The problem with my pub visits is that they are all too often fleeting. A quick one after work. Two pints squeezed in towards the end of a country walk. Urban crawls that find me heading out the door almost as soon as I arrive. Sometimes, I make the time to spend more time in once place. And it pays dividends.

A long afternoon in the Sheffield Tap. Tickers pass through, holidaymakers hit the Bernard before the Manchester Airport train, football fans with their team shirts threatening to poke out of tightly-buttoned jackets. Rowdy student rendevous. A couple's last drinks dallied over, a whispered goodbye, a faint tear.

Lunchtime in the Harlequin, Sheffield, sees the office workers drift reluctantly back to desks. A woman in a too-tight skirt is reapplying her lippy, having left most of it on her glass. Three guys with Identi-kit pale blue shirts and sandy side partings are toying with the idea of another pint. Maybe just off the early shift, a man with the thousand yard stare takes up his rightful place at the bar and makes a pint of blonde last an hour.

Sun blazes in stripes across the beer garden of the Royal Oak, Ockbrook. Estate cars drop off knots of seniors who amble their way slowly to the front door. Tired parents suggest to their bored children that running off to the swings and back wil do them some good. Tweedy dog walkers, florescent ramblers and between-course smokers fill the trestles. As lunch ends, so estate cars clog the car park again; dogs pull on leads; boots are re-laced; one last drag can be had.

Up the pointy end of the Brunswick, Derby, there's just me in a Chesterfield. But I can see out into the corridor; groups stagger past on their way to the bar. A dozen forty-something blokes straight from a hotel after some sort of training day; too much cheap aftershave and office gossip. Some of the old boy regulars who've refreshed themselves by two pints more than their usual. Beards talk trains and enthuse about the pubs they'll be visiting later. A gaggle of carefully-dressed students look confused but are soon subsumed into the pints and banter by the dartboard.

There's something encouraging about the even flow of a pub's custom over a few hours. You get a feel for its community, whether that's regular or transient. You see character and anonimity. You get to meet people who are nothing like you yet are actually just like you in one vital respect - they too are lovers of the simple pleasure offered by a pint of beer in a good pub.



You want to see more Pearl Jam? Of course you do...

>

The inner geek in me likes to organise my drinking time. Train timetables, optimal walking routes between pubs, gen on what beers and breweries can be found where and when. As I've said before: sometimes it's the thrill of the chase, sometimes it's for the kill.

Which is why sometimes it's fun to just kick back, relax and end up where your beer trousers take you.

To be honest, the day started at the Sheffield Tap as the result of gen. Their Twitter feed mentioned a new Thornbridge beer on keg being available - Mechelen, one of the last beers brewed by departing head brewer Stefano Cossi - so that seemed like a sensible place to start. Let's face it; a 7.4% Belgique blonde before noon has 'sensible' written all over it. Plenty of lemon curd versus a box that once held spiced Christmas biscuits.

What to do next? Drink more Thornbridge. Crux was an interesting one; light-chestnut brown, bright-white drumskin-tight head and Southern hemisphere hops - something earthier and spicier than the usual Sauvin suspects? I'll have to find out.

Then, an amble down to the Don. Past the magnificent Brutalist Park Hill flats, over Lady's Bridge, around what's left of the Tennant's Brewery. Along the river where there may be the iridescent flash of a kingfisher. And to the Harlequin.

I'll tell you why I really love this pub. It makes me feel... comfy. Top-notch beer from Brew Company as well as further-flung guests. Proper pub-cooked food. Cool music in the background. People enjoying themselves - be they curmudgeonly tickers, out-of-towners, raucous darts players... several pints of Summer Wine Covenant and Dark Star Smoked Porter and a cracking chat with Brew Company supremo Pete Roberts makes for a grand afternoon.

Uphill afterwards for Dada. As I hadn't been back since the opening night, I wanted to see how this art-bar was shaping up. Not too shabby is the answer. James Broad is an effusive host, looking forward to a Saturday night onslaught. Thornbridge Halcyon and Chiron were full of freshly kegged magnificence. And when you've got brewers like Thornbridge's Matt Clark and Magic Rock's Stuart Ross drinking there, you know the beers are more than all right.

No rushing around. No feeling I need to be everywhere. Just doing what I ought to do more of; bimble around and let the day develop. After all, good beer is where you find it.




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Here's my first Reluctant Scooping report for 2011. Details are going to be brief, it's not going to be encyclopaedic with regards to prices, ABVs, opening hours etc. I'll include links to pubs, bars and brewery websites if you want to follow up on that sort of thing.

The basic plan is: find four pubs that offer the chance for me to scoop new beers/breweries as well as offer up some of my old favourites. Then see if I reluctantly choose the new beer over the old favourite. Maximum of one pint in each pub.

And we start in Sheffield. Why? It's the Holy City of ticks, it's the Valley of Beer. If you can't find good beer to scoop here, you won't find it anywhere.

Sheffield Tap

Cask beers on offer: 6
Potential scoops: 0
Keg beers on offer: 8
Potential scoops: 2
Actual scoops: 1 (Matuška Svatomartinské Polotmavé, half)
Favourites drank: 1 (Brewdog Punk IPA, half)

The cask beers were a quintet of Thornbridge and Fyne Ales Highlander, all of which I'd had before. The Matuška beer was a good scoop, a Vienna-ish, biscuity-grassy affair. The other was some kind of weiss but I couldn't not have keg Punk. Before noon.

Harlequin

Cask beers on offer: 11
Potential scoops: 7
Actual scoops: 1 (Summer Wine, Heretic Black IPA, two halves)

Plenty of new beers on offer here. I realised that I'd never had a beer from Summer Wine, despite seeing them around Sheffield before. So their Black IPA, Heretic, was an obvious scoop. After an always-entertaining chat with Brew Company's Pete Roberts and enjoying one of the Quin's humongous roast beef dinners, I forced myself to have another Heretic. It was too good to ignore now I had the taste for it and it's the perfect example of how a scooped beer can become a must-try-again beer.

Kelham Island Tavern

Cask beers on offer: 13
Potential scoops: 5
Actual scoops: 0
Old favourites: 1 (Pictish Brewers Gold, pint)

No new beer really tickled my fancy here today. Thankfully, one of their regular beers is a favorite of mine; the only problem with Pictish Brewers Gold is that it's so sessionable I felt like stopping for several more. But not today...

Gardener's Rest

Cask beers on offer: 8
Potential scoops: 4
Actual scoops: 2 (Dancing Duck, 22 and Burscough, Ringtail, half each)

A pub with a reputation for new brewery scoops and today was no exception. Half the beers were regulars from Sheffield Brewery that I'd already had; of the four guests, two were from breweries new to me so I plumped for those. The Dancing Duck 22 was OK, another one of those well-made malt-led best bitters that thrive around the North Midlands / south Yorkshire. More interesting was Ringtail from Burscough, I'd love to know what hops were used as there was really delicate fruity edge to it.

Hillsborough Hotel

Cask beers on offer: 7
Potential scoops: 2
Actual scoops: 0
Old favourites: 1 (Crown, Stannignton Stout, half)

Yes, I know I said the rules were four pints in four pubs. But I was on the way to catch the tram and it would have been rude to walk past... I was after the latest in their 'jazz musicians' series of specials, as brewer Stuart Ross had told me about the Amarillo-laden 'Stephane Grapelli'. But that cask had gone and I hadn't got time to see if it was being replaced. A quick half of Stannington Stout is always a pleasure, though - it's one of the best dark beers brewed in Sheffield.


Results:

Scoops: 4
Favourites: 3
Verdict: Not Too Reluctant Scooping.
Beer of the day: Burscough Ringtail. It's always good to find a brewery that's new to me and really enjoy their beer.

Next month: Leicester >

(this should have been posted live from the Harlequin last Thursday: #technologyfail)

If this posting works, I'll eat my foot cheese. At the bar in the Harlequin, blogging live and wishing my thumbs were thinner. 5AM Saint starts with a now-familiar nasal hop slap; here's hoping it's not going to push in one overwrought dimension. My eyeballs are still itching on the first sip, but this is more than a one-hop pony. There's a deep set caramel malty backbone, even though the palate profile still wears those tart grapefruit hops on its sleeve (and on its lapels and all down its front).

By the end of this first pint, I've a mouth full of dry and dusty hop. I'm missing a finish. That backbone seems to have wilted under severe hop strain. After a second pint, my mouth is dryer than a dryed-up dry thing. The third pint is actually unpleasant, hops now relentless.

Balance in beer is wholly over-rated. But let's not make over-hopping as offensive as a predelection for crystal malt. >

Here's a unfeasibly-long postcard I sent to my dear old friend, Hugh Jarse, last summer. It never arrived - Hugh having changed address at Her Majesty's Pleasure yet again - so now it's been returned I thought I'd share it with you.


Dear Hugh. Well, here I am in the capital of the People’s Republic of South Yorkshire. Sheffield is dreadfully sunny and hot, with none of the sleet and hail that the brochures promised at this time of year. Passport control was very lax. All that time spent learning the names of champion whippets was wasted – no-one asked me any questions and I was allowed to leave the station unmolested.

I met up with Gazza, Mrs Gazza, Dave Swij... zwege... Dave Unpronounceable and a few others before ordering a breakfast so large that it arrived on a plate bigger than my head. For a Wetherspoons it was a real culture shock – there was a barmaid who was chatty, polite and knowledgeable about beer. I wonder if that attitude can be exported to the further reaches of the JDW empire?


Suitably cholesterolised, we took a bracing walk downriver to a charming public house. The Harlequin offered a superb range of beers, light and dark, weak and strong, handpull and gravity, little and large, eggs and bacon, Tom and Jerry.... a slew of beers were imbibed as several more jolly Ratebeer types joined us. Even when Dave farted and blamed it on a sleepy Alsatian, we still enjoyed the brews which included such delights as Weyerbacher Double Simcoe.


Eventually, we moved on to the Fat Cat, just down the road. Here we sat outside, warm sun permeating the slight shadows. There is a certain joy in taking the Yorkshire air of an afternoon, particularly when said air is located next to a fine drinking establishment. Such joy is multiplied by a beer brewed within sight of the bar (well, it would be if you could see through several brick walls). A Kelham Island special was ordered. "Mieszko!" said I. "Bless you!" came the reply...


Sustenance was now required by all and sundry. Rather than partake of the award-winning menu here, the party decided to build up further our appetites and take a sturdy yomp to another pub further down the valley. Thirty seconds later, we'd arrived there. The Kelham Island Tavern was mackerel-tin busy so I wasted no time in securing my usual round - one pint of Pictish Brewers Gold, two Red Leicester cobs. The wait for hot food proved lengthy, too many hungry topers in one place, so my reserve cob soon became the subject of a bidding war. Until my fellows realised that the basket on the bar was full of them. More friends turned up, Steve and Chrissie having been taking in some of the architectural delights of the city beforehand.

Amongst the melee, a bottle of De Struise Pannepot appeared from nowhere. Well, it appeared from the rucksack of an exceptionally-bearded Scottish gentleman sat next to me. Craig (for it was he, hirsute-of-chin) and I shared surreptitiously this fine Belgian ale and I made note to secure further supplies for winter-fireside-topering.


Once food orders had been satiated finally, we wended our way to the Wellington. Here, our thirsty crowd all flocked to order Pictish El Diablo, a notably hoppy stout. Indeed, so popular it proved that before I reached the bar it "burst", the latter apparently being a beer aficionado term for "run out". I settled for Oakham Endless Summer; weak in alcohol, strong in hop flavour. Shortly after, a chance remark (which was sadly not recorded) led to the gentleman next to me displaying his training shoes as surrogate mammaries. Or "Mes's Nike Tits" as they became known.


Not only are the beers tasty at the Wellington, but it is well situated within this Valley Of Beer. Only a few minutes amble from the other houses visited so far and so close to the passing tramline that the windows rattle as one passes. Our party availed itself of the aforementioned transportation to whisk us onward to our next calling point, the Hillsborough Hotel. Here, we were encouraged outside once again by the bracing mid-evening air and panoramic views over the Don Valley. And of the dry ski-slope. And of Mecca Bingo. Plenty of high-quality, low-cost, on-site brewed beer was imbibed, the Crown Hillsborough Pale Ale becoming a swift favourite around the table. And it was charming to watch the doyen of scoopers, Gazza Prescott, holding court in front of the camera.


The rest of the day descended into a steady haze. Another pub or two was found, fellow topers tailed off and away, an enthusiastic homebrewer tried to convince me that elderflower wheat beer was the future. It had been the usual pleasure to crawl the Valley of Beer, moreso to be in good company. I look forward to inviting you over here for a drink or four sometime in the near future; do let me know if your injunctions and court orders prevent you from travelling to this particular county.

Chin chin!

The Reluctant Scooper >

Take one resident of the People's Republic of South Yorkshire. Add one toper from over the Pennines, one from over the Peaks and one from the South Coast. Mix them up in several pubs all up and down the Valley of Beer with lashings of ales both local and from far afield. What do you get? The ratebeer.com Winter Crawl around Sheffield. Warning: this story includes images of fat clowns. No, really.


Like a many a day on the sauce, the ratebeer meetup was at a Spoons. The Bankers Draft is a curate's egg in the world of JDW; downstairs it feels like every other crowded meat market bar up and down West Street. But upstairs has an easier vibe, comfy sofas and a better beer selection. At the bar already was my old mucker DJ Monarch, looking enviably thinner since he stepped up the five-a-side football. Yomping through a breakfast was Dave Szwejkowski, AKA Dave Unpronounceable / hellsbrewer / evilempire / Arthur Fox-Hake. I bought myself a half of Hilden Molly's Stout and joined the party.

The Molly's was a half-decent stout, plenty of roast and just enough ash sprinkled into the spicy tobacco notes. So much so that I had to have another one whilst we waited for Phil to turn up. Some people would say that driving from Ramsgate to Sheffield is a shag of a trip just for a few beers. You'd be right, but Phil's the kind of guy who crosses continents to share a brew and chew the fat. He turned up - wearing gloves like a soft footballer - and we headed off to the Harlequin.


Now then, I LOVE this pub. Away from the throng, chock full of tasty beers, trays of rolls on the bar, a cheery welcome and a lovely Alsatian lolling around. Steadily busy with knots of tickers and 'normals', the Harley is one of those pubs where I could sit back with a beer or five and watch the world slide by. And I would, if it wasn't for the fact that there are at least another four pubs in the city where I also do likewise.

We got stuck into some of the ten beers on offer. Sadly, my Thornbridge Ramberg was uncharacteristically insipid. There used to be a herby edge to it that seems to have been lost along the way. More impressive was Brewsters Morgana, lip-smacking fruits and an assured balance. But head, shoulders and wig above all of them was Clown's Pout, my birthday beer brewed by Crown. Starting with their Stannington Stout, Dave had arranged for Crown to pour a bottle of port into the cask, giving the beer a vinous edge. It seemed to go down well amongst the ratebeer clan and soon the tickers too were soon itching around the pump. With someone that handsome on the clip, who can blame them?

Having had previous disagreements with the landlord, Dave declined the trip into the Fat Cat and headed on to secure a table for us at the KIT. The other two piled into the small yet perfectly formed front bar and, by the time I returned from a pee, Phil was in full-flung-beer-tourist mode. Halves of Kelham Island beers were stacked on the bar, bottles of Brooklyn Smoked Porter bought and stashed, small sausages in a tub procured and one of his own bottled beers was being sampled by the management. Literally, one of Phil's beers - he brewed Dark Conspiracy in partnership with South Coast brewing legend Eddie Gadd at the Ramsgate brewery. It's stuffed full of chocolate, dusky fruits rupture after a while and there's a pervasive hop presence that never intrudes.

Being on a chocolate and coffee tip at the moment, I felt drawn to Mordue's Newcastle Coffee Porter. And it fulfils the ticklist on the tongue - roast, coffee, choc, sweet malt, lingering finish - but it all seemed accidental rather than planned. Compliant flavours, not assertive in the way that porter ought to be for me. As it would be rude to visit and not have a Kelham Island beer, I twisted my own arm and gave in with a Pale Rider. Still sublime, still has sticky citrus bits and (I insist) a vaguely minty backwash. And here's a picture of shoes - I know some regular readers have been disappointed by the lack of random foot shots recently, but I've had to work out if any of you are that fecking pervert who likes my pictures of World War 2 re-enactors on Flickr for the wrong reasons - i.e. they're wearing shiny, calf-length boots. Seriously. Some shit you just couldn't make up.

So, from the Cat to the KIT. Dave was anchored at a corner table, demolishing yet another plate of scran. I love being wonderfully Reluctant in here; pint of Pictish Brewers Gold, cheese cob. End of. It's a beer I described as "Silverstone, not Rockingham" during the summer Ratebeer crawl here; it has a soul, a sense of craft, there's surprises tucked away around the corner rather than being laid bare for all to see. Confirmed citric flavours, but there's petals floating in, honey around the edges, veins of vanilla exposed with every other sip. I like. Mucho. The cobs aren't half bad either, Red Leicester today with a silky sheen that provided just enough resistance. Busy busy in here and rightly so. Plenty of diners and a few verticals in the bar, more in the conservatory, even a few hardy smokers out in the garden. There's a good vibe in here, friendly staff and keen drinkers who aren't exclusively beer geeks. Banter was had, beers were shared. Not too sure what we talked about or what else we drank - I was too busy having a good time to take notes. Or indeed to eat often enough. Or to stop drinking pints.

Onward anyway to the Cask & Cutler. I mean the Wellington. Or the Cask & Welly as some of us obstreperous old sods like to call it. It was surprisingly quiet in here until we blustered in, with just a few familiar faces from earlier in the day still hacking their way around the circuit. With a small bar serving two rooms, the (insert preferred name here) offers a dozen-odd mix of beers; rare-ish guests, rebadged regulars and its own Little Ale Cart brews.

Reluctantly, I didn't plump for my usual choice here and eschewed the Old Git for a pint of Baby Git. Both are re-named Millstone beers, True Grit and Tiger Rut respectively, and on reflection I have to say that I'm more of an Old Git. Note: any comments along the lines of "you've always been an old git" will be deleted...

I ought to have tried at least one of the Little Ale Cart beers, but I was soon lost in the bottles that Phil cracked open to share with the bar staff and whoever happened to be around at the time. Midtfyns Imperial Stout hid its alcohol well with smooth mellow coffee flavours. Three Floyds BlackHeart IPA was frustratingly good - plenty of biscuity malt, enough resinous hop, a whiff old old oak. Why frustrating? Because it's brewed with British malt, hops and yeast... I can count the number of British brewers who are this bold with their recipes on the fingers of one hand. Where's the British experimentation? Well, it happened to be in the next bottle. Hopasaurus X is an uber-hopped trial brew by Saints & Sinners, another of Phil's projects. All rather lively, for work-in-progress it had stacks of promise with shouty hops to the fore.

There's a pint on many a crawl that becomes the tipping point, after which memories become hazier than farmhouse scrumpy. Today, that pint was Stannington Stout in the Hillsborough Hotel. I can remember vaguely how I tried to tell the barmaid about how it was the base beer for Clown's Pout. And that all the Crown beers (from the on-site microbrewery) were incredibly cheap (certainly none over two quid a pint). And that the mighty Badgers, Eastwood Town, powered through to the third round of the FA Cup. But I was starting to wane; even the camera didn't make it out of the pocket. One day I'll start off a Sheffield crawl here; I'd like to try a range of Crown beers and rememebr what they taste like. Too often I've ended up here only after a thick wedge of too many beers in too many (excellent) pubs.

Sensible topers beat a retreat at this stage. Tipsy topers with a love of Thornbridge beers head instead to the University Arms. Daft topers with drinking ambitions way in excess of their capacity buy a pint of Saint Petersburg, prick about with a camera and start to feel sleepy. My first time at this pub and it won't be my last - elegantly appointed, plush but not stuffy, glass panels and comfy chairs and lashings of Thornbridge beer.

I'd love to wax lyrical about the place and the beer but I was shot through by this stage, excellent beers all day but too often they were drowned in pints rather than sipped in halves. So, here's another pub to revisit early on a Sheffield day trip; perhaps I ought to try visiting just here and the Hillsborough rather than trying to cram six or seven pubs into one day?

Time to go. One last group photo (with me, far right, seemingly giving the finger to someone other than the photographer) before I slumped onto a tram, poured myself onto a train and slept in first class back to Derby (Cross Country Trains don't seem keen on disturbing reasonably-well-dressed drunks. Thankfully). Another great Sheffield day - next time, fewer pubs and less beer. Yeah, right...
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Blue skies, wispy clouds, a cool breeze: the perfect weather for a Sheffield crawl. I met up with David, who is over from Canada on a grand beer tour before returning home in September. The key pubs here are well served by public transport, so it was straight off the train and up to the tram. Here, we met up with Neil (DJ Monarch) who'd crossed the Pennines that morning to meet up with us.


As well as the gen we've gleaned from ratebeer.com, we used Gazza's great Google map for Sheffield to help us round this grand city.

Onto the Supertram and two short stops later it's the first pub of the day, the J D Wetherspoon Bankers Draft

This used to be the York City and Country Bank, an assured example of Edwardian Baroque. I wasn't expecting anything too exciting beer-wise but hoped for something solid and decent to start the day. The main bar was serving Stones Bitter, Wentworth WPA and Kelham Island Easy Rider. We headed upstairs to see what else was on offer. Unfortunately there was nothing extra; I popped downstairs to pick up an Easy Rider.

Neil and David were still buying their beers when I returned. Neil plumped for the Stones, which was rugged enough for a beer now brewed by Bass (sorry, Coors), but used to be made in Sheffield. David's WPA was disappointing; perhaps the end of a barrel? Not a great introduction to Sheffield beer drinking! My Easy Rider was on good form, though; always a joy to drink this beer.

It was soon time to leave the city centre behind and head north downhill to the River Don. We were expecting a longer hike, but we were on the bridge in what seemed like only a few minutes. The extensive road improvement works threw us out a bit, but then scooping in Sheffield isn't the same without getting list amongst ongoing construction in this neck of the woods. Negotiating a maze of walkways marked out by fluorescent netting, we finally hacked our way over to The Harlequin.


This was a busy place - just as a pub with a growing reputation for beer and food should be on a Friday lunchtime. Eight handpumps offered a real range of beers from light golds to roasty stouts with a couple of ciders thrown in for good measure. Sadly, none of their house beer as Kelham Island aren't quite back up to full capacity yet. We escaped out to the beer garden - a recurrent theme of the day - which offered a great view of, er, the JCBs working on the road junction.

A real range of beers tried here; Church End Stout Coffin, Durham Cuthberts Cross and St Louis Kriek were all dispatched and enjoyed. The Durham beer just edged into being my favourite of the round.

We then retraced out steps back over the river - where debris ranging from old buckets to small trees was still lodged under the bridges - into Alma Street.

Just past the back-in-business Kelham Island brewery we rolled in to the Fat Cat.

The flood level has been painted on the wall, thankfully this year's wasn't as bad as that in the 19th century.

We ventured out to the beer garden again, not that busy compared to inside which was surprising given that it's a mild Friday with the smoking ban in force. Here we sampled Derby Brewing Company Passionately Pale, Black Hole Super Nova and Thornbridge Hall Jaipur.

My Derby beer was good - no different to the bulk of Trevor's light brews but what ain't broke you don't fix. David's Jaipur was fairly flabby - two poor conditioned beers out of three for him! To give the Cat a chance of redeeming themselves, I went back to the bar and got a Thornbridge Hall Blackthorne which was in much better shape - full of juicy fruits.

As for the Black Hole - I just don't get it; something in there that my palate reacts adversly to in their beers. I watered the flowers behind me with a quarter pint - so if there's a barren patch in the bed when you next visit, it's the Super Nova wot done it.

Just a short walk around the corner took us to the Kelham Island Tavern


Always a cheery welcome here. A really strong selection of beers and wonderfully chunky cheese cobs.

And so off outside for the best beer garden of the day. A real sun trap.

The first round of beers - Allgates Beer Hunter, Sheffield Severn Hills, Milestone After the Flood were all OK. It's always worth having a few in here, so the next round was for Mighty Oak Simply The Best, Acorn First Gold IPA and Acorn Fuggles. That last beer really narked Neil, who was moved to declare that Fuggles was "not a hoppy hop", "If there's double hop and triple hop, that's half a hop" and "I'm going to rename it fuck-alls".

Each unto his own, eh!

Tearing ourselves away from the KIT, we moved on to the unlikeliest scooping opportunity of the day

The Milestone is clearly aiming for the up-and-coming cocktail market in what is now becoming a fashionable area of the city.

Not much to look nat from the outside, inside it's all chocolate and cream walls, candles, easy beats, continental draughts, decent wine list, house cocktails, open kitchen serving smart bar-bistro stuff....

But also, two cask beers; Sheffield Five Rivers Cascade and Wentworth Imperial.
Those kept the guys happy; I was mellow enough to have a Paulaner. In fact, if the music had stayed mellow - and we didn't have several more pubs to visit - I'd have been happy to kick back and relax here.

But, onwards and upwards. The Wellington has had a lick of paint since its Cask & Cutler days, and certainly smells cleaner since the smoking ban. I forgot to take a photo - must have been too mellow after the Milestone..

A good range of beers - perhaps nothing overly unusual but the Cannon Royal Fruiterers Mild, Beowulf Chiller and Millstone Vale Mill were all in good form - the latter I though was superb, a new recipe (though I never had the old one) and early contender for Beer of the Day.

Keeping rolling, one stop on the tram and a short uphill jog past the old infirmary (with a Te$co now spawned in the grounds) and it was onto the Moon

Now this was a great pub - green and cream decor, two large rooms and patio looking over the old infirmary. Five Abbeydale beers, five guests, draught lagers including local stuff and a solid thirty-bottle range of mainly Belgian staples. The piped acoustic music and decent menu of classic pub meals (with regular or large portions) make it an inviting place to get your breath back after a hard day's scooping.

Abbeydale Daily Bread and Salvation were clealry the best beers of the day so far - really fresh, full of flavour. The Magpie Two 4 Joy was as a good drop as well.

Back down the hill and the longest tram ride of the day so far - at least a couple of minutes - to get to the Hillsborough Hotel( their official site - and that of the Crown Brewery - seems to have disappeared)


It's a good looking place, lots of wood panelling and airy ceilings. We went out onto the terrace again to take in the splendid Don Valley view. OK, it's mainly Mecca bingo and the dry ski slope but it's still better than looking at a recycle bin and a pile of dog ends.

We tried one of their own beers, Hillsborough Pale Ale brewed by Crown, Northumberland Fog On The Tyne and something else I forgot to name (possibly Howard Town Glotts Hop).All were good, as were the Seabrooks crisps!

Here's David and Neil still managing to look awake:

We didn't really need an excuse to call back in the Wellington, such a good beer range means that it would be rude not to give them another go. West Berkshire The Crabtree Effect, Salamander Idol and Blackwater Poison (brewed at Salopian) were sampled - my palate's getting jaded by this point but still found some keen hops in the Poison. And the crisp sampling moved up a gear with Tyrells Crisps - Ludlow Sausage with wholegrain mustard. A new beer came on just as we were getting ready to leave - Pictish Pale and Oppy - so a half was dispatched quickly (and damn good it was too).

Time to head back into the city. Taking the tram to West Street we seemed to descend into a circle of hell - the place was already dripping with women wearing little more than too much cheap perfume.

Into the Devonshire Cat, which was heaving already at 7pm. A quick trio to knock off (beers, I hasten to add); my notes gave out at this point but I do remember that I went back to get a pint of (this time, excellent) Jaipur.

Then it was time to beat the retreat - Neil headed back over to Cheshire whilst David and I had a middling wait for a Virgin train and the customary standing up next to the out-of-order toilet for forty minutes.

Back into to Derby, where there's always time for a couple more beers - the Brunswick for a pint of White Feather and then back to the Alex for a Jever and let David crawl off to bed and recover from several days scooping.

A good day - new pubs visited, good beers tried, great gardens lounged around in! I can heartily recommend a Sheffield crawl to anyone interested in quality beers and letting the tram take the strain. >