It was my birthday on Saturday. It wasn't a significant birthday but it's not far off being one, although for the time being at least, that's as far as I’m prepared to go on the subject. The Bailey family decided it would be nice to celebrate the old man’s special day, but where to go? Being the name in the frame, I of course got to choose, but I was determined that we should go somewhere different, and some where we hadn’t been before. After quite a bit of searching both online and asking around amongst work colleagues, we settled on a pub called the Vineyard at Lamberhurst Down. Nestled in ..read more

Last Wednesday evening, I was relaxing after a busy few days at work, and sitting down to watch, what for me is a rare spot of television. The programme I was about to watch was the first episode in a new series of Race Around the World. For those who might have been asleep, or otherwise missed the previous three series, five pairs of travellers participate in a race that will take them through several different countries, although there is a major catch. The pairs cannot travel by plane, must leave their smartphones and credit cards behind, and will not have access to the internet. Provided ..read more

Here is another short post for your delectation and delight, and whilst it appears to be yet another article about a pub breakfast (spoiler alert, it is), it was second time lucky on Sunday morning, as far as the Ivy House, at the far end of Tonbridge High Street was concerned. This was because, unlike the scenario which unfolded back in March, the lad and I managed to secure a table in this historic old pub, where we enjoyed a first-class breakfast. I took the precaution of booking a table the night before, and I also booked it for the civilised time of 10 am. Unless I am going somewhere sp ..read more

What I’m going to write about now is a very special beer, in fact it’s so special that it’s the stuff of legends. Named after an 18th century slang word for strong or old ale, Samuel Smith’s Yorkshire Stingo is a bottle conditioned ale that is fermented in Yorkshire stone squares, and then aged in oak casks for over a year, in Sam Smith's underground cellars. Yeast and sugar are added when the ale is bottled to induce a second fermentation in the bottle. Samuel Smith’s are Yorkshire’s oldest brewery, and can race their history back to 1758, a date that features prominently on the label for th ..read more

Easter Monday, and after a weekend of digging, digging and more digging I felt the urge to escape, so I that’s what I did. The previous evening I’d been looking at pubs on CAMRA’s National Heritage list, in order to tick one off, and whilst one of them, the Earl of Clarendon at Sandgate had been on my radar for some time, the fact that there was a couple of two-star rated pubs in the same seaside town, clinched it for me. Sandgate, which lies between the towns of Hythe and Folkestone, is classed as a village, although in my mind it’s more of a small town. I have memories of this settlement f ..read more

We’ve reached the final part of the other Friday’s amazing tour around some of the Black Country’s finest pubs, and we pick up the story from outside Sedgley’s Beacon Hotel, where Stafford Paul and I said farewell to Retired Martin. A short walk back to the A459 then ensued, followed by a bus in the opposite direction to that which we’d travelled on earlier. Our destination was the Britannia Inn at Upper Gornal, the second Batham’s pub of the day and one which, like the first, didn’t disappoint either. We arrived shortly before 4pm, although somewhat foolishly I failed to take a photo of the ..read more

Having set the scene for our Black Country Walkabout, it’s now time for the main event, which of course was visiting the five, classic Black Country pubs, as originally earmarked by me, then verified and approved by Stafford Paul, local expert, and Pub Man extraordinaire. Paul had spent a lot of time tidying up the provisional route that I’d suggested last summer, even to the extent of trying out some of the local buses and finding a much more workable alternative to my original idea of starting out from Cradley Heath rail station. This meant some good came out of us postponing the trip, back ..read more

Last Friday's visit to the Black Country was something of a first for me although, spoiler alert, I had been to the region once before. That was only briefly when, as a student I visited the Lamp Tavern in Dudley, with a friend from university, who lived in nearby Staffordshire. My friend had been enthusing about the local Batham’s beer, which like nowadays, was only available in a handful of pubs, and so on a weekend visit to his parent’s house in Rugeley, drove the pair of us down to the Black Country for an evening at the Lamp Tavern. We put away a fair few pints that evening, or at least ..read more

It’s strange, although possibly just a fact of life, but in the space of just a couple of days I’ve gone from having nothing to write about, to having a real abundance. As anticipated, Friday’s visit to the Black Country, postponed from last August due to me contracting COVID, has provided a wealth of material, ranging from some truly classic and unspoilt pubs that offered beers from a number of small, family-owned breweries, which have managed to survive from a time that predates the birth of CAMRA. Three of the five pubs visited had been on my bucket list for many years, so it was doubly s ..read more

As I gazed out over the rain-soaked landscape, last Tuesday, I was left wondering whether it’ would ever stop raining. As we move from winter into early spring, it’s hard to recall a wetter period of weather, even though prolonged spells of wet weather probably aren’t that unusual at this time of year. What’s perhaps more disconcerting, has been the almost total absence of frosts this winter, and whilst some might welcome the relatively mild conditions, give me any day a bright, crisp, and dry morning, even if it does mean having to scrape the car, before leaving for work. Fruit trees, so I ..read more