Sorry if I offended anyone by loudly deriding the Famous Royal Navy Volunteer and Small Bar. Please believe me when I say that it's not meant as a personal criticism of anyone who liked those two bars when I describe them as poncy. Catia and I went in search of some proper pubs instead, and found a few "off piste".
At The Gryphon, a slightly grungy pub that has that lived in feel that I like, there were three hand pumps active, all with strong dark beers. As luck would have it, one was brewed in Rotherham (Chantry Diamond Black Stout: 4.5%), another was brewed even closer to home (Wood Street Brewery's Devilwood Stout 6.0%, brewed exactly one mile from where I live), so we went for the third beer, Nutbrook Midnight Stout 4.7%, which is brewed not a million miles from Sheffield at Ilkeston in Derbyshire. We didn't pay £45 each on the train to drink beers that are brewed on our doorstep!
While we were supping our stout, a man came into the pub and asked for a Guinness. The lass behind the bar explained that they don't have Guinness, they have a different keg stout or there were three others on hand pump. "OK, I'll have a cider," he said. Less than five minutes later, another man came in and asked for a Guinness. Once again, the lass behind the bar explained that they don't have Guinness, they have a different keg stout or there were three others on hand pump. "OK, I'll have a lager," he said.
Next stop was The Robin Hood on St Michaels Hill - we enjoyed the walk, and the pub was good too. We had Prescott Track Record 4.4% here, which was a beer I remember drinking in dire condition (the beer, not me) in Worcester in the spring; here at the Robin Hood is was in excellent nick.
Next we went back down the hill to The Yard, where I was delighted to see the revived Gadd's Dogbolter 5.6%, the beer that used to be brewed in the Firkin pub chain years ago. This was the first time I've seen it since the demise of that chain. There were also three Butcombe beers and one from Dark Star in this very pleasant pub.
We next tried to navigate our way across Bristol to the Three Tuns, where we hoped to meet up with the rest of the pub crawl, but went slightly wrong and found ourselves on Jacobs Wells Road. We popped into The Eldon House to check how far we were from the Three Tuns and asked for a half. "Will we come to the Three Tuns if we continue down Jacobs Wells Road?" I asked the landlord. "I'm not going to tell you!" he replied. "Why not?" quoth I. "Well. it's another pub, isn't it," he said, with a twinkle in his eye. We had a half of Bath Gem 4.1% between us (I told him we weren't going to be persuaded to buy more than that, so he might as well give us directions, which he did readily). By the time we got to the bottom of the hill, the group had made it to The Bag o' Nails, so that's where we rejoined.
Not for long, though, as Quinno led a splinter group to the Grain Barge. We somehow managed to shake off Trainman, Real Ale Ray and Fiona - it may have been the mad dash through the busy traffic on the A4 that did it - anyhow there were just the three of us when we arrived at the bar. We were grateful subsequently for Quinno's excellent navigational skills which got us to the Cornubia at two minutes to six o'clock, bang on schedule again.
We had a really good day out - the weather, as it usually is for a PuG crawl, was sunny and the company, needless to say, was fantastic. (Thanks to Rex for the beer mats - see photos below.) Also the beers we had were without exception in tremendous condition, served by friendly staff in pleasant surroundings. And to cap it all we made our train back to Sheffield with several minutes to spare.
Looking forward to the next one.
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Originally Posted by Mobyduck
