of charcoal plopped in it. Tesco reusable carrier bags and potatoes on a grey carpetted staircase complete the most 100% Lincs pub you'll ever meet. Sorta quite enjoyable in the way you'd try to convince yourself you are enjoying Chatteris, Ramsey or Bourne.

It is a long-ass way back to the A15, never mind all the way up it past Lincoln etc. before turning off into South Yorkshire .... edging slightly north .... needed a wee stop I tell thee!

For this was my moment, my Martine McCutcheon Perfect Moment, for East Yorkshire completion .....

I got it into my head that it'd actually be shite but was actually alright, walking in a Tailor's Chalk, Howden (3014 / 5499) wonderland. Howden was the setting for my first ever pint of real ale back in 2001, at the White Horse (now a vet), green pump clip, probably Tim Taylor Landlord, recommended by Daddy BRAPA to save me from my 'Guinness phase' which everyone goes through. Though he is convinced it was me who ultimately got him into real ale. Today, he decides not to join me and drives around Howden for 27.5 mins instead. "Spring is sprung!" says a kind lesbian at the bar, and I nearly ask if she's read recent BRAPA blog 'Phwoarbridge Corbridge' and complete the sentence " ... but we should say it tentatively as snow is likely in the north until 6th May". She probably thinks I'm very wise, and goes back to her small row of assorted folk including two Vietnamese boat people, man a pork pie for a face and the bald guy who turns away from his wife to give a different lady a sloppy kiss. Two thirds of my time here is comfortable and full of well being, astonishing considering I'm in a busy one room micro on a high stool adjoining the bar, I don't feel even 1% self conscious. The Three Brothers beer helps. Pub comfort goes awry later on when an ageing lumbering black lab wakes up from his slumber, so a barmaid pours a load of dog biscuits into a blanket, so it can snuffle away for them. Bit gross, and there certainly isn't the space. Dad texts. I'm leaving at the right time, but on the whole, a zillion times better than I'd expected. And East Yorkshire is complete for another year, hurray!

Not too far back home from here, Dad drops me somewhere near, I resist the urge for a Swan pint as I'm meeting sister BRAPA the following day which included Spark, Fat Badger, Phoenix and Ackhorne .....

And that was the end of a boozy jolly weekend.

Thanks for reading, Si