Nottingham Untapped – Squarrite trip 22nd April 2022
The 12 up for it were: Huge, Tony, Yup, Nails, Turk, Digger, Pedro, Sid, Bolt, Mothy, Craigee and Bill.
Most met at Stoke for the direct service to Nottingham. Nails tried the bacon butty at Stoke Station but wasn’t impressed. Yup and Digger were intending getting food from the Butty Bar but it was closed, so Digger got a Wright’s Pie and Yup had a salad – really?
We set off on the 11.33 train which was packed but everyone had made it, Craig and Sid boarding last at Uttoxeter. We arrived a little late but moved swiftly to the BeerHeadZ bar, only a cock-stride from the station. The building is a small former Cabman’s Shelter. 4 beers from hand-pulls were on offer, most went for Goff’s Lancer. A fellow Stokie from Meir Park followed us in. He was doing a pub-crawl with his mate and recommended some other Nottingham pubs (the Lincolnshire Poacher could be one for the future). Some settled in the outside beer “garden” area but we couldn’t stay long before heading off on our trek to the next pub.
Soon a Greggs was spotted and a few dived in there for various grub.
Back across town again to the Calcutta Club Restaurant where we had a long corner table in nice surroundings. Pedro was put out of his misery as we went for the full starter menu but was disappointed that there was no Chicken Chaat on there.
Orders went in and the service was very good; the food was described by some as the best they’d had in a good while, or “best ever” according to Turk and Pedro. Prices were slightly up, even with the discount, and Yup ended up subbing the kitty!
A quick dash down Maid Marion Way got us back to BeerHeadZ in time for a last half before boarding the 20.16 train to Crewe.
A young lady kept us awake by treating us to a view of her hair and make-up routine including a long hair piece. But soon enough we were getting off after enjoying another great day out!
Cheers
Anytime Tone
We headed back down into town, in the chilly breeze.
We found the Barrel Drop micropub down a narrow alley. This is the taphouse of the local Magpie Brewery and had a great range of beers, both cask and keg as listed on the large board at the entrance. Meir Park Man was spotted with his mate in the corner and we all settled down for another couple of pints. As usual Digger sorted us out with snacks.
Outside a few detoured into a record store that must have belonged to someone with a hoarding disorder.
The walk took us through the former Broadmarsh Centre that was being demolished and into the main part of the city centre.
Nails was having difficulty multi-tasking, eating and walking at the same time, but we stuck together and climbed the hill out towards the Canning Circus area. There we found our second pub, the Organ Grinder, the taphouse of the Blue Monkey Brewery. There was a large selection of their beers on offer along with a couple of guests. But Pedro and Tone were disappointed to hear they no longer did the Chimperial Stout. Most went for the BG Sips and Infinity. Bill enjoyed the Primate Best Bitter.
We all settled outside at the back of the pub and all eventually got places in the sunshine, which was so warm that Yup nearly peeled off one of his 4 layers. All enjoyed a couple of top quality pints and before we left we posed for a group photo.
Next we went to the Tap House, a modern craft ales place that had 24 lines of beers. It was a new concept to us, self-service beer, but we were shown how to load the payment cards and pull the drinks. Much like a petrol pump the amount you dispatched into the glass was converted into money and the digits were spinning quickly, almost as fast as the petrol ones do.
It wasn’t cheap, so we all just had about a half pint. The Tones went for Comet Glow by Overtone Brewing.
Before we left for the curry house there was a vote on the two options for starters: full starter and 20% off or the usual poppadoms starter. The vote was probably rigged as Pedro was the only one to vote for the full starter.
