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“Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese is the only pub name I can recall.”
One of Sam Smith’s quite large estate in London.
Someone once told me if you go down to the cellars, it is possible to see the Fleet River flowing by. I would like to think it is true but it sounds like an old wives tale.
Old Jack Hargreaves paid a visit to Appleby Fair on a programme made in the mid ’80s which aired the other day.I was a bit surprised to see a Marston’s pub in Appleby high street.
Was that ‘Out Of Town’ on Talking Pictures channel? They’ve broadcast a lot of them in recent years and very nice, interesting, ever so gentle programmes they are.
The character Bob Fleming on ‘The Fast Show’ was based on Jack Hargreaves, who being an inveterate pipe smoker was prone to punctuating his sentences with a cough and splutter.
I went to Appleby Horse Fair once. Basically a congregation of gypsies and travellers from all over the country trading horses and racing carts on the roads. A rough-and-ready experience is the polite way to describe it and I don’t recall the Marstons pub or any others, avoiding them as I wanted to get home in one piece
These programmes are a bit later then ‘Out Of Town’. It seems they were for Channel 4 after Southern lost the ITV franchise. Rewind TV are showing them.
From what I saw I’d tend to agree that it looked a scenario where you could feel imperilled.
I remember it being a surprise when Southern lost its franchise, at the same time as Westward did.
Southern was involved in one of the most unusual moments in the history of British television:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Television_broadcast_interruption
I had a lovely pint of dark mild last night, which tasted all the better after watching Southport win. A much underappreciated style of beer. To think that not so long ago, mild was the most consumed beer in Britain!
Penzance Brewery’s Mild won the CAMRA Champion Beer Award in 2025. I have not tried it yet.
Used to love Hull Mild back in the day, but they stopped brewing that some time ago. Still, mild is a lovely style of beer, as well as being an eminently sensible one if you’re going to be drinking all day.
I sampled the Penzance Mild at the GBBF last year. It was quite good but I prefer dark mild to have a slightly sweet taste, which it didn’t really.
I had a pint of Harvey’s Dark Mild last week. A welcome sight now that the Sussex brewery is allowing its beers to be sold further afield than previously.
It is possible, homer: start with a big breakfast, stick to one type of drink (mixing is fatal), and have a soft drink from time to time to have a break.
The aforementioned Tetleys used to brew a fine dark mild which in my formative years was always sold alongside the bitter. It became rarer from the ’90s onwards and think it’s gone completely now.
The best pint of mild I ever had was Highgate Dark Mild, made at a now-closed dedicated mild brewery in Walsall. I believe it’s been relaunched at some other brewery in the midlands though I haven’t tried it.
I remembered this song when I had a particularly good pint of Allsopps Pale Ale yesterday:
I was ranting about brewed in the UK lager before but I am also a cider snob. I think the one I just saw in the local supermarket beats that. I looked at a bottle of Orchard Pig, which was started down the road in Somerset. On the back it said that it is made in Ireland with UK apple juice. Wrong on so many levels
Proper cider of course isn’t sparkling and should come in the sort of plastic container that would usually contain paint thinner. Some would debate which of two tastes better but I love it, the cider that is.
Are there still farms in Devon and Somerset that sell home-produced cider at the farm gate drawn straight from barrels?
On my frequent visits down that way I recall such as Snell’s in Whitestone near Exeter, Brimblecombe’s on the road to Moretonhampstead and Gray’s in Tedburn St Mary. It used to be remarkably cheap as until fairly recently ‘rough’ cider wasn’t subjected to as high a level of duty as other alcoholic drinks.
As you say supplied in 5 litre (or 1 gallon) plastic containers. Nice for a change but not something I’d consume anywhere except when down there. Deceptively strong a lot of it too.
Don’t like regulation ciders sold nationwide at all.
I don’t get along with cider. I got absolutely wiped out on it one year at the Great British Beer Festival and have seldom tried it since.
One drink I do quite like is perry. A glass of a dry perry on a summer day is very pleasant, like drinking a glass of fine white wine.
Hint: don’t ever call perry “pear cider”. The drink’s vocal enthusiasts don’t like that at all!
Another drink undergoing a small revival thanks to enthusiasts is a drink far older than beer or cider: mead, made from honey.
I had a small bottle of Lindisfarne mead fairly recently, which must be the largest maker of the drink in Britain. I wasn’t fond of it.
I have noticed that Mark’s & Spencer has recently started to stock cans of something named “Hive Mind”, three different varieties of mead. I didn’t particularly like the standard mead but I tried the variety flavoured with elderflower yesterday. I thought it was quite pleasant.
I too once overindulged on Devon’s rough stuff at a pub called the Old Cider Bar in Newton Abbot which, without going into the sordid details, resulted in a hefty surcharge to clean the carpet in the hotel room I was staying in, followed by a swift apologetic exit the morning after the night before
Ah, youthful indiscretions
As for mead, never tried it. Is it a wine or a spirit?
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