BRAPA in ......FOLLOW ME UP TO PONTE-CARLO : FINISHING WEST YORKSHIRE

My first 19th August tick in four years (when a posh homeless man with a KFC bucket asked Dad for change in an alleyway outside Spitalfields King's Stores) took me to Pontefract, home of the 'liquorice cake' and its 'down-to-earth nightlife' (thanks Wikipedia, but I knew that already).

It was to be my final West Yorkshire tick of the 2021 Good Beer Guide meaning I've 'fully greened' the county for the past six editions.  Such 'wins' are few and far between in these early years of BRAPA, so I'm celebrating success where I can!

After the inevitable change at durty L**ds (where at least five commuters went in on me, studs showing, elbows flailing, not even a booking!).  I was on the Northern train to Ponte which has about 13 stations, all named after Tolkein characters just for the laugh.  I wanted Bilbo Bagshelf, but Morgoth Monkhill had to do, an inconvenient 16 minute walk to the pub.

I also had the added excitement of meeting BRAPA debutant Leon Foster for the first time, who if he lived in obscure North Essex GBG hotspots, might be called the Finchingfield Leon (thanks!)

It wasn't the most heaving evening in town, even Argos looked sad ......

And after a bloke tried to run me over, the pub came into view, looking slightly less edgy than its next door neighbour The Malt Shov 

Old Grocers, Pontefract (1913 / 3342) worked as a micropub because it is in a 'down-to-earth' (thanks again Wiki) northern town where strangers look each other in the eye and say hello.  I ran the gauntlet, through the Ponte bodies, to the bar, lots of smiles and 'ayes' and nods.  Distracted by looking for Leon, I was less responsive than I normally would be.  I did however identify the main pub character, a guy with rainbow sleeves in an NHS top which looked suspiciously Chelsea.  He did a low down dance, not quite twerking thankfully, and laughed a lot.  The barman and his maroon bottoms seemed a lovely chap too, serving me an impeccable pint of a really bitter pale I couldn't pronounce.  With no sign of Leon, I notice a lady looking all sly.  "I know that look" I thought, and sure enough, she surreptitiously pops a sandwich into her mouth in such a stealthy way, even her husband, opposite but looking at his phone, doesn't notice.  I smile.  Pub food smugglers are we.  Leon arrives in a flourish, 17:50, lovely chap with links to Tranmere, a bit of a GBG ticker himself, so we are straight into the chat - Blanchland disasters, Tyne & Wear high spots, battle for Brinsworth, and all the other hot topics tickers love.  I get an extra half of Brew York's highly regarded Tonkoko (but it was wayyyyy too sweet for me!) to celebrate finishing West Yorks, pushing the boat out and all that.

I said farewell to Leon, who did what all good tickers do and secreted himself into a dark alleyway not far from the pub, disappearing, and I headed off to Thranduil Tanshelf, another Pontefract Station.

There was just a little 0.1% of doubt surrounding my completion of West Yorkshire, where the 'Dubious Ticks Committee' (Eddie Fogden) had convened in Wakefield, to tell me that whilst it is true that the Polka Hop used to be the Bull & Fairhouse (which I visited in a very drunken state on 28th Jan 2014) , it is 'practically' a new pub with bar area, walls, seating areas all different.

So I thought, well Wakey is en route from Pontefract to L**ds so would be rude not to just to eliminate any doubt.

Here it was ......

And I'm pleasantly surprised, nay delighted, to find that Polka Hop smells like an 18th century country boozer, and feels like one too.  Even more old style than I'd remembered Bull & Fairhouse, though that might be my drunkenness plus the passage of time, I'd expected the Polka Hop to be lime green, orange, metallic and playing electro Euro dance tunes!  Nothing of the sort.  Eddie is sat there, near the bar, and he's brought a dubious pub ticking adjudicator along, Polka Poole Pete (or Triple P for short).  Seems a nice lad too, and soon we are animatedly chatting on pressing issues like 'why is Bournemouth so shit?' and 'men of Castleford who hate Sri Lanka'.  All the while, I feel like I recognise the barmaid, figuring she must've worked in York pubs, I have to return my ale cos it tastes well ropey.  There's about 4 or 5 on, probably 1 or 2 too many, we are about the only customers.  Main bloke takes one look at it and goes ugh, and lady I think I know gives me 70p back too, bonus!  Replacement ale very nice.   Just as I'm about to dash to Westgate for my train, Eddie notices the heaven's have opened so with no hat, it is funky snood facemask bandana on head time.  Barmaid says she recognises me,  oh of course, friend of my sister's friend, went to same New Year's Party above a Pizza Shop in York!  Small World.  Which is the brewery on my beermat too funnily enough.  No time to chat, think she's called Jane or Marie or Kelly.  

Eddie and Triple P declare me 100% done with West Yorkshire, what a relief!

I just about manage to get the train, phew!  Now I can relax, and look forward to a Daddy BRAPA day on Saturday in the town where CAMRA all begun, St Albans. 

Fin.

 

BRAPA is .... GIVEN THE COLCH' SHOULDER : THE ESSEX THAT NEARLY GOT AWAY (PART 2/2)

One of the friendliest taxi drivers in recent BRAPA history drops me in the bustling tourist infested hamlet of Rowhedge, with pretty views across the water to Wivenhoe.  Oh look, the foot ferry is running again having failed me when I needed it two months ago.  Typical!  

The waterside edge is bedecked in pub tables, all full of couples in Ray-bans.  Kids with no shoes run around, ice cream dripping down their chins, excitable dogs yap and jump up, demanding a bit more exercise, a solitary teenager moodily lays on a wall looking all misunderstood and rebellious.  

It is time's like this when I am most glad of pubs.  Indoor pubs.  Havens in a world gone mad.

Olde Albion, Rowhedge (1910 / 3339) is certainly the friendliest pub of the day, and a low key contender for the best.  I walk in to a bare boarded and incredibly YELLOW backdrop.  Bar is at the far end and the jolly landlord offers me a 'try before you buy' on the 3.6% local pale ale I'm definitely going to be having anyway.  'Try before buy' is the only reason in my mind why I'd bring back the restrictions, a hugely irritating aspect of the real ale pub.  You are not entering into a long term arrangement like buying a house or car, it is one pint of beer, if it ain't to your taste, you'll just know not to order it again.  It all comes out the same colour in the end anyway.  Beer.  I'll never understand it.  Well, the landlord has just come back from holiday in York "nice but too busy".  His wife is less taken with my presence, and throughout has an expression more sour than Graeme Sourness drinking a bottle of Duchess de Bourgogne.  LOOK MOM, I CAN DO BEER HUMOUR!  The locals are astonished I'm off back home the same evening, and even more astonished I've been to Tollesbury and Boreham already.  Quality crowd in here.  I soon settle down, Jeff Stelling rattling off the latest scores, the locals taking great joy in telling me we are 0-1 down to QPR.  Feels like 2019 again.  'We'll come back in the second half' I lie.  Time to find a bus.  Great pub.

There's a good gaggle of tourists already waiting for the surprisingly regular bus service back into Colchester, where my final two ticks of the day can be found.  And thanks to 'local knowledge' in the Olde Albion, they tell me this bus whizzes straight past the front door of one of them.

I press the little bell with the confidence of a Layerman, or whatever Colchester folk are called.

The pub looks familiar.  Of course it is, it was here I was denied on that famous night where I was decked out in accidental blue and yellow, and Sweden were playing Ukraine.

I'd heard so many favourable reviews and had seen it in so many previous editions of the Good Book, that I have to say how sad I was to find the British Grenadier, Colchester (1911 / 3340) such a crashing disappointment.  Even more maddening, it had all the hallmarks of Colchester classic in the mould of the New Inn or the Victoria, hell it even had a gorgeous black cat called Bruce behind the bar surveying all, and it still left me feeling it was keeping its GBG place on sentimentality reasons rather than current 2021 form.  It felt dirty, I've seen fewer flies around a carcass.  The beer was dreadful, and this was after I'd chirpily asked what everyone was drinking.  Barmaid seems nice, tells me last three ales pulled through are something or other, so I order that.  And she didn't lie cos I saw two of them being pulled.  Tired, more tired than a Tawny Owl who's been asked to work a 9-5 in a call centre.  Twit fucking twoo.  I don't really do NBSS but definitely a C- must try harder if I did!  Not take-back-able, but not far off.  And the locals, gosh a more sorry insular bunch of deadheads you couldn't have the misfortune of sharing a pub with.  So unsmiling.  So unwelcoming.  So glarey.  Ugh!   What a shame.  Hopefully an off day, as us traditional pub lovers need pubs like this to be performing.

Excuse me waiter, there appears to be a cat in my Tring

Love a pub with a pool table, just not this one

There's my little seat, by the dartboard

Col displayed more personality than most

I then trod exactly the same path I did on that Sweden v Ukraine evening (possibly the day England had beaten Germany), this time without the New Inn diversion, and straight to a now open Ale House (1912 / 3341) ......

Terrible photo, should really have crossed the road and dangled myself outside the Fat Cat (so to speak)

Pleasantly surprised by the Ale House, I really must stop thinking that all pubs with similarly boring names are going to be small, square, metallic one roomed micros, because I've been caught out like this many a time.  I believe a forthcoming Sheffield trip is similarly going to surprise me.  A nice old deep green carpet is my main memory here (5th pub of the day syndrome), quite a long thin building, which perhaps explains the tighter restrictions than in any other pub I'd been to today.  Lots of shields and screens around the bar, but I have a nice little chat with the barmaid as I order a Porter, but no idea what or why.  The old boys at the far end up by the plasma seem lively, keeping the staff on their toes.  Someone tries to insist they owe Gary money, because they gave him a bad football tip, but Gary is waving it away as just one of those things.  My last 'Not North' Essex pub in the 2021 GBG, and as I embark on the long walk to the main train station, I feel it was reasonably good pub to end on.

Back in Liverpool Street, I'm suddenly aware time just seems to have been sucked away from me, into this giant black vortex

Sadly no time for a sixth BRAPA tick I had been half thinking of.  BUT there is always time for the Parcel Yard .....

But I'm unable to recapture the magic of 31st July post-Hertford.  There is no ESB.   There is no Pride !  I must look very forlorn cos the barman assures me they will be back soon (as Martin Taylor found) but they are not quite ready, and they need to serve the beer at the very best quality he tells me!  I'd lick ESB out a muddy puddle personally, but ok, I nod sagely, as long as this is a one off.  Seriously though, Parcel Yard has never kept its beer better than it currently does.  Really on form.  This Summer Ale is great when I get into it, and although a few weird groups of Londoners are stinking the place out, I soon settle into my stride and my Parcel Yard mojo returns! 

But I wasn't smiling for long.  The train journey back was amongst the most hellish of my life.  Someone jumped on the line somewhere near Stevenage.  Due in York 22:56, I didn't get in til 03:15am!  The legendary Tom Irvin knew what was going on with my train better than any of the guards who walked past me, so I could keep the carriage updated.

The carriage consisted mainly of very drunk Mackems on their way back from Milton Keynes.  I defended them at first against a moaning old man (second fave team n all that), but by midnight, ugh, me and this Peterborough lady were at our wits end.  Worse was this Colchester scout, a Fulham fan, ginger guy who came along just to stir trouble and pretended he 'respected' Sunderland but there was always a BUT!  A bloke called Louis Theroux nearly got beaten up by him for supposedly making a racist comment about Djibril Cisse, but in truth, it was a load of nothing, and when we got to Peterborough, I pretended I was getting off too, and moved to a quieter carriage!  

And it wasn't like I could sleep in, I was serving drinks (some not even beer!) for SIXTEEN people at a massive family party!  Ooof, Dad's drinks list was professional and made my life easier ....

I was proper monged by 9:30pm and slept for ages, but I suppose looking back, in a weird kinda way, a successful day's ticking.  

Si

BRAPA in ..... THE ESSEXES THAT NEARLY GOT AWAY (PART 1 of 2)

Ticking off every pub in the Good Beer Guide would be an admirable achievement even if every pub opened Monday-Sunday 11am to 11pm, every train service ran to time, every British village had an hourly bus, service, and rural Cornwall had plentiful taxis you could book online with fabulous phone coverage, and generous strong Wi-Fi in every pub.  

It might shock you to know it isn't really like that. 

The five pubs I visited last Saturday were evidence of 'when BRAPA goes wrong'.  Pubs I'd previously attempted, only to be denied by a variety of reasons. 

Boreham (cancelled train at Gidea Park meaning I ran out of time), Tollesbury (pub forgot to tell anyone outside the village they were delaying their reopening), Rowhedge (foot ferry cancelled, no one knows why, let's blame Covid), Colchester's British Grenadier (revised opening hours hidden in Facebook post, but not on anything else) and Colchester's Ale House (closing at 9pm due to 'the current restrictions).  Only the last I blame myself for, but only a little bit!  

This is why Essex was looking green, but not as green as it should, with Tollesbury positively grey. 

I was in punchy mood on Saturday morning.  It was time to right those wrongs, hold the magic GBG aloft, and shout 'By the Power of BRAPA (I won't be denied!)' 

There was no Man-At-Arms (Simon D, attending a beer festival), no Sorceress (Daddy BRAPA, at the football in Hull) no Orko (Tom), or even Teela (Martin Taylor), it was all down to me, Brapple Cat.

In the sleepy village of Boreham we start, 'twixt Chelmsford and Colchester but much nearer the former.  It was from there I caught the bus.  Boreham has a warming community 'can't wait for BRAPA to piss off' vibe:

I smiled at a man in sandals.  He scuttled to the church door, banging on it loudly, seeking sanctuary:

And then the pub came into view, a sturdy looking Gray & Sons proudly displaying their old CAMRA awards on the door.  It epitomised the rural Essex boozer.

Cars ruining pub photos - #341

Queen's Head, Boreham (1908 / 3337) was worth the wait, just as fellow pub ticker Eddie told me it would be when he came here to watch England beat Germany, then a local drove him back to civilisation.  Sadly, I was the only indoor customer today.  The landlady actually gave a bugger, you could tell, as did the other barmaid (disembodied throughout but very cheerful).  I never quite got on speaking terms despite Colin doing his best to look conspicuous.  There were some voices from the garden, but when you have a pub of such splendour, no reason to venture outside.  The Adnams Ghost Ship was on top form, not served in a silly glass which is often the way.  I'd missed the Chicken Festival by a fortnight, but most importantly I'd finally got that last Chelmsford area outlier ticked off.  A good morale boosting start.

A girl I know who looks just like her helped me write a best man speech in the Templar, Leeds

The long bus journey into Colchester was made longer by delays.  A bloke eating fried chicken in a furtive manner (they do love their chicken in Boreham) told me to relax, it would turn up.  I was extra paranoid after my Horbury fail the night before.

The bus ride was arduous, in the traffic and summer sun, and once in Colchester, I had to run down to the castle and relieve myself in the grounds (I should add there was a public loo).

I then hopped in a taxi to Tollesbury, the plan at this stage was to taxi there, then catch the 15:10 back into Colchester, buses very rare down here and without staying about 4 hours, it is hard to do the bus both directions.

Taxi driver is a top lad, Eastern European, I'm selling him the BRAPA dream, he loves it.  Tells me I have a lovely voice and speak clearly!  I tell him it is combination of Barnsley, York and Saffron Walden.  Awestruck.    I end up asking if he can hang around for 30 minutes (27.5 mins felt too nerdy on this occasion!), and transport me to Rowhedge, which is south of Colchester anyway.  So much for the 15:10 back!  Expensive, but it would speed up my day, with me being back on the 9pm out of Kings X.

He agrees, says he'll come in to use the loo once he's parked up.  How very Valiant Trooper,  Aldbury.  Pub is open to my relief.

Bit of a cheat, these are the photos I took when it was closed in May

A lovely boozer is the King's Head, Tollesbury (1909 / 3338), lined with the faces and beer guts of Essex men of a certain age speaking in an accent so southern, it is hard to decipher at times.  They are a friendly bunch and say "hoi" and "yiii" as I smile and make my way to the bar, ordering a pint of some black beer (not stout or porter, just very dark), called Watsum or Wensum or something.  First I thought it was vinegary, but then I just realised it was really potent.  Taxi driver rocks up, looking a bit nervous (he later tells me locals in pubs like this don't react well to his 'foreign' accent, so he steers well clear, which is sad to hear).  I ask if he wants a drink, but he declines and goes to wait in the car.  There'll be no repeat of my Allgreave experience today.  Poor Colin has never been more invisible!  He's sat on the newspapers, and a bloke wants to read one.  He lifts up Colin, grabs a paper, and puts him back down as though the sight of a fluffy caulifower in his pub is a regular occurrence.  A bloke next to me shouts "Man Utd Foive, L**ds Wan" (he didn't do the stars), so I get all animated and we have a brief chat on 'second season syndrome' but he starts praising Bielsa so I turn my other cheek.  30 mins exactly, I scoop up Colin and the GBG, plonk my glass on the bar, say thanks to the fella, run the gauntlet of cherry Harry Redknapps, and take my leave.

Col sat on the papers, unaware he was inconveniencing the local Santa Claus 

Taxi driver looks well chuffed.  "You really were 30 minutes exactly!" he cries, not quite with tears of joy streaming down his face but happy nonetheless, like he'd thought I was gonna do a bunk out of the toilet window and run to Tolleshunt D'Arcy for some ghoulish White House Farm investigations. 

Rowhedge bound, three more pubs to go, mid afternoon, it is all going well.

See you on Sunday/Monday for part two, where the pubs are, shall we say, a mixed bag!

Thanks for reading, Si