I’ve Got A Pocket Full Of Pretty (Lincoln) Green

We’ve not had a lame take on a Jam Album track as the blog title for a while so I thought I’d bring up the opener from their seminal Sound Affects album.

For anyone under 30 that was when you had to buy music from a record store and the needle crackled when you placed it excitedly on the record…

I’s still waiting for Mudgie to approve it of course after our ground breaking Bass deal agreed at an estate pub in Whitwick last week*

Anyway, say what you like about (The Real) Mark, and I often do, there is no denying he knows a good pub when he sees one.

If you’ve not checked out his blog yet then it is well worth a read as not only does he find traditional  pubs but they more often than not come with either a skittle alley, skittles table, bar billiards, bagatelle, Aunt Sally (yes really), quoits and even table football.

(Gateway to the Peak District)

Shove it, Chuck it, Toss it is its moniker and whilst Mark may have to fend off a comment from Russ with a blog title like that, there is no denying the quality of proper boozers on there.

So with my new found love for Belper and the news from the blogging committee, chaired by I. Thurman – AKA The Wickingman – that my bloggers licence was still under review after neglecting this town for so long, I needed to pull in a Mark Shirley favour.

With the breaking news in my last post that Mark is actually landed gentry as his great aunt, Laurence Shirley, also known as the Earl of Ferrers, had been on a killing spree in the 18^th Century it is clear there is a history of violence. So, what Mark says goes in terms of pubs and after he recommended 482 – The Railway DE56 1PW to me then I just had to pay it a visit.

It has recently been refurbed by Lincoln Green, who are a decent brewery (and developing a roster of boozers) in Nottingham and is in the middle of the Bridge Street and Market Place pubs.

I was there on dad taxi duty on a Sunday morning and this place is growing on me every time I visit it.  Lots of independent cafes, a vinyl record store, a tackle and gun shop (which makes it popular in Lount) and a proper gaming shop tucked away up a side alley are just some of the niche shops.

A BetVictor Conference North side too as well as some slightly more upmarket street art than you would find in Digbeth.

I had a top notch bacon cob from Cafe G  over the road and there were some very earnest people in their reading the Observer or Sunday Times wearing hats and scarves and looking like they were there for the duration with a variety of coffees.

(lacings)

However, I was only here for the beer as the phrase goes so, once I’ve loitered outside the front of the boozer for around five minutes, I thought I could justify walking in at 12:01.

It is Sunday after all.

I’m not the first punter in, which is always a good sign and the barman suddenly appears from nowhere like Kato in a Pink Panther movie and I settle for the sensible option and have a very quaffable pint of Marion (Lincoln Green), a session ale as someone once said but I’m only having one so that kind of defeats the object really.

Anyway, another geezer comes in with a look of the Axl Rose about him and he is fully engrossed in his phone whilst the landlady is going through her books at one of the tables and it is all very Sunday afternoon and chilled.

This just feels like proper pubbery of the highest order and whist there are no skittle alleys or dominoes, there are old school Whitbread beermats in the toilets,

bench seating, lots of subtle station memorabilia

and it also sells food, which is a decent move for a town centre boozer.

It feels like a pub where you can eat if you want to and it appeared to very much a smart drinkers place with a barman who was working his socks off and still finding time to be affable.

(Hardest working Barman in Belper)

This place has only just reopened and it is in safe hands with Lincoln Green as they are (a) going to offer good beer and (b) they actually want to make it work as a pub as opposed to selling it off to a supermarket/housing company.

Belper is a pukka town with plenty of old school pubs and how many other football clubs do you know who have balloons on their forthcoming fixtures board?

I mean how happy can one town be?

 

*That line of the post is still waiting of copy approval as elements of it may be incorrect…oh OK, all of it then