August 2026. Frome. Yes, I’m really milking the Frome Folly Jolly for content, and appropriately Pub 7 talkes us to Milk Street, former home of Milk Street (now Frome) Brewery. The Griffin is the perennial GBG entry, the quirky local embodying alternative Frome with its legendary live music. I’m guessing it gets...

August 2026. Frome. Pub 6, or 7 (seven) for those on our Frome Roam who had popped off to Palmers Bottle Shop after Just Ales. I can tell you nothing about Palmers, which means it is guaranteed to make the next GBG. The pace was relentless, and some of our group went MIA, or possibly AWOL. Most of us made the Lamb...

August 2026. Frome. Pub 5 on the Frome Frolic, and having retrieved Kentish Paul from the chaos of the rail system it was time to do a rapid tour of the town, and head for the GBG micro up the hill. Oddly, we lost Stafford Paul at this stage, opting for a well earned breather rather than a squeeze into a micro that...

August 2026. Frome. The pub blogging community is very tight knit and supportive. Oxford Nick aka Prop Up The Bar has been receiving our support since posting this photo on Tuesday night; I shall be stealing that Olivia Rodrigo reference for future blog titles (see also : Bad Idea, Right). Kentish Paul had...

August 2026. Frome. It’s 12:13 last Saturday and we’re already on Pub 3 on the Great Frome Pub Survey, or whatever we’re calling it. It’s something called Archangel, without the “The“, like Architects without the definitive article. And that’s where the notes stop, at least until the pub where the cider was £2.80 a...

August 2026. Frome. Oh look, spoiler, a map showing our pub crawl route in Frome last Saturday. The best is yet to come, but every pub deserves a Retired Martin post, even the George, the most stately looking place in the market place. I just looked up room rates this weekend; minimum 3 night stay at £128 a night,...

August 2026. Frome. I can’t remember why we started our Proper Pub Crawl/Curated Survey of Licensed Premises* at the Blue Boar. Oh yes, it opened at 10am. We live in a world where many pubs don’t open till 4pm (if at all) during the week, noon if you’re lucky, so the value operators like Wetherspoons and (as here)...

August 2026. Frome. Somerset. A weekend in student digs in Bath, with the centrepiece a Saturday pubbing in Frome, guided by local celebrities Jon and Tracey. “Froooom. Throwm. ANiceTotnes. However you pronounce it, Frome is a gem”, I wrote on my last visit in March 2020, just before something cataclysmic happened....

August 2026. Bath. I’d opted for a couple of nights down in Bath, a little luxurious but the student residences on the edge of town were cheaper than a Doncaster Travelodge, Twerton Mill’s riverside rooms near Bath City FC spotless and (most importantly) with high-speed Wi-Fi. OK, they’re also half an hour’s walk...

August 2026. Bath. I arrived back at Isambard’s (quite good) statue with 5 minutes to spare, and half an hour later was clambering the Paragon steps on the edge of central Bath. You must know this one. A symphony in brown dark red, where Stafford Paul awaited with the sacred jug of flat Bass. I’d put my Bath Star...

August 2026. Bristol. My train to Bath left in 50 minutes time; Google reckoned 54 minutes walk from the Port of Call to Temple Meads, which gave little time for dawdling on the descent through Cotham Hill. And so, once more, I could only pause at the Highbury Vaults, and marvel that they still have the full range...

August 2026. Bristol. I’ll show my deep ignorance of suburban Bristol now and admit I don’t really know the difference between Clifton Village and Clifton proper, about 50p on a pint I guessed. Yes, there are buses I could have taken, but then I’d have missed the closed zoo, Clifton Down looking like a scorched...