By
Rob
As
shocking as this might be to hear, Pubquest wasn’t the only game in
town. Our brief relationship with Twitter had enlightened us to the
fact that, elsewhere in Sheffield, other intrepid alcoholics were
blogging about their experiences.
Were
they inspired by Pubquest? Were they hoping to emulate our
success? Were we solely responsible for this sudden trend
in beer blogging?
I
wouldn’t like to speculate.
One
such blogger, who ran the Sheffield Ale Pubs website,
had been looking to partner with some fellow adventurers for a joint
session. Happy to collaborate, we arranged to tour a few
of the Kelham Island pubs that we’d yet to visit.
Before
that, however, Andy and I intended to meet up and have a pint at the
Ship Inn.
This
pub, over 200 years old and originally built for Tomlinson’s Anchor
Brewery, proved to be a visual delight. The Edwardian building, with
its fantastic coloured tiles and corner location, was impossible to
miss. Unsurprisingly, the pub had picked up a national prize for its recent refurbishment.
The impressive adornment continued on the inside, as we stepped into a well-decorated, trendy pub with the smell of incense hanging in the air. The place was pretty much empty, which was no doubt due to the fact that we’d arrived before lunchtime.
At
the bar, we eyed the range of ales on offer. The selection was good,
just as you’d expect from a pub on the Kelham Island scene.
We
ordered two pints of Sunbeam, from Banks’s Brewery, and took our
seats. The pint was not dissimilar to many other golden ales we’d
previously enjoyed, with a slight bitterness and gentle citrus tones.
In the summer heat, it went down nicely.
As
we made our way through the beer, we looked ahead to our meeting with
Mr Sheffield Ale Pubs (not his real name, surprisingly). Apparently,
he’d prepared a series of questions for us and would be conducting
an interview for his own online blog.
Naturally,
we were a little nervous. The only interviews I had any real
experience of were job interviews, and I didn’t much like those.
Aside from that, I’d attended two interviews for the role of school
prefect: one in Year 6 and one in Year 11. The first had been an
unmitigated disaster, due to my poor record of behaviour; while the
latter proved to be a success, due to the absence of any other
candidates.
We
decided to try and prepare for the upcoming inquisition. If we could
figure out what questions we were likely to face, then we could
attempt to plan our answers in advance. After all, as two people who
blog about pubs and beer, it was vitally important that we
came across like two people who knew lots about pubs and beer. Our credibility was at stake.
The
next five minutes consisted, more or less, of ridiculous speculation.
We anxiously entertained the notion that he might probe us about our decision to award Barry’s 10/10. Or maybe, we pondered aloud, he would
present us with CCTV footage from some of our more drunken evenings,
confronting us with proof that we had, in our inebriation, miscounted
terribly and visited only a fraction of the pubs that we believed
we’d been to.
Eventually,
Andy was struck with the ingenious idea of looking at this fellow’s
blog, in order to see what questions he’d asked his previous
interviewees. As it turned out, far from being grilled about our
lurid experiences at a Jamaican pub on London Road, we were much more
likely to be asked: 'What do you think to ale in a can?'
We
were both profoundly relieved. The impending Newsnight
interrogation, with a fiery-eyed Jeremy Paxman, had just turned
into a Q&A session on The One Show sofa with
Matt Baker. The snarling face of Andrew Neil had been replaced with
whoever the fuck was currently on Loose Women. Nobody was
going to ask about our failure to reduce net migration to the tens of
thousands. Instead, we'd be pressed to reveal our favourite type of
biscuit. It was going to be a walk in the park.
Or
so we thought.
Finishing
off the last few dregs of Sunbeam, we deposited the empty glasses
on the bar and headed towards our first taste of Pubquest fame.
Pub:
Ship Inn (312 Shalesmoor, S3 8UL)
Rating:
9/10
Pint:
Sunbeam
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