Pub 25, Day 8 – Kelham Island Tavern

By Andy

For me this sums up what Pubquest is all about. You know how sometimes you pop out for a quiet pint and before you know it you're playing a professional snooker player? Well read on...

***

Avid readers will no doubt remember that my uni friends were in town for the week. After an unforgettable night the previous evening at The Fat Cat/Players, we decided to stick with the tried and tested formula and begin in Kelham Island, before heading to town. With The Fat Cat already ticked off, it was over to its long-time competitor, The Kelham Island Tavern.

A duopoly to rival Celtic and Rangers, these two clean up at the CAMRA Sheffield Pub of The Year Awards each year, with the Kelham Island Tavern currently establishing somewhat of a dynasty, winning back-to-back titles in 2014 and 2015. It has also earned national recognition, being crowned CAMRA National Pub of the Year in 2008 and 2009.

A bit roomier than The Fat Cat, the Kelham Island Tavern has the same commendable commitment to great ales and pork pies. Although the decor would give the Changing Rooms team nightmares (its yellow and red interior fails to match its homely feel), the beer garden is the stuff of Ground Force's dreams – a rainforest of plants compete for your senses, making even the darkest of beers dance with a floral flavour. 

Being easily convinced folk, we all opted for a pint of Magic Sponge – an eye-catching pint which chose to forego the typical cardboard logo in favour of sticking a sponge on the pump.

A wise man once suggested to not judge a book by its cover. Presumably, if you bumped into this fella down your local, he would also extol the virtues of not picking a beer by its logo. Happily, on this occasion he would have been wrong – Magic Sponge was a light, golden pint with a subtle toffee taste.

It was at this point that Conor – an aforementioned uni friend – got a phone call: did he want to come to The Common Room for a few frames of pool? With our Magic Sponges absorbed, and with town on the night's agenda, we jumped at the chance.

I should probably give you a bit of background information about Conor: he's a semi-professional snooker player. While the rest of my friends were spending the week on my floor, he was crashing at the Star Snooker Academy, whiling away his days on the baize. 

A few months after our fake trip to Bulgaria, Conor made the journey for real to play in the 2014 European Tour in Sofia, triumphing 4-3 in the second round before bowing out in round three (in a tournament eventually won by Shaun Murphy). So when Conor gets a phone call inviting him for a few frames of pool, you go. You never know who's gonna be there.

We were met at The Common Room by three of India's finest snooker players: Rahul Sachdev (ranked 20^th in India), Himanshu Jain (ranked 17^th in India), and Aditya Mehta (ranked number 1 in India and 49^th in the world). Now I wasn't too bad at snooker either (ranked 59^th in Howden & District Division Two), and as such, I deemed myself ready to compete against the world's best.

Unfortunately, any dreams I had of taking on Aditya Mehta were foiled by the Argentina vs Netherlands World Cup semi-final on the big screen, which he was immersed in. 

Luckily, Himanshu Jain was less of a football fan, and agreed to a frame of pool. Unbeknown to him, after our visit to the Kelham Island Tavern, I was ideally intoxicated – drunk enough to believe I could win, yet sober enough to still see straight.

Despite trailing initially, I sank the last six balls in one break, rolling in the black to receive a pat on the back from a disbelieving Rob. The man whose recognition I truly craved though was still facing the other way, his eyes locked on Lionel Messi. With no desire to waste his time pummelling no-hopers, he again declined my challenge.

Next up I played Rahul Sachdev – a player with his own page on the World Snooker website. Once again I fell behind, only to emerge victorious. This time though, my own ability had nothing to do with it – it all came down to luck. While Rahul was in the middle of a break, he accidentally cannoned into the black, potting it ahead of schedule.

Etiquette dictated that my celebrations remained muted. Rob, apparently unaware of such procedure, sprinted over and hugged me. A win by default is a win nonetheless. 

This time, Mr Mehta couldn't ignore my challenge. Having beaten both of his practice partners, I had earned the right to take on the 49^th best snooker player in the world. 

The parameters were too close to call: he has his own Wikipedia page, I have a profile on the Howden & District League website. His career winnings total £106,233, I once won £8 in a tournament at college. 

After a cagey opening, Aditya left me a half-chance. My common sense urged me to play safe; unfortunately, my imagination was in overdrive. If I potted this, I would be in a commanding position. Would beating Aditya Mehta make me Champion of India?

Me vs Mehta

Predictably, I missed. Even more predictably, Aditya Mehta won. However, he only beat me by two balls, which I was secretly quite proud of. 

And just in case anyone's keeping count, after my exploits against India's finest, and Rob's impressive victory over our Chinese friend Cowboy Keith at Barry's, the Pubquest pool score stands at:

Andy and Rob         3-1         Asia

[Population: 2]                     [Population: ~4,164,252,000]

Not bad. 

Pub: Kelham Island Tavern 
Rating: 8/10
Pint: Magic Sponge

Brewery: Thwaites Brewery (Blackburn)

NEXT UP: Knocking back drinks two-by-two, at the Noah's Ark...

Pub 24, Day 7 – The Fat Cat

By Andy

Anyone who has ever tried organising a holiday for a group of friends knows the problem.

For a year now, me and several mates had been planning to jet off to Bulgaria together in the first week of July.

The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed however, that the date and location of this post does not place me in Bulgaria during the first week of July. It places me at Kelham Island.

Admittedly, to an outsider, Kelham Island may sound exotic. It may even sound like you need to book a flight to get there. It is not and you do not.

It is however, home to the greatest concentration of fantastic pubs in the world.

***

With six months to go, there were 6 “definites” for Bulgaria. However, when it came to booking the thing, 2 had failed to get the week off work and one had decided he couldn't afford it after all. Our numbers were halved.

Bulgaria for three seemed like a waste of time. However, seeing as we had all booked the week off work, we decided we may as well meet up for a few drinks. And seeing as Pubquest needed a kick up the backside, I invited Rob along.

Paradoxically, in eschewing Bulgaria for the Fat Cat, we had ticked off number 22 in The New York Times's 52 Places to Go in 2014 (seriously). And I bet nowhere in Bulgaria offers a better pork pie.

The Fat Cat is a brilliant pub. Opened in 1981, it kickstarted Sheffield's ale tradition when it broke away from the breweries. In fact, it's probably fair to say that without The Fat Cat there would be no Pubquest – all pubs in the city would be nigh-on identical and visiting each one would be an exercise in the mundane.

Mercifully, The Fat Cat helped start a revolution which many pubs across the city joined. This is particularly true of the Kelham Island area, which is positively bursting with terrific ale houses. If all pubs offered the variety of beers found in Kelham Island, the Pubquest Bonus Challenge of having a different pint in each pub would be a walk in the park. On this occasion, we opted for Dukeries Gunsmoke, a dark yet strong bitter which kept us coming back for more.

If you visit the Fat Cat, make sure you're hungry. Having already consumed a pork pie, I then opted for a steak and ale pie, before passing up the opportunity of a pie hat-trick by choosing apple crumble. Although the menu is somewhat “pubby”, the food is worthy of a restaurant.

However, all this aside, I do have two complaints about The Fat Cat. My first issue is that it's not very big – on a busy night you can often find yourself trapped, unable to move due to the crowds. My second issue is that it's not in Bulgaria – it isn't surrounded by Sofia's historic buildings, you won't get a tan if you pop outside, it isn't a short journey from Sunny Beach.

Or is it?

You see, it had dawned on us a few days previously that we had never actually told the drop-outs that we weren't going to Bulgaria. One by one, they had cancelled by text, and it was simply presumed that the trip was not going ahead – “no man left behind” and all that. But this was never actually stated – for all they knew we could have continued organising the trip without them.

Miffed that they had cancelled last-minute, and wanting to teach them a lesson, we had formulated a plan. After buying a Bulgarian flag from eBay, our task was now simple: make Kelham Island look like Bulgaria, take a load of photos, and send these to our soon-to-be-jealous friends.

It may come as little surprise that this was no mean feat. Kelham Island, a sprawling industrial estate, is not the most photogenic of places. Now I'm sure there are sprawling industrial estates in Bulgaria too, but these were not the locations we had been planning on visiting.

Our Bulgarian itinerary had consisted primarily of beaches and bars. As there were no beaches within walking distance, we were left with no alternative but to make the Fat Cat and the Kelham Island Tavern look as Bulgarian as possible. This invariably consisted of draping our flag over the fittings, all-the-while attracting angry stares from passing members of staff. Below are our efforts:

Kelham Island Tavern, Sofia

 

     Independence Square, Sofia       Drinking at a bar by the beach

I should probably take this opportunity to remind you that, as convincing as those pictures seem, we were not actually in Bulgaria. If you look very carefully, the middle picture contains yellow lines by the side of the road, which is not a system employed in Eastern Europe.

Ignoring that minor slip-up though, I agree that our pictures were top rate, and unless our friends are experts in Bulgarian road markings, they are bound to have been fooled.

As the night wore on and our photos became steadily more ridiculous, we walked into town and headed for a dancefloor. For some unbeknown reason which baffles me with hindsight, we selected Players as our venue of choice.

(Now here I must state that Players is undisputedly a bar, so merits no entry of its own on Pubquest. If you are upset by this, please feel free to begin Barquest.)

One advantage Players does hold over Kelham Island is that it actually looks like it could be found in touristy Bulgaria – an American-themed bar, barmaids wearing very little, homeless men offering to sell you a plastic rose for £5. With this in mind we redoubled our efforts, waving our flag around and snapchatting all we could to our presumably bemused friends.

The most ridiculous aspect of the night was yet to come though.

It turns out there are only so many times you can unfurl a Bulgarian flag before people begin to presume you're from Bulgaria. Before we knew it, people were inquiring as to what we were doing in Sheffield, and what we made of the British weather. With the speakers far too loud to explain the situation, and with beer coursing through our veins, we opted to play along. However, as none of us had any idea what a Bulgarian accent sounds like, we could only respond with a sequence of grunts and nods, which would no doubt have been deeply offensive had any actual Bulgarians been present.

Then this happened:

Ladies and gentleman, so concluded the most ridiculous night of Pubquest thus far.

Pub: The Fat Cat (23 Alma Street, S3 8SA)

Rating: 9/10

Beer: Gunsmoke

Brewery: Dukeries Brewery (Worksop)

NEXT UP: Playing pool against professionals, at the Kelham Island Tavern...