BRAPA INN BRIEFS (PART ONE) - Writtle to Bridlington and Beyond

I woke up in a cold sweat at 3 a.m.  I realised I'm going on holiday tomorrow, one of those liver defying BRAPA epics.  And I've still got 18 pubs to tell you about!  I'll never catch up at this rate, unless I keep it brief.  Or less waffly than usual.  A bit like those early 2000's GBG's with the 'Inn Brief' section.  What did it mean?  Were these pubs less good than the main entries?  To this day, nobody knows.

Northants Inn Brief 2003, as obscure as it gets

Wheatsheaf, Writtle (1792 / 3221) is up first.  Lovely village, huge duckpond, still I couldn't see a Pochard.  Staff were very friendly, one barmaid was having her first day and being well looked after.  The other indoor customer was a very lugubrious bloke, the effervescent bubbles in his lager sparking in the sun didn't match his mood.  I got dragged into a conversation about Blue the Dog, and who the bitch likes best.  Classic Gray & Sons regular GBG entry on a slope, maybe.

Original Plough, Chelmsford (1793 / 3222) by contrast, was dreadful!  Sticky, chavvy, my Tribute wasn't bad but tasted like half a jar of sugar had been plopped in.  Everyone was drunk and badly behaved.  The ladies behind me nearly had a fight with another group they'd encountered in the loo.  I was going to say "calm down dears, it is only a commercial" but would've got stilettoed in the eye.  Weird entry considering Chelmsford's relatively strong suit of GBG pubs.

Fast forward a week, and Daddy BRAPA returned for the first time since 4th November, in the town his Mum lived.  I only had one conversation about BRAPA with Grandma Betty before she died in 2014, but I could tell she was a fan of the concept, recommending me all the pubs of East Yorkshire villages like Lund, Walkington and South Dalton.  

I love Brid.  I won't have a bad word said against it.  I'm allowed to say it is a bit shit, cos it is, but I'd defend it if anyone else said same. It was stacked out, excuse the pun, as I broke into the back entrance of first pub before he'd had chance to properly open.

Stackhouse Bar, Bridlington (1794 / 3223) was a blink and you'll miss it type place.  It played songs from Frozen and Little Mermaid, and was generally quirky.  The quiet but nice guv'nor only recovered from my intrusion when 'This is How it Feels' by Inspiral Carpets came along and he was a reformed human being fist pumping and singing.  I was getting sunburnt.  Turquoise haired couple drank cider and slagged off Hermes.  Dad went to find tea shop.  I stayed for an extra half a Bristol Milk Stout.  

Pre-emptive next recommended by a guy called Fogden.  With Dad AWOL and it being two streets from here, it made sense.  When you see an old bloke outside on a shopmobility scooter, pint in hand, you know you've struck gold.

Three B's Micropub, Bridlington probably nothing to do with the Lancs brewery (Blackburn?)  I drank half a cider in any case (cos I bloody well could, pre-emptive laws) , lovely n dry called Dabinet or something.  Main dude was lovely, thought I was on a cider tour of Brid.  GBG n Col confused things. The indoor locals, who'd been arguing about haggis, heard me explain BRAPA, and soon were recommending Brid pubs left, right and centre.  Am sure this will get in 2022 GBG.

I found Dad loitering outside the Telegraph pub, and we walked back to where we'd parked, near by 'late opening' GBG tick.  

Is Brid becoming the new Halifax?  6 GBG entries, and unearthed another classic here at Old Ship Inn (1795 / 3224) a beautiful old pub, just as guv'nor of last place had said.  Random Sunglasses Lady asks barstaff "can I paaaark around here all day?"  "It is like asking a car park attendant what ales they've got on!" fumes Dad, who had missed pub weirdness.  Loads of signs NOT TO MOVE FURNITURE, Black Horse Preston styleee.  Everyone had a shoulder tattoo.  "It's quieter than usual cos all the fuckers in down in t'town" said a motivated Carling drinker by the bogs.  I hadn't asked.  

Onto Pocklington (deffo stopped for a wee near a gate of a farm), which has only recently decided to do pubs that get in the GBG. Dad dropped me off and went a-wandering.  Pock was surprisingly quiet and chilled out, like everyone had got sleepy after lunch and drifted away.   Thank goodness. 

Market Tap, Pocklington (1796 / 3225) was an unreliable shambles two years back when I tried to tick it, but Brew York have taken over and today it was quite splendid.  Soooo many babies though, if there was a BABPUB (Babies Amazing Boozer Pop Up Book), it would def get in.  I sat by a fridge, nearly bought one but steady on Si, this ain't the Bank at Willingham.  The 'Calmer Chameleon' was the perfect beer name given the atmosphere (quiet babies) and Colin's ability to camouflage (sort of).

 A short walk to an even quieter part of Pock and I found the other pub, a quite famous old hotel.

Feathers Hotel, Pocklington (1797 / 3226) was just me and a very miserable looking old bloke supping bitter across this giant room from each other, until Daddy BRAPA sauntered in looking all sunny and swaggery and saved the day with a tale of how his friend was seeing a 'lady from Hull' he shouldn't have been, so he brought her here, nice and out of the way, but on the table next to them, was someone he knew!  Oh dear.  Dad gleefully texts his friend to remind him.  He's still waiting for a reply.

The small secluded village of Newton on Derwent was home to the days final BRAPA tick, not far from my sister's house but we didn't pop in in case she poisoned us with her vegan stuff. 

Half Moon, Newton on Derwent (1798 / 3227) obviously had a recent modern makeover both out and in  (probably involving better beer than ever before) but it still had that fabulous sleepy village, homely  community feel.  Staff were first class, and a new Theakstons ale called Summit drank surprisingly well.  We got chatting with a couple in the baking sun out front.  He had a 'kee wee' number plate, yes he was New Zealandish so Dad tried some cricket 'bantz', she was from Wantage but BRAPA is yet to recognise Oxfordshire.  Such afternoon heat, Col's florets were crisping up!

They'd reminded me of a pre-emptive I needed around here, so we phoned Mum to say the traffic was bad so we'd be late for tea (she asked if we were actually going to another pub, I tried to act upset and insulted - it didn't work!)   

Hop Studio Brewery Tap, Elvington was proper hidden away round back of village, like in this industrial unit with bits of lorries and kids running amok.  It was like one of those 'trailer trash' American documentaries you see from time to time.  I loved the setting!  Dude recognises me cos he'd delivered me some birthday beers, lovely guy.  Their App was one of the least intuitive I've used to date, and that is saying something!  So much so, when I'd ordered and went for wee, he assumed I was coming in to tell him I was struggling with the App!  Ales lovely, fuzzy in a tropical way.  Right, home James (well Bernard), we don't want our minced beef, peas n cheesy mash going cold!

And on that note, I'm off for my actual Friday 25th June tea.  See you later this evening for part 2, where we'll take another trip to Essex, with Simon Dewhurst and Daddy Dewhurst.  

Si 

BRAPA is ..... FALLING AT THE FIRST HURDLEMAKERS : DIG MY GRAVE (Essex Part 4/5)

My stoic taxi driver took me onwards from Stow Maries to Danbury, which I thought was a return to civilisation, but in truth, just a less remote village, 'twixt Chelmsford and Maldon.

The setting was incredibly pretty, all lush green commons and quacking ducks near a pond.  The BRAPA warning sirens were flashing red and shouting 'danger team!'  Locations like this often give way to a twee, flighty pub experience.  

Was the pub sign the highlight?

Temporary marquee blocking proper view of pub front - BRAPA pet hate #7178

Although the guy who greets me is very personable here at Cricketers, Danbury (1789 / 3218) it soon goes for the 'full house' on the bingo card of 'Pubs during lockdown in the Maldon vicinity'.  Marquee at front ruining pub view?  Check.  Must sit outdoors?  Check.  Given a 30 minute time limit?  Check.  Indoors looks plenty spacious enough to accommodate drinkers but can only go indoors to wee?   Check.  Clarty warm Spitfire which takes an age to arrive?  Yuck.  Vegan students on neighbouring table chat enthusiastically about a nut roast whilst their dog whimpers?  Yuck.   Mutual dog love-in with neighbouring table who also have an annoying dog?  Yuck.  Students have a Harry Potter fuelled debate?  Ugh.  'Once I went from Durham to Ambleside, look what a proper northerner I am?'  Puke. Americans in 'Oooh we are wearing matching hoodies, how swell!' exclamation.  Groan.  And here was me worrying 30 mins wouldn't be long enough to enjoy the experience.  25 mins, I was outside looking for a Pochard, waiting for another taxi to appear as Sunday bus service meant nothing for hours.   You can't even totally blame current restrictions too much on this one, just a poor pub unworthy of GBG inclusion.  On this visit at least.

A bit like reading tea leaves, I think this beer is trying to tell me something?

Indoors looks nice, green Stabilo wall too - shame I can't stay in....

...though the Guinness cordon by the bar seemed, from memory, a bit OTT

Taxi driver properly cheers me up.  Character of the day!  He's young.  He's bright.  He's full of grand opinions and ideas.  'Banks are destroying the world' he later concludes (me mentally trying to invent a fake job for myself .... hmmm, beer underwriter?  Is that a thing?)   

He tells me how good of him it is to pick me up even though my next venue is nearer to Maldon, and he really only serves the Chelmsford area.  And then, this little gem.  "Is that a Liverpool accent I detect mate?"  I tell him no, I'm from York.  "Oh well, up north, close innit?!"  

Yes, he actually said that. The same guy who less than five minutes ago had tried to convince me that Chelmsford and Woodham Mortimer were worlds apart.  Today was testing my resolve!  I need a pint,

Glorious olde worlde pub, the Hurdlemakers Arms, Woodham Mortimer (1790 / 3219) , you could tell you even make it inside, but being closer again to Maldon (and I'm sorry for sounding like a broken record here, but I have to tell it how it is), in their attempts to retain as many indoor seats as possible in this gorgeous crooked old building, they've cloaked the place in perspex screens.  I could barely raise my pint of Ridley's Rite to my lips without my elbow making one of them wobble.  This just wasn't comfortable.   Luckily, the garden was gigantic and I was soon getting sunburnt without realising, here was where the action was!  Kids ran about shouting 'winner winner chicken dinner' from a safe distance, I even wrote at the time that I'd happily be buried here which proved to be apt, because a few minutes later, a Dad turned up with a spade.  Sinister.  Was superb out here though.   I'd already been back in to the loo once, but when I went back for a second time, one of those little 'danger wet floor' signs had appeared in the doorway, and I got a gentle telling off for coming in this way, as you should go right round the front of the pub to use them!  So the pub rules were evolving as the afternoon went on.  Insane times, but I had a bus to catch.

Take care Col, there's a bloke with a spade looking to bury someone or something

It was one of those 'bus hailing' events where you really have to have your wits about you, and so did the driver!  I couldn't have held my hand out any further in advance, but the unusual location, bend in the road, and fast traffic meant he had to screech to a halt, a huge plume of dust flies up, passengers go flying, I almost feel guilty.  He tells me what a legend he is for seeing me (i.e. doing his job).  Bus drivers, I could never love them.

Back in the Chelms, time to squeeze in a tick as my final village bus is an hour away.  

The huge gleaming glass double doors and under the railway arch setting hardly had me purring at the prospect of entering the Ale House, Chelmsford (1791 / 3220) but the southern BRAPA Twitter following are rarely wrong, and if there was one pub this weekend that everyone told me they enjoyed, it was this.  And it was easy to see why.  Such a calm, still, easy atmosphere.  Such welcoming staff too, when they smiled, little stars appeared from their eyes and little love hearts from the corners of their mouths, or at least that is how I remember it.  A beer menu, ooh la la, well this is a PROPER beer place so I manage to bag my second mild of the day, and the month of May, this one from Fell up in Cumbria.  It travelled well.  And for a proper beery place, you never felt it being rammed down your throat like in some places.  Live and let live was the atmosphere, Colin was treated with the respect he deserved, and most of the other drinkers were elsewhere so I could stretch out a lot more than in the previous pubs today.  Replace those doors with blackout ones made of human skin like that place in Bristol, and I think we talking 10/10.  

Join me tomorrow as we limp towards the end of a very productive Bank Holiday weekend in Essex, with one good one, and one rubbish one and a lot 'inn brief'.

Si 

BRAPA in .... MALDON OLD DOUGH (Essex Part 3/5)

It was a short walk back into Maldon from Heybridge, and that funny smell from earlier still lingered in the air not helped by the surprisingly hot bank holiday weather.  If you read to the end (don't scroll!  Oh okay then), you can see the cause of Essex smell complaints.

Having done the Wetherspoons earlier, there were two ticks left in town.  And this would bring me up to my regulation six for the day.  Don't you love it when a plan comes together?  We didn't need Tollesbury after all (grrrrr - I found out today from a fellow pub ticker it is reopen now!)

Here was our next pub anyway ..........

Mighty Oak Tap Room, Maldon (1786 / 3215) and I don't know about you, but tap rooms and brewery taps are never my most favourite of venues.  Combine that with my 'fifth pub of the day syndrome' (where my memory is at its worst), and it all made for a pretty underwhelming experience.  NOT that there was anything wrong the hole, the beer was good, but then again, it is hardly going to be poor quality in their own tap is it, that'd just be silly!   I stood by the door patiently, until I was shown to a table.  Perspex screens abound, even more noticeable here than in the Rose & Crown earlier.  I feel like a pissed goldfish.  A peppering of customers, beyond me and to my left, I don't think anyone so much as glances at me in the entire thirty two minutes.  A couple stare at the laminated beer list for ages, all furrowed brows, and then order Pinot Grigio.  I think that is what the kids call 'a mood'.   Finally, a bit of drama as an elderly bloke, all a blustering fluster, bounds in.  "I left my phone here!" he confidently declares, pointing an accusing finger into the guilty corner like he's sentencing it to death.  A quick search by the staff, Pinot Grigio couple, and myself (well I lift up a cushion near me as a token gesture), and the poor bloke is out of luck.  'Have you tried ringing it?',  'It definitely isn't here!', 'If you have a car, it could've fallen under the seat, mine does that'.   He leaves with fresh doubts in his mind, a tormented soul, a shadow of the confident man who arrived, questioning the very meaning of life, or at least, where is phone was.  I'm not far behind.  I have a sixth and final pub to do.

Oh dear, it has got to that stage of proceedings once more

One pub to go, and a nice stride out in the evening sun in a last desperate attempt to sober myself up.  I have high hopes for this next one, it sounds like the 'pubbiest' of the three.

But to my surprise, Queen Victoria, Maldon (1787 / 3216) sends me on right wild goose chase, snaking around the back of the pub, following arrows and cordons, until I'm right at the back of the pub 'twixt kitchen area, drainpipe and I think a marquee, where two stern white shirted staff tell me to sit on a bench and they'll come for my order.  An accompanying dog with a very wet nose pushes it against my hand - ewwww.  I do cat noses, but not dog noses.   It seems indoors isn't even an option here save for a 'toilet experience'.  "Ho, ho, ho, you'll enjoy it in the sun!" says a bar lad to appease me when I look sad.   A look at the layout inside the pub when I do go to the loo makes me even more surprised.  It is a theme I found in and around Maldon all weekend.  Pubs with the kind of ultra strict regulations that doesn't allow them to breathe.  I experienced none of this in Surrey, or other Essexy areas, so I don't understand the need for it here.   I can only think they've had trouble with locals not obeying rules, and they've had to be ultra vigilant?  The Adnams Southwold was a good drop, but with zero humans in sight or even earshot, I was bored witless so resorted to selfies, listening to music, and playing with this new bus app I'd downloaded.  

Sunday dawned bright, wide-eyed and full of hope.  After all, as you will know by now in BRAPA, where there is an 'up', there is a 'down', invariably followed by another 'up'.

Chelmsford bus station - all curved and resplendent

This was the key moment in the weekend, time for the pub I was most desperate to get ticked, and my furthest south remaining Essex tick - and I do like this 'working my way northwards' idea.

South Woodham Ferrers was far enough, but then I had what looked like an 'okay' walk into more rural climes.  It was actually the most terrifying walk for many a BRAPA year, and I would not repeat it! 

Woodham Road was like walking down the side of a motorway, and when I turned off and the traffic became a bit less busy, the total lack of pavement or even grass verge with a fair amount of traffic made it rather traumatic.  Was the pub worth the wait? 

I walked around the back of this classic old weatherboarded effort, Prince of Wales, Stow Maries (1788 / 3217) and I wouldn't mind betting it had been open a lot longer than the advertised 12 noon, for there were already a big group of jolly local boozers under the awnings with pints in hand.  All shiny bald heads, sunburn and cheery expressions.  Owned by a Hull City fan too I'd been told, Bonus point, or is it a Pepis point (that's a joke for the purists).  I dumped Colin and my bag in a raised grassy area, and went to investigate.  Pub interior was a beautiful thing, and plenty of time to explore as it took about ten minutes before another human appeared!  Was starting to think the locals had brought their pints with them, when a friendly young dude appears, by which time a thirsty queue had formed behind me, all asking similar questions.  The beer range was plentiful and 'interesting', the kind o' thing the Essex beer types will travel miles for, though with each passing year, I subscribe more and more to the Taylor-Doom view.  All about the pub innit?  The surroundings were leafy, the tables around me filling up as the minutes went by, a 2pm 'big flyover' (planes, not more road trauma) seemed to have swelled the crowds further.  It would be sheer bliss if only I could properly relax!  To relax, I needed a route back to civilisation by which I mean I needed a taxi.  I think I set a BRAPA record (held since Churt, July 2020) for the number of 'taxi fails' as I was declined time and time again, for so many reasons, mostly they wouldn't come to Stow Maries!  I had to share my pain.  The couple behind weren't naturally chatty, but I imposed my dilemma on them.  It was cathartic at least.  Back indoors, the friendly barmen gave me a little used piece of mottled cardboard with taxi numbers on.  The 4th one did the trick!  I got another pint in celebration.  The couple got replaced by some TOWIE types.    They debated whether the fish coming to the surface of the pond meant they were starved of oxygen, or simply very happy.  What a fun listen to enjoy your 'Child of Jago' with.  I think we can safely say this is one of Essex's finest pubs in what is a strong county.

Finally, a May Mild - at the 11th hour!

Oh, and I meant to say the taxi booking process was made more difficult as I realised I had no idea how to pronounce Stow Maries.  The ultimate Darius Vassell of Essex villages.  

The taxi was here, and I'll tell you about my next three crazy rural Essex pubs in Part 4. 

Thanks for reading, Si 

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