Walking. Gossip. Travel.

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  • Edwinstowe – Royal Oak

    Edwinstowe – Royal Oak

    After a less than successful visit to the nearby Black Swan (which was fine, but devoid of any real ale), we headed back to the Royal Oak which looked perfectly adequate from the exterior. It’s an Everard’s pub and it felt like one of those successful pubs which had managed to satisfy the diners and the drinkers. The staff were welcoming and signage made clear that walkers were welcome, which is something I do like to see. The pub is dog friendly as well, although they’ve made what I consider the sensible decision to ban dogs from the main dining area.

    I’m a big fan of the Titanic Brewery and their Plum Porter never disappoints me, so that’s the option that I went for. I also ignored the fact that the bottles in front of the pumps, which are meant to indicate the beer colour, hardly seemed accurate as Plum Porter isn’t that colour. Anyway, the beer didn’t disappoint here either, with the barman pro-actively mentioning that he’d top the pint up after it had settled. The choice of beers was well measured, with a variety of different beer types, with craft beer options also available.

    It’s apparent that they have a system where customers must sign in at the bar for the car park, since there were signs which appeared to be located everywhere, on the front door, on the bar, on every table, on the wall, in the toilets and no doubt in the car park. It seemed a clunky way to handle the car parking situation, although I’m sure it must be frustrating for them if people are abusing it.

    Anyway, a very lovely pub and it was clean and organised throughout, with the beer selection meeting my requirements.

  • Sheffield – Real Ale in the 1970s

    Sheffield – Real Ale in the 1970s

    When I was in Sheffield, the locally produced CAMRA magazine, Beer Matters, had been published and it was the five hundredth issue. They were looking back at the history of real ale in the city and in 1975 there was a bar crawl of the city which took in every single real ale being sold. This totalled ten cask beers, of which four were on handpump and six on electric pump, along with a few real ales in bottles. The cost of these beers, and the buses to get between them, cost £3.

    We are fortunate indeed for the many volunteers within CAMRA who established the organisation and have ensured we’re not in a similar position today with such a limited choice. The magazine also notes that if someone attempted the same pub crawl today, visiting every pub, it would take at least forty nights and days to complete.

  • Sheffield – Fat Cat

    Sheffield – Fat Cat

    Roger Protz, the great beer writer, wrote that the founder of this pub, Dave Wickett, told him:

    “Dave told me a wonderful story of how he bought the Fat Cat, refurbished it and was ready to open but he didn’t have any beer. He phoned Wards, who were still brewing, and none other than the head brewer came round and asked to see the cellar.

    “I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he told Dave. “I’ll put a cellar tank in with pressure points on the bar and away you go.”

    “I don’t want that,” Dave said. “I want casks and handpumps.”

    “Nobody wants to drinks that anymore,” the man from Wards said and stormed off in a huff. In desperation Dave phoned Timothy Taylor in Keighley and asked if he could buy an 18-gallon cask of Landlord and was told Sheffield was outside the brewery’s delivery area.

    So Dave drove to Keighley, put the cask in the boot of his car and took it back to the pub. Two days later he phoned Taylors who said they expected he’d been unable to sell the beer.

    “No,” Dave told them. “It went in two days and I want two more casks.”

    “In that case, we’ll deliver,”

    Taylors said and with just three cask of ale Dave Wickett helped the brewery turn Landlord into a national brand.”

    The pub opened in 1981, so this was one of the forerunners of the real ale movement in the city, a brave and innovative decision at the time. There was also an innovative change in 1986, when there was a non-smoking room introduced into the pub, which was the first one in Sheffield.

    The Chasing Casks Irish Stout from Kelham Island Brewery, which I recall was well kept, although unfortunately I remember nothing more, other than I marked it as 4 out of 5 on Untappd…. We followed in the problem group from the previous pub into this location, but fortunately they found another place to sit in the pub whereas we found a suitable area elsewhere.

    The high tide mark on the side of the pub. There were some floods the week after we visited, although I’m not sure if this area suffered any damage.

    The pub was busy, but the staffing was friendly and engaging, with the barman being conversational and knowledgeable about the beer options. All very comfortable and the building itself is quite intriguing, and Nathan managed to walk us round about three rooms before he found the bar. But, I don’t like to comment on such things….

    My favourite TripAdvisor review…

    “CRAP larger, unfriendly bar staff with no personality made us feel like we was an inconvenience”

    This is a win-win when I see a review like this, because I can see it’s a pub that obviously doesn’t sell Stella and lager is mis-spelt far too much….

    I liked this pub, although I mildly regret that it was so busy I didn’t get more chance to look at the building itself. CAMRA have a detailed history of the pub and the interior, so perhaps I’ll get to go back in the future to have a better look at this.

  • Palma

    Palma

    And my summary of Palma posts…

     

    Palma – Emile Georges Racovitza Statue

    Palma – MLL Blue Bay Hotel

    Palma – Parròquia de Santa Eulàlia

    Palma – Pick and Mix Haribo

    Palma – Sant Antoni de Viana de Palma

    Palma – Museu Fundación Juan March (Homage to Salvat-Papasseit by Josep Guinovart)

    Palma – Museu Fundación Juan March (Woman in Front of the Sun)

    Palma – Museu Fundación Juan March

    Palma – Palma Airport (Valldemossa Lounge)

    Palma – Basilica of San Miguel

    Palma – Even More Streets….

    Palma – Royal Palace of La Almudaina (St. Anne’s Chapel)

    Palma – Airport Bus from City Centre

    Palma – Royal Palace of La Almudaina

    Palma – Beatnik

    Palma – Final Evening

    Palma – McDonald’s Update

    Palma – Guinness Nitro IPA

    Palma – Burger King Vouchers

    Palma – Orient Bakery

    Palma – Es Rebost

    Palma – Castell de Bellver

    Palma – Horno Santo Cristo

    Palma – Windmills

    Palma – Castell de Bellver (The Views)

    Palma – Taj Mahal Blanquerna and Booking with The Fork

    Palma – Skalop

    Palma – Rubén Darío Statue

    Palma – Dusk

    Palma – Bagel

    Palma – Spanish ATMs

    Palma – Ca Na Cati

    Palma – Parròquia de Santa Eulàlia (Terraces)

    Palma – Mala the Cafe

    Palma – Palma Cathedral

    Palma – And the Rain Comes Down

    Palma – Royal Monastery of Sant Francesc (Capilla de San Buenaventura)

    Palma – Royal Monastery of Sant Francesc (Capilla de San Berardo)

    Palma – Royal Monastery of Sant Francesc (Sacristy)

    Palma – Royal Monastery of Sant Francesc

    Palma – Ombu Trees

    Palma – Baños árabes (Arab Baths)

    Palma – Demolished House

    Palma – Ca’n Joan De S’aigo

    Palma – Lonja de Mallorca

    Palma – Es Foner Statue

    Palma – Walk into the City

    Palma – Paraires Tower

    Palma – Red Peppers

    Palma – Narrow Streets

    Palma – Beer Lovers Bar

    Palma – Path Interruption

    Palma – Google Maps Error

    Palma – Airport Bus to City Centre

    Flights – Gatwick South to Palma Mallorca (British Airways) – Gone Tech

  • Sheffield – Harlequin Pub

    Sheffield – Harlequin Pub

    This was one of the last pubs on our pub trail and it’s part of the Kelham Island tour. The pub was formerly known as the Manchester and it was renamed Harlequin after a nearby pub which had closed and been demolished.

    For reasons I’m not quite sure, but are probably related to the exciting Alan Partridge quiz that Liam was excelling at, I forgot to update Untappd and so I can’t recall what I ordered. Nathan will probably know, he has a memory for irrelevant information, but I’m sure it would have been the Sorsby Stout from the Tapped Brewery Company.

    As for my usual dip into TripAdvisor, it’s fair to say that this is, well, a rather unusual review…

    “A man in toilet on saturday made lewd comments to me, apparantly this is a regular thing in here on a saturday night, this is cottaging and should not be allowed, drinks are well overpriced for a skanky pub, GARBAGE, watch your bum in the toilets, WEIRDOS.”

    This was a perfectly welcoming community pub, the prices were reasonable, an interesting selection of beers were available and the staff were friendly enough. But, still, for me the memory will be Liam’s ridiculously detailed knowledge of Alan Partridge….

  • Palma – Emile Georges Racovitza Statue

    Palma – Emile Georges Racovitza Statue

    Emile Georges Racovitza was a Romanian zoologist and speleologist, a word I hadn’t heard of before, but means a cave scientific specialist. At first sight, he had limited connections to Palma, but he did have an important role in 1904, when he helped excavate and understand the caves known as Cueva del Drach. It’s an interesting statue, but I’m unsure who paid for it or sculpted it.

  • Palma – MLL Blue Bay Hotel

    Palma – MLL Blue Bay Hotel

    The MLL Blue Bay hotel in Palma has some pretty poor reviews on-line, but I like an adventure… This was primarily as I was content that the negative reviews were nearly all about factors that I wasn’t bothered about, such as the number of steps to get to it (it’s on a hill), the all inclusive food, the breakfast, the pool and so on. The room was also the cheapest on hotels.com, and I was pleased that hotels.com price matched an offer I saw on booking.com, although I suspect that the hotel wasn’t as I understand they have to foot the bill for that.

    The welcome was polite and friendly, although entirely lacking in any real useful information about the hotel. I tend to gloss over that as any decent hotel has this detail in some form of room information folder in the room. It transpired that the hotel hadn’t bothered to do that, so I never did find out if they had a restaurant, offered breakfast or had any other interesting facilities. I slightly got the impression, indeed I strongly got the impression, that the hotel was trying to hide its food offerings and it only really had the options available to offer all-inclusive or half-board board options to tour groups.

    The room was sufficiently clean not to cause me any concern, with the towels and sheets all being clean and free from stains. The housekeeping every day was efficient, although the restocking of toiletries and towels differed from day to day. The staff were always friendly as well, although some were more cheery at the front desk than others. I never watch the television when I’m away, but I was handed a remote control at reception when checking in and politely asked to bring it back when I checked out. It’s not the most positive of impressions, suggesting that lots of stuff gets nicked, but I accepted it rather than explain at check-out that I had rejected the offer at check-in.

    The room didn’t have a kettle, which isn’t really unusual, but I’m surprised that they don’t offer coffee or tea given the number of guests who would probably like to have those facilities. Equally, and back to the lack of information in the room, I had no idea whether the bar was operating when I visited in November or how much the drinks would have been. It transpired it was open, but the hotel lost my trade (which wouldn’t have exactly been substantial since I doubt they offered the beer options I’d have wanted) since I don’t think that these things should really be a mystery that have to be worked out by guests.

    The room did though have a safe, although it wasn’t operational. I don’t have anything in my bag that’s worth nicking, but it’s a shame they couldn’t have got the safe repaired for those guests who carry rather more luxuries than I do. More irritatingly, the room only has one plug socket, which isn’t exactly ideal. On the bright side though, the wi-fi connection was marvellous.

    The luxury bathroom in the room.

    The balcony area, which is probably best in summer as the cold winds meant that it was never really viable to sit outside.

    And a rainbow in the sky following a rain storm. The view was unfortunately not very exciting, it was a shame that there was no view of the sea, but then again, I had booked into the cheapest accommodation that the hotel had.

    I don’t think entertainment was an option when I was staying off-season, although, to be fair, I didn’t know a great deal of what was going on in the hotel as I think the management like it to be a mystery. But, judging from this review on TripAdvisor, I didn’t miss out:

    “The ‘entertainment’ was a not good. On the first night, I had the unfortunate experience of watching two women dance on the stage and bang wooden sticks together to music. The second evening involved ‘Bingo’, which cost more money to enter than the value of the prize – a bottle of Rose.”

    Another happy guest reported:

    “We got to the room and struggled to drop the bags off because they hardly fit in the ‘room’! We actually thought that we had been given the key to a broom cupboard by mistake, but alas no….this was our room! In fairness the room was very clean and tidy but given the size of it it would be almost impossible to make it untidy!! before heading down to the pool we decided to spend 5 mins on the balcony….we had to do this in 2.5 minutes shifts as the balcony was so small we had to take it in turns to sit out!!”

    All in all, it’s a better hotel than the reviews suggest and it’d be hard for me to complain (well, any more than normal) given the price point of a little over £25 per night. I walked in and back to Palma every day, which is around an hour each way, but there’s a regular bus service that costs €1.50 that plies the main street (cash only).

  • Sheffield – What If Poem by Andrew Motion

    Sheffield – What If Poem by Andrew Motion

    Located at Sheffield Hallam University, this is quite a statement…. A different form of art, something quite evocative I thought.

  • Sheffield – Fagans

    Sheffield – Fagans

    Not much has changed in this pub for some decades, but that’s all for the good, as it has maintained an historic charm. CAMRA note that the pub has had only three landlords over the last 100 years, not least Joe Fagan, who was Tetley’s longest serving landlord, running the premises from 1947 until 1985. Before the pub was renamed after Fagan, it was known as the Barrel and had been trading since at least the early nineteenth century.

    The choice is Tetley’s cask….

    Or Abbeydale Moonshine.

    An old Tetley’s board in the pub. There is a rear room which has been converted from part of the landlord’s former accommodation, along with a tiny snug to the right when entering, which is apparently also known as the ‘dram shop’. The service in the pub was friendly and we were served quickly, even though the pub was busy. We didn’t eat, and I’m not sure that they were still serving meals, but their reviews for food are excellent.

    On reflection, I suspect we were under-charged a little, as this was the cheapest round of the weekend by at least a couple of pounds. We didn’t stay an overly long time as there was live music on and the pub was full, but there was a welcoming and laid-back feel. I do slightly suspect though, good as this pub clearly is, that it might not have made the cut for the Good Beer Guide in other cities, as the choice of real ale is one of two, both of which are commonly seen, it’s solely reliant on the community feel of the location. Although as it’s an institution that should perhaps be visited, I’m glad that I went.

  • Sheffield – Bath Hotel

    Sheffield – Bath Hotel

    Listed in the Good Beer Guide, this pub has also been credited by CAMRA as having ‘Nationally Important Historic Pub Interior’ status. This is very much deserved, it’s a quirky two room pub where the old saloon and public bar set-up remains evident. There’s something wonderful about seeing old signage for these bars, it’s a reminder of the pub’s history and also how society has changed over the generations.

    There was no need for me to ponder my choice, which was the Cocoa Wonderland chocolate porter from Thornbridge Brewery in Bakewell. I saw this beer in a few pubs over the weekend, it’s a rich tasting beer with a strong chocolate edge, which is, to be honest, a quite marvellous combination.

    There were a few signs like this, there was an evident sense of humour and the bar staff were friendly and helpful as well.

    Pinching the pub’s own history of their building:

    “Our Grade II listed pub dates back to 1867, at one time it appears to have doubled as a grocers and a beer house. The first recorded use of the name ‘Bath Hotel’ was in 1908. Ind Coope bought it up around the time of the First World War and remodelled the interior in 1931, extending the pub part into what had been the grocers. The building today is scarcely altered since 1931 apart from the loss of the off-sales (hence the disused doorway on Victoria Street). In the sharp angle of the streets there is a triangular shaped bar with seating and a hatch servery.”

    I didn’t notice the old off-sales door, although it makes sense now that I’ve had a look at the building again on Google Maps.

    There’s also an interesting TripAdvisor review, which noted:

    “We like this place but we won’t be rushing back. Got here a little early, 11.56, and was pleasantly surprised to find the door was open.”

    The pub worked out the time of entry as actually being 11:31, which is a slightly amusing difference, and I can guess which story is most likely to be accurate.

    Anyway, this was one of my favourite pubs of all that we visited in Sheffield, the laid-back atmosphere, the sense of history to the building and the excellent beer choice all combined into a not unpleasant visit. Another well deserved entry into the Good Beer Guide if I may say so…. (and I doubt enough people will ever read this to be able to stop me saying so).