Your Guide to Upton-upon-Severn

Said to be Worcestershire’s smallest town, Upton-upon-Severn has a quietly majestic Georgian high street that runs down to the wide expanse of the River Severn. Unfortunately the tidal Severn often runs back up the High Street. Game in doubt subject to pitch inspection It has the distinctive Pepperpot, the cupola being the surviving part of……

How many substantial meals can you eat in a day?

Pub ticking is a demanding activity in normal circumstances, requiring the sure-footedness of a mountain goat, the hand-eye co-ordination of Roger Federer and the self-belief of an ageing hedgehog crossing the M6 at rush hour. In the abnormal circumstances that prevailed last year, the government’s requirement to binge eat was simply another component in an……

Devilled Faggots, Black Dogs and Pickled Squirrels

I left you after a surprisingly productive October but we’ll need to gloss over the pub wasteland days of November. Then it was December- different month, different rules. If you were in a tier 2 area you could get alcohol in a pub only if you ate a substantial meal. If you were in tier……

Shropshire Lads

A few more pubs to bring you before it all ended in tiers. Shropshire served up a few new ones in this year’s Good Beer Guide, which is turning out to be the least thumbed edition since 1973 (when there wasn’t one). Ludlow had been gnawing at me like a persistent rodent for a year……

Left Handed Giant Sized Problems in Bristol

Lefthandedgiant.com This has been the year in which the pub experience changed beyond any previously imagined recognition. In many areas for much of the time it’s simply not been possible to go to the pub at all. In others you have been required to eat just in case that half pint you sipped makes you……

Loud and Stroud

This bus stop cum art gallery is outside Stroud Brewery in Gloucestershire. In some parts of the West of Scotland it would cause a riot. Art can do that. The day had not started well, with my second ‘closed after a member of staff tested positive’ fail in as many weeks. I was more confident……

From Andy to Edward – Three Midland Marvels

Despite the title, this is (mostly) not a Royal story. There will be no unconvincing claims of visits to Pizza Hut in Woking or of sweat-free oxters. November turned out to be another blank pub ticking month in this wretched year. And December looks like being much the same. But remember October? You know, before……

Blackened Sun Brewery: Eclipsing the Competition

This is Gary, the face of the Blackened Sun in Stacey Bushes. It’s a brewery with a taproom on a small industrial estate on the edge of Milton Keynes. No one is likely to think it a glamorous location, not even Stacey Bushes herself. But looks can deceive. Gary’s passion for good beer shines through……

The Missing Pubs of Great Missenden

Bugle Inn: Closedpubs.co.uk It’s Saturday October 17th. It isn’t but it was then and chronology is so yesterday. News arrives from the east (Newmarket) of the first sighting of the 2021 edition of the CAMRA Good Beer Guide. Having already left home five hours earlier I relied upon telegrams and carrier pigeons to relay the……

East of Essex: Leigh and Shoeburyness

Remember the old day when the pubs were open? When you could chase ticks in the Good Beer Guide armed with only a face mask and a debit card? When you could stroll down an industrial estate in Essex and find a brewery tap on every corner? It’s that way And you were allowed to……