October Recap: Pubs, Daily Tipples, Chippies, and the G-Had

 

New pubs to the blog count, all on two day trip to IoW

 

At first glance, October seemed a month of two halves — the first healthy and spry, the last stinking of death and decay.  Yet, closer examination reminds me that I’ve been ill more or less constantly since the 10th of the month despite making the Isle of Wight Marathon trip, another cancer surgery (and spillage from the same), and having a busier than usual month at work.  The weather has been spectacular, I’m told.

I added 11 pubs to the count entirely on the two-day trip to the Isle of Wight Marathon.  Two new ones appeared in Oxford (old ones but with major refurbishments and name changes) but they will have to wait until November.  The best of the new additions has to be the Red Lion in Southampton, but you could do a lot worse than The Crab and Lobster Tap (Ventnor), The Traveller’s Joy (Northwood), or most-up-my-alley The Painter’s Arms (Cowes).

The Daily Tipple list accurately represents the beer consumption for the month with a little more than half favouring darker varieties like stout, porter, and mild.  Choosing one per day was really the hard part as almost every new pub mentioned above supplied local brews that I have never tried before and the Swindon Beer Fest introduced 7 beers and 3 ciders new to me (and scores more I didn’t get around to):

BEER
DT #	Date	Name	Type	Venue
274	01-Oct	Thwaites Wainwright	bitter	Wheatsheaf
277	04-Oct	Yates 130 Birthday Ale	bitter	Yates
296	23-Oct	John Willie’s 100	bitter	Four Candles
278	05-Oct	Andwell Gold Muddler	blonde ale	Steam Railway
284	11-Oct	Ale of Wight	blonde ale	Crab and Lobster Tap
287	14-Oct	Old Growler	dark beer	Far From the Madding Crowd
291	18-Oct	Trojan Horse	dark IPA (IDA)	The Savoy
297	24-Oct	Edinburgh Pale Ale	IPA	The William Morris
285	12-Oct	Theakston’s Mild	mild	Isle of Wight Community Club
292	19-Oct	Colonel’s Whiskers	mild	The Savoy
293	20-Oct	Moorhouse’s Black Cat Reserve	mild	Four Candles
298	25-Oct	Plain Ales Inncognito	stout	2014 Swindon Beer Festival
299	26-Oct	Belhaven Black	stout	Beehive
302	29-Oct	Marston’s Oyster Stout	stout	Four Candles
WINE
DT #	Date	Name	Type	Venue
301	28-Oct	Taylor’s Select Reserve	port	house
275	02-Oct	Anciano Reserva Tempranillo	red wine	house
276	03-Oct	Simo Crianza	red wine	house
279	06-Oct	Trapiche Pinot Noir	red wine	house
280	07-Oct	La Rabatte Chianti	red wine	house
282	09-Oct	Banrock Station Shiraz Mataro	red wine	house
283	10-Oct	Arpeggio Nerello Mascalese	red wine	Rustico, Swindon
286	13-Oct	Desconocido	red wine	house
288	15-Oct	Villa Garducci Montepulciano d’Abruzzo	red wine	house
289	16-Oct	Morrison’s Claret	red wine	house
290	17-Oct	Rosemount Reserve Shiraz Grenache	red wine	house
295	22-Oct	Featherstone Ruby Cabernet Shiraz	red wine	house
303	30-Oct	Bin 99 Cabernet Franc	red wine	house
304	31-Oct	Navarra Old Vines Garnacha	red wine	house
294	21-Oct	Luis Felipe Edwards Rose	rose wine	house
281	08-Oct	Inycon Pinot Grigio Grecanico	white wine	house
BOOZE
DT #	Date	Name	Type	Venue
300	27-Oct	John Lee Bourbon	booze	house

 

The Fish and Chips Challenge was in a lull partly due to the ongoing medical problems and partly due to the remoteness of new venues and my ability to reach them.  My spreadsheet updates my days-per-fish rate and the minimum number for the year (based on one every 7 days until year-end) after each fish.  The average of these two appears to be converging on 124.9 for the year (let’s say 125).  I’m going for a pub fish and chip lunch when I finish this post, so this looks like a fairly good prediction.

103	Yates’	Swindon, Wiltshire	04-Oct-14	Pub
104	Stotesbury’s Fish and Chips	Newport, Isle of Wight	11-Oct-14	Chippy
105	Tottie’s Fish and Chips	Cowes, Isle of Wight	12-Oct-14	Chippy
106	Morrison’s Battered Cod Fillets	Swindon, Wiltshire	17-Oct-14	House
107	The William Morris	Cowley, Oxfordshire	24-Oct-14	Pub
108	Swindon Beer Fest Food Tent	Swindon, Wiltshire	25-Oct-14	other

 

The G-Had has started to make an impact.  In October, the site had more hits than in all months prior combined.  It also led to paranoid behaviour by North Wilts HHH when they tried to pretend a run wasn’t going to happen and then came up with a clever (but easy to defeat) trail marking plan to foil the IntifadHHHa.  With local attention piqued and health poor, the war became one more of propaganda than contact but a fresh scalp was added courtesy the Isle of Wight HHH.

Also, the subtleties of the Intifad-HHH-a versus a Calip-hhh-ate became a matter of record, over on the G-Had HHH site.