Warwick Pub Explorations

It's autumn, the temperature has suddenly dropped and the forecast for this weekend is wet and miserable.
But even down in the lower reaches of the Southern Central Counties Pub-Ticking league, rain can't stop play for the whole of November.

Brewing Kit

So it was we headed out to Warwick, hopping off the train at the town's underwhelming railway station and making a quick dash to the nearby Wild Boar pub.

The Wild Boar (27 Lakin Road, CV34 5BU - web)
This is Warwick's brewpub, housing the Slaughterhouse Brewery to it's rear, the two barrel plant visible from the snug and back corridor.
We received a friendly welcome at the Wild Boar, with recommendations to "grab the table by the fire", and a cheery "enjoy your drinks".

There are a hefty ten handpumps along the bar, five of which are dispensing the Slaughterhouse beers, the others Oakham and Everards.  I'm a sucker for a brewpub, so tried the two dark Slaughterhouse ales on offer: the lovely 'Mother's Milk Stout' and  'Wild Boar' which was a decent nutty, chocolatey beer.

Early doors at the Wild Boar

We planned to get around all of the town's Good Beer Guide listed pubs during the day, opting to make the journey to the Cape of Good Hope first, this being the furthest walk in the rain.

The Cape of Good Hope (66 Lower Cape, CV34 5DP - web)
And I'm chuffed that we made the effort.  Just look at that cracking location next to a lock on the Grand Union canal.  

Drawn to the brightest one - that'll be a pint of San Miguel then.

I was thoroughly happy sitting in the front bar of the Cape of Good Hope, the wood smoke from the barge moored outside wafting in every time the front door opened.

The Crouch Vale 'Stout Coffin' was a tasty pint and our lunchtime nourishment came in the shape of pie and pizzas.
And Chelsea were beating Crystal Palace on the TV, cheering up Mrs PropUptheBar and temporarily making her forget she could be tucked up in front of Netflix at home, rather than traipsing around the pubs of Warwick in the rain.

From the Cape, we made the walk back to the centre of town. 
Stopping to take the picture below, from beneath my umbrella, was about close as I came to sightseeing today.

But probably not many of those sightseeing tourists make it to Warwickshire's 2018 County Pub of the Year...

The Old Post Office (12 West Street, CV34 6AN - web)

Not real leg.

Warwick's micro pub has been open since the summer of 2018.

It has several ticks for micro pub top trumps -
Solitary toilet 🗹
Beers straight from the barrel 🗹
Stack of old Good Beer Guides 🗹
Quirky decorations 🗹 - exhibit A: leg through ceiling.

I liked it.  There were a handful of locals lining the bar, helpfully moving aside for me to get served, and a good choice of ales on offer.
Sadly I don't think I picked the best, going for an Oakham 'Got Tash' which failed to impress me as much as their beers usually do.
The pub had a few too many scatter cushions for my liking too, but this is definitely somewhere I'd visit regularly if Warwick were my home town.

Lots of signage on the Loo 

It  was just a couple of minutes walk around the corner from the Old Post Office to the next of Warwick's Good Beer Guide listed pubs.

Autumnal Warwick scene.

Old Fourpenny Pub (27-29 Crompton Street, CV34 6HJ - web)
Why's it called the Old Fourpenny, you surely want to know?
Well, it was apparently the price of a cup of coffee and a tot of rum charged to workers building the Grand Union Canal in the early 1800's.
Now it's multi-tasking pub diversity - shop, hotel, restaurant and pub.

MrsPropUptheBar dismissed the beer choice and instead brought a Tracklements 'Spitfire Chilli Mustard', from the shelf that constituted the shop part of the Old Fourpenny.
Her patience with best bitters and golden ales is limited - by the fourth pub she's demanding peach habanero pales or 12% marshmallow stouts.
No Brewdog or crafty murk outlet in Warwick to get these (yet), so we had to make do with Wetherspoons as our next point of call.

The Thomas Lloyd (3-7 Market Place, CV34 4SA - web)
I think we picked a good time to visit, early on Saturday evening, before any rowdy Warwick weekend crowds descended.  The service was fast and the staff cheery.  One of them wiping down the bar, from the customer side, was having fun trying to 'accidentally' spray her colleague from the cleaning bottle.
COSHH training must not be until next week, I guess.

Just one look at this 'Spoons on the market square and you know exactly what it's going to be like inside.  And you'd be right.

Outdoor seating empty.

From here we just had enough time to call in at the fifth and final Beer Guide entry on the way back to the train station.

Punch Bowl (1 The Butts, CV34 4SS - web)
"The Famous Old Punch Bowl" according to what's written on the front of the pub.
"Warwick's finest real ale pub" according to their website.
I have been here before in 2014, but if memory serves me right, it's much-changed since then.  Very sports dominated on this occasion, with screens in every direction on every wall.  Great if you wanted to watch Jamie Vardy scoring against Arsenal.
They're obviously doing something right, having made it to the Beer Guide for 7 years on the trot, and my dark mild, 'Nutty Slack' from Wigan's Prospect Brewery was a fine pint.

Leaving a dark, wet and chilly Warwick behind, we caught our train back to Oxford where a visit the newly re-opened Holly Bush ended the evening for us.

Gouden Carolus in Mechelen

On day two in Belgium, I planned to head to the nearby city of Mechelen to visit one of the countries oldest breweries, Het Anker, purveyors of the wonderful 'Gouden Carolus'.

Mmmmm...

In my Brussels hotel I was up relatively bright and early in the morning.  Remarkable, seeing as I wasn't able to resist a visit to Moeder Lambik the previous evening, drinking some wickedly strong beers after my gig was finished at Magasin 4.

The morning's blue sky and sunshine turned out to be a false dawn: grey skies and a touch of rain took it's place before the train had pulled in to Mechelen.
But who needs sunshine to brighten things up, when you've got big yellow street-art like this...

Mechelen is a small city, midway between Brussels and Antwerp and home to just over 86,000 folks.

I made a long detour around suburban streets despite the brewery being well signposted, eventually making it to the home of Gouden Carolus.

Brasserie Het Anker (Guido Gezellelaan 49 -2800 Mechelen - web)

You can visit the brewery.  I didn't as I was scared of having to cancel a booking at the last minute and be charged the whopping €90 (!!!) late cancellation fee shown on their website.

So, no pictures of shiny fermenting vessels - just a grey, dull picture of the brewery tap...

Brasserie Het Anker and the brewery in the background.

But the Brasserie alone really is worth a visit. 
You can drink sensible strength beers with the 'Maneblusser' ales, but surely you've come for the traditional 'Gouden Carolus' that Het Anker is famed for.
It's named after the golden coins produced by Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, who lived in Mechelen in the early 1500's.
I ordered the 'Hopsinjoor', a modern, hoppier interpretation, launched in 2008 and brewed with 5 varieties of hops to appeal to IPA enthusiasts.

Stopping for a second, I reverted to the 'Classic', a delicious 8.5% ABV amber brew.  You get raisins, caramel and orange, with a lingering sweet, alcoholic finish... I really have no idea what I'm talking about...
Also worth a visit is the shop to the rear of the brasserie, with good value bottles available, including some wonderful limited editions and barrel-aged versions.

Mechelen - looking grey but looking good.

Leaving Het Anker behind, I returned to the cathedral spire and paid my (hefty) entrance fee for the pleasure of climbing 500+ steps to reach the top.
St Rumbold's cathedral tower was designed to be 167m high, which would have made it the world's highest church spire, but financial restraints led to plans been curbed.
Even with the grey skies, Brussels and the Atomium were visible, with some great views in all directions.

Mechelen does, of course, have more than one bar worth visiting, but in my case I wanted to get back to the capital by mid-afternoon, with tickets in hand for more live music in the evening.

Back in Brussels...

A fleeting mention, if I may, for Le Barboteur Birotheque (Avenue Louis Bertrand 23, 1030 Brussels) which I detoured to, hopping off the train at Brussels Schaerbeek station (actually nowhere near this bar - my understanding of 'scale' on a map is getting worse).
Le Barboteur offered a great choice of beers from microbreweries, plus a large choice of bottles and cans on shelves along one wall.  On tap, I chose some imperial porter madness, with a 'Decontrol: Marshmallow & Vanilla Pie', an 11% bad-boy from Moscow's Zagovor Brewery.

Street corner beer cafe - Le Barboteur.

Across the other side of Brussels there is somewhere completely different...

Beerstorming (Chaussée d'Alsemberg 75, St Gilles - web)
Beerstorming is a micro-brewery located in a shop unit in the St Gilles district.  It consists of one single table at the front and dinky stainless steel brew-kit to the rear.
Their logo is "Our brewery is yours" and what they do is offer small groups the chance to learn about the brewing process before being unleashed on the kit to concoct their own.  These beers are brewed in 75 litre batches and, judging by those on offer to try today, the trend is to conjure up something wild 'n' wacky.

Easy to walk past... the unassuming Beerstorming Craft Brewery.

I had a 'Zwanzibar' which should have had chilli peppers in the mix, but they'd been disappointingly shy and you could barely taste them.  A little more flavoursome was the 'God Save the Beer' a 5.2% ABV IPA brewed with Earl Gray tea.
Also on the tap list was a sage beer and a nutmeg brown ale.

Beerstorming is well worth a visit, although don't expect your average bar - and be prepared to sit at the solitary table and chat all things beery with the staff and other visitors.

It's also only open Friday 2-6pm and Saturday 2-8pm.

 

Ça sent la bière - Brussels Bar Explorations

Brussels Beer Explorations

Including a couple of the Belgian capital's best bars, a Jacques Brel statue (from whence the post title comes), Punk IPA opportunities and Japanese psych rock. 

It was about time I went back to Brussels to negotiate an orderly withdrawal from the EU 
...to drink lots of beer and watch some noisy live bands.

I checked into my hotel, in the vicinity of the Avenue Louise shopping district and Palais de Justice.  From there I navigated my way down to the old town and made a bee-line for the crowds gathered around the inexplicably popular Manneken Pis. 
Just across the road from this is one of the cities most famous and characterful bars.

Multi-coloured bicycles on the walls, but still not detracting tourists from photographing the urinating toddler.

Le Poechenellekelder (Rue Du Chene 5 - web)
You've gotta love a bar full of mannequins and other assorted odd decorations.
Don't you?
Or perhaps I've just been affected by coming-of-drinking-age when ramshackle, cluttered 'olde ale houses' were all the rage.

That lengthy name roughly translates as 'puppet cellar', with the building once housing a puppet theatre.
My mid-afternoon visit was good timing to get a great table near the bar and efficient, friendly service.

There were three beers on tap, but a wealth of delightful bottles available from a hefty beer menu. From this I picked 'La Guillotine' - an 8.5% ABV Belgian pale ale by Brouwerij Huyghe.   Gutted that Newbury Tim beat me to the 'losing your head pun' on Untappd.
To accompany this, I ordered myself a tasty & filling plate of Spaghetti Du Chef.

This is the kind of place that you could happily linger, sampling a few beers and enjoying the fantastic surroundings.

When you strike up a conversation with him, you know you've had too many of those 8% beers.

But I didn't linger too long, as just a little further up Rue du Chȇne is a small square, where a bar I'd heard a lot about was situated.

Gist (Oud Korenhuis 30)
Gist focuses on micro breweries from Belgium and beyond and, unusually, serves a couple of them on cask.
I grabbed myself a 'Mongy IPA', brewed by Brasserie Cambier, hailing from somewhere in northern France.
Music comes from a big vinyl collection at one end of the bar and, on my visit, favoured wicked noisy psychedelia.  Which suited me down to the ground as I had tickets to see Japanese psych-rockers Acid Mothers Temple this evening.
Some bonkers music and a great beer list - I couldn't resist staying for a second, this time 'Pigeon', a 3.5% ABV sour IPA (?!?) brewed by La Source Beer Co.

Jacques!

Now, do you really need to visit Brewdog when in Brussels?
Probably not, but I was curious.
Their Brussels branch, opened in 2015, is located in the modernist buildings by Central Station.  This was, in a past-life, the headquarters of Belgian national airline Sabena.

Brewdog Brussels (Putterie 20 - web)
Once inside it's all very familiar to anyone who's visited a Brewdog-or-two: industrial-chic decor, big white beer-boards above the bar, neon signage, and seating ranging from canteen tables to high stools and wooden blocks.
Super-quick service ensued, despite the bar being pretty busy.  So quick that I was put on-the-spot to make a hasty choice from the list of 30+ beers.  I opted for a 'North X Temescal IPA', before twigging that North Brewery are from Leeds and it wasn't really the plan to come to Brussels for Yorkshire beers.  Nice as it may have been.

Looks familiar

Walking a fair way through the city centre, I made my way from Central Station eastwards, calling into the great Brussels Beer Project en-route.

Crossing the canal, it was ten-minutes walk further on to get to Magasin 4. If your musical taste takes in grungy, alternative, noisy & experimental delights, do check out Magasin 4 - it's a cracking venue.
And as an added bonus they serve several different types of local No Science beers in bottles for under €3.00.  'Heavy Porter' in hand, I picked my spot to stand and enjoy the psychedelia of Acid Mothers Temple.  

Acid Mothers Temple at Magasin 4.

More Belgian beers and bars and waffle (the written type) in part 2 shortly...

The Beacon Hotel, Sedgley

And Further Black Country Pub Explorations.

Heritage pubs... lopsided pubs... classic pubs...
...all in a day's exploration in the Black Country, where I focused on Sedgley, Lower and Upper Gornal.

Probably not many pub crawls of traditional boozers in this region start at Wetherspoon's.
But they're conveniently open before 12-noon, whereas my other chosen pubs weren't.

The Clifton (Bull Ring, Sedgley, DY3 1RX - web)
This put a smile on my face as soon as I saw it - a grand 1930's 'super cinema', which would have once seated 1,000 movie fanatics.  The Clifton's time as a cinema came to an end in 1978 and it was eventually refurbished and opened as a 'Spoons in 1998.  

It's surprisingly busy early-doors with little choice of tables to pick from.  Not a great deal of real ale drinking going on here, with Coors Light seeming to be the breakfast tipple of choice in The Clifton.
I opted for a Castle Rock 'Heart of Glass' and settled down to read the newspaper and wait for opening time at the pub that had brought me to Sedgely.

 The Beacon Hotel, Sedgely, with a lovely bit of sunshine and blue sky.

Beacon Hotel (129 Bilston Street, Sedgley, DY3 1JE - web)

Sarah Hughes purchased the Beacon Hotel in 1920, converting it to pretty much the design that you see today, as well as beginning brewing 'Dark Ruby Mild' in the Victorian tower brewery attached to the pub.

In more recent years, a simple, unobtrusive fourth room has been created to the rear and a conservatory added to the side leading to the brewery.

After Sarah Hughes' death in the 50's, the brewery lay idle until her grandson, John Hughes, struck on the idea of getting it back up and running in 1987.

In the red-tiled corridor that runs through the pub, I ducked my head to get served at the small hatch by the staircase.
There are no fancy beer fonts lining the bar here - the hand pumps are hidden away, dispensing three Sarah Hughes beers and one guest ale.
I'm not even sure if there was a lager on tap?  Everyone seemed to be happily quaffing real ale from dimpled pint mugs.

Despite its legendary status, I avoided the 6% ABV 'Dark Ruby Mild' and took the opportunity to try the other two Sarah Hughes beers.  My first pint, the 5% ABV pale 'Surprise', was pretty marvellous.

The central, glazed bar, with hatches looking out onto the smoke room and snug and corridor, seems to be unique, according the Heritage Pubs write-up.

The Smoke Room, with hatch to the servery in the corner.

I settled in the cosy snug next to the piano nursing my beer and cheese & onion cob (£4.50 for both - value-for-money), before grabbing the 'Amber' ale and exploring the rest of the rooms like the tourist I was today.

Tap room at the Beacon Hotel

Leaving Sedgley, I hopped aboard a bus southbound.  Not the right one, mind.
A 'used-up-all-my-mobile-data' issue left me reliant on trying to follow a crap map on a scrap of paper, but remarkably, I did find my way, seemingly walking into the middle-of-nowhere, to find this pub-world oddity...

The Crooked House (Coppice Mill, Himley, DY3 4DA - web)
This building was originally a farmhouse, built in 1765, the left-side of which began to sink due to subsidence caused by all the mining in the vicinity.

Crooked.

It become a pub for local miners and farmers in 1835, originally named the Sidden Arms, 'sidden' being local dialect for crooked. Later renamed the Glynne Arms after the family whose land it lay on, old black & white photo's of people posing by the pub show its lopsidedness was already proving an attraction many years ago.

The building was condemned as unsafe in the 1940s, which is when Wolverhampton and Dudley Breweries took over and added the three large buttresses to the left side to stabilise it.

Possibly difficult to navigate after a few too many ales.

"Yo am in the right place for a bostin time!" says their website.  
Well.... probably not on a Saturday lunchtime, alongside a group of pensioners tucking into sandwiches, and families having a go at the pub-trick of rolling a marble uphill.
Four hand pumps adorned the bar, but only one was in action, serving the Marston's house beer 'Crooked Tipple'. A pretty unexciting pint.
Not great for beer enthusiasts then, and not 'bostin' this afternoon, but a pub I was really pleased to have made it to.

I made a long trek back up through Lower Gornal to where my next pub awaited...

The Fountain (8 Temple Street, Lower Gornal, DY3 2PE - web)
The Fountain sits at the end of a row of 19th century dwellings and makes a return to the 2020 Good Beer Guide after a sudden closure threatened it's existence in early 2018.

Threatening clouds.

Big range of beers: no barman.  I guess he was holding the fort single-handed, but after a couple of minutes I was beginning to feel conspicuous standing alone at the bar, trying to look patient.

When the barman did appear, I picked the Backyard Brewhouse 'Virginia Fall'.  Which was a massive let-down and should really have been returned as gone past its best.

Lots of choice.  Will I pick the right one?  No.

Did I take it back - no of course not, fool that I am...
So, two disappointing beers - this could perhaps be remedied by going a few steps back down the hill to where I'd spied a 'Beer Festival' banner.

Old Bulls Head (1 Redhall Road, Lower Gornal, DY3 2NU - web)

The quite fantastic Old Bulls Head Inn complete with 'Beer Festival' banner.

There was a pretty fine selection of ales along the bar, supplemented with another rack of barrels on a beer festival bar to the side of the room.
Salopian Brewery 'Neewollah', with a fantastic pump clip, was my pick and it turned out to be a glorious beer.
Black Country Ales brought this pub in 1999, with what was described as a "2 storey outhouse to the rear".  Once they got the keys and got behind the boarded-up doors of the outhouse they found three wooden fermenting vessels and other old brewing equipment, which must have been a pretty great discovery.  With some renovation and new kit, brewing recommenced here in 2004.

This was a pub I was comfy in: great beer, football scores on the TV, and a running commentary on how 'The Albion' were doing from the chaps at the next table.  I hung around long enough to have a second beer - from Bewdley Brewery this time - before  deciding to tackle the walk up the hill to the next point of call.

Britannia Inn (109 Kent Street, Upper Gornal, DY3 1UX - web)

The Britannia is classed as a Historic Pub of National Importance, due to it's wood-panelled back room.  Unusually, this contains shelving and hand-pumps along one wall, without a bar counter.
This was originally the heart of the pub, whilst the front room, where the bar is now, was previously a butcher's shop.  This was only changed in 1997 when Batham's took over the Britannia.

And for all that talk of the splendid back room, no picture, because I plonked myself on the first stool in the front room where I could keep watching the football scores on TV as full-time approached.
Batham's 4.3% 'Best Bitter' was the only cask ale available on this visit.  T'was a time I'd have bemoaned a beer guide pub with just one beer, but this traditional best bitter was exactly what I wanted here and was served in fine condition.

Jolly Crispin (25 Clarence Street, Upper Gornal, DY3 1UL)

I apologise in advance to the Jolly Crispin.
It was the seventh pub of the day,  at which point my memories tend towards "I went to the Jolly Crispin.  It was nice".

The Jolly Crispin.  It was nice.

The Crispin is a bit of a favourite on the ale-trail in these parts, being a brewery tap for the Fownes Brewery as well as having a great choice of other ales.  But I picked an 'Impressment APA' by S43 Brewery, that I didn't especially enjoy.
And sat in a corner, looking like a man defeated and ready to go home.  

Too many enormous cheese & onion cobs throughout the day, I reckon.

This part of the West Midlands has a wealth of hidden gems, charming traditional boozers and modern brewery taps.  I can't wait to get back here soon!

Ticket to Ryde - Beer & Buses Part 2

I ended the last blog post travelling back from the west of the Isle of Wight on the Southern Vectis bus to Newport.
I've really gotta work on my cliff-hangers.

Arriving back at Newport bus station several of our group leapt straight aboard a waiting bus to Cowes. 
Alas, I bring you no report on Cowes, as instead I leapt straight into the George Inn for a wee.

Deciding we'd done enough bus journey's for the day, we headed to the local 'Spoons for food, then onward to visit another couple of Newport pubs.

The Crispin (10 Carrisbrooke Road, Newport, PO30 1BL)

The Crispin was actually a lot better than I initially expected, having stood outside looking at its mock tudor frontage and prominent Sky and BT Sports banners.
It's one of those pubs where you weigh up whether to pick the door to the 'lounge' or 'bar', only to find they lead into exactly the same place.  This is a typical town boozer, now open-plan with a large U-shaped bar and a lively crowd of punters.
Why this pub?  Because the booklet we'd been given earlier showing what beers were available where, mentioned The Crispin having a Castle Rock 'Brian Clough' pale ale, that's why.

The Crispin

Old Big 'Ead

Leaving The Crispin we walked back past the Ale House and on to a pub close to our B&B.
 

Railway Medina (1 Sea Street, Newport, PO30 5BU)

A railway pub without a railway.
This was once the closest pub to the now-demolished Newport train station.  Unlike the single-room Crispin, this had two distinctly different halves.  We settled in the quiet calm of the rear bar, surrounded by old pictures and railway memorabilia.
I ticked-off another local beer brewed especially for the Beer & Buses weekend here - 'Hop Aboard' by Island Brewery.

The quiet half of the Railway Medina.

Day 2: Ticket to Ryde

So, to recap: Beer & Buses is in it's 6th year and features some 85 buses of various vintages plying routes around the Isle of Wight.  There are roughly 140 pubs, clubs and other venues participating, offering beer and bus enthusiasts plenty of choice.
Most of our group from Oxford left a little earlier on Day 2, headed to the beer festival in the Winter Gardens in Ventnor.  Breaking rank, we'd decided to make our own way in a loop through Shanklin, Sandown and Ryde.

Sorry to harp on about the weather, but...still raining...

We arrived in Shanklin shortly after 11am and walked down to the esplanade where the waves were crashing roughly at the top of the beach and just a few brave souls hunkered against the wind as they walked along the seafront.

If I'd have been looking for shark teeth, I'd never have been able to find them...

A short way back inland, we found our way to the pretty, thatched buildings that make up Old Shanklin village.  This afforded us the opportunity for a quick first half of the day in...

King Harry's Bar (6 Church Road, Shanklin, PO37 6NU - web)

Built in 1854, this hotel bar has been IOW CAMRA pub of the year in 2015, 2016 and 2017.

King Harry's, Shanklin - looks so much better in the picture in the programme

The bar was dark wood and dimly lit, with old pump clips covering the ceiling, whilst seating to the side of this is in cosy rooms overlooking a great garden.  Beyond this is a function room designed to look like a stately Tudor Hall, which is where we sat to sup an Island Brewery 'Hop Aboard' golden ale.

From Shanklin station we caught the next vintage bus heading east through Sandown.  Here was a venue only opened this weekend, where we caught up with Gareth and Tanya from our Oxford group (who'd beaten us here and already tried most of the beers whilst we were navigating buses from Shankin to Sandown).

Boojum Brewery Tap (High Street, Sandown - fb)
A brewery tap without a brewery!
This is a new enterprise, which will eventually become a new brewery for the Isle of Wight.  For now, they're still awaiting brewing kit, but were eager to participate in the Beer & Buses weekend.  Set within an old shop unit which had hastily been made presentable, Boojum had opened for the first time on Saturday, with a good selection of craft ales and cask beers.

Work in progress.

Great selection of beers available on this visit, especially if you liked your crafty murk.
I started with a Mad Dog 'K9 Triplephena' and then the lovely Vibrant Forest 'Black Forest Porter' on cask.
Being a foolhardy sucker for the strongest beer on the list, I couldn't resist the Hardywood 'Peach Triple', labelled as 8.2% ABV, but not tasting its strength and very easy to drink.

Friendly welcome at Boojum.

It'll be very interesting to come back again and see how Boojum looks once they begin brewing and creating their own beers.
We headed just around the corner to somewhere that had been recommended to us as a 'proper pub'.

The Castle (12-14 Fitzroy Street, Sandown, PO36 8HY)
And it was a proper pub.  It said so on the sign next to the entrance.

The Castle advertise themselves as the "Original and best Halloween pub".  "Enter if you dare..." the banner above the door says.
The pub picked up a lot of waxworks when the Isle of Wight wax museum at Brading closed down, which they now use to tremendous effect to seasonally decorate the pub.
I got a bit carried away taking pictures...

I'm not really sure how much competition there is for best Halloween pub, but I'm gonna make an assumption that The Castle is pretty tough to beat.

Oh!  And they had beer as well!
In addition to what was on the bar, they were running a beer festival in the function room.  They had a number of Halloween beers ('IPA of the Dead, 'Screech Owl', 'Bucket of Blood') but I picked the un-spooky 'Espresso Stout' brewed by Downton Brewery, and very tasty.

Pub Cat - not going back inside until after the crazy Halloween shit gets taken down.

Leaving Sandown behind, we jumped aboard another bus for a 30-minute trip to Ryde. 

The Railway (68 St Johns Road, Ryde, PO33 2TY)

Blue sky. BLUE SKY!

Previously called the Hole in the Wall, this back-street pub may be plain from the outside, but it's another good, traditional boozer inside.   We were greeted by a choice of around 20 casks on a stillage filling the corner of the pub.
Taking advantage of the rare sighting of sunshine, we took beers out into the pleasant walled garden to the side.

A short walk through the residential streets of Ryde took us to our next point of call...

The Solent Inn (7 Monkton Street, Ryde, PO33 1JW)
This was a two room corner-local in an interesting building with another fine choice of beers from casks on stillage in the window alcove of the bar.  On reflection, we'd done exceptionally well for beer selection throughout today.

And that was it.  Last Beer & Buses venue of the weekend.
We were just in time to catch the open-top bus, in the picture below, back to Newport.  It may have dried up, but it sure was chilly up on the upper deck, huddled into my hood, as we headed westwards with the sun setting on the horizon.

One last bus picture!

Despite not being blessed with the best of weather, Beer & Buses had been great.  There are numerous routes to new towns and villages that we didn't get anywhere near this weekend, so I'm certainly keen on a return visit.
After sitting on top of an open-top bus in October we woke up next day with sore throats and runny noses.

Our group travelled back home (as we'd arrived) on the route-master bus on Monday.  As the Oxford CAMRA group dispersed in their different directions we bade farewells until next week, when the Oxford Beer Festival gets underway at the Town Hall.  See you there!