Big Night At Little (Chester) Ale House

A recent boys’ day out in Derby (blog to follow) saw plenty of revisits on a 6 mile walk pub crawl around the city.

Derbados…

…doesn’t always get a good press regards being the most glamorous of cities but there are little areas of tranquility in amongst the urban grit.

After around five miles of our walk we reached an area known as Little Chester which is of historical importance in Derby

but nowadays has a fantastic tree lined conservation area which was clearly quite a big player around 280 AD in Roman times.

Of course, whilst we had an eminent historian amongst us, he was just as pleased to find Derby’s self-proclaimed first ever Micropub.

411 – Little Chester Ale House DE1 3SF is next to the site of Roman Derventio and a one-time Viking stronghold.

More importantly to Micro fanatics though the shop used to be a launderette prior to being bought by well-known local publicans George and Walter who then flogged it on to Hartshorns Brewery.

(Coastal Journey page 1 para 1)

 

It appears to have fallen off people’s radar in terms of Ale Trails etc, but it was very much on ours and, at around 6pm on a Wednesday had a crackling atmosphere.

We had a squad of seven by this time including aforementioned mate Jules, who we last saw in Digbeth, and is still walking the coastline of Britain…and hoping to produce a book on it when finished.

Although with a trip to Ulaanbaatar on the cards later this year for a sabbatical I suspect it might be in the pipeline for a while longer yet.

(Bring on the Punk)

A good little boozer with a top selection of beers on, although by this time of the evening I decided it was time for some mainstream lager so had an excellent Punk IPA (Brewdog)

The conversation was fairly brutal by this point with the main topic being Derby’s play-off defeat to Villa and the forthcoming Europa League walkover final between Arsenal and Chelsea.

Top tens of various categories were also on the agenda along with horse riding in Mongolia just to complete the set!

It fits the Hillier model in terms of being compact, no TV and an old shop unit but, two toilets means it doesn’t tick all the boxes.

This was my first visit here for around four years but it’s good to see it still has a good crowd of locals in and is selling decent beer in a decent atmosphere where punters can talk utter garbage about life in general and something and nothing.

(onwards to Ulaanbaatar)

Slightly off the city centre trail but well worth the effort…our party were already well walked and heading for one final hurrah…