Caught over a barrel

The intention was to eat at the Three Coopers in Bedale, where High Street bunting proclaims the continuing 750th anniversary celebration of the town's market charter and the GBG recommends "an excellent chalk board all-day menu, novel and reasonably priced."

The Coopers - this column has a theory, so far unsubstantiated, that at least half of all Church of England clergy are called Cooper - is part of Jennings Brewery's small North-East estate. Jennings bitter is £1.49, other real ales £1.70.

There's a log fire, cosy atmosphere, playbills for the likes of Helen Shapiro and Chris Montez, a substantial reference library that informs a quorum of quiz buffs, but nothing on the blackboard except the ladies' darts team tally.

Funny how you can always tell a lady darts player. It's the muscles, probably.

Caught over a barrel, as a cooper might say - "There's crisps," the barman had pleaded - we headed three miles out of town to the Buck in Thornton Watlass, a GBG regular ("delightful Wensleydale inn") which doubles as both pavilion and long leg boundary for the village green cricketers. Cask ales included Black Sheep, Theakston's and Fuller's London Pride. Since the Pride was seriously misplaced - that is to say, it had turned at much the same time as Dick Whittington - we asked for a replacement.

The barmaid willingly obliged. "He said it was going off," she said. Hell's hopscotch, that's a good beer guide?

Mike Fox, the landlord, was himself having a night out. Partly because he is an old friend, partly because it is with him that the Buck stops, we rang with forearming the next morning. "I didn't say that," he insisted. "I just said it was getting low."

It remains, of course, a very pleasant pub - coal fire, non-smoking dining room, playbill from the Zetland Cinema in Richmond when Hywel Bennett and Hayley Mills were appearing in Twisted Nerve. Around Helen Shapiro's era, probably.

The blackboard menu included beer battered mushrooms - not, happily, with London Pride - and a feta cheese salad which The Boss reckoned freshly made and very pleasant.

Improbably, we both followed with pasta dishes - Mediterranean lamb (£8.75), which earned marks for spelling, and a seafood tagliatelle (£9.95) with abundant fish but rather up to its oxters in sauce. Salad, chips or vegetables are extra.

After the fall of London Pride, the Black Sheep was fine. Pariah commitment, or what?

THE Good Beer Guide offers much more than a proper pint. There's history, geography, even meteorology. Weardale's weather can be unpredictable, it says - in a reference to the Blue Bell at St John's Chapel - a forecast which few may find surprising.

Places with ghosts as well as spirits include Ceddesfield Hall in Sedgefield - beware the Pickled Parson, apparently - and the admirable Black Horse in Willington, where a Roman solider is said perpetually to re-arrange the beer mats, a little known form of legionnaire's disease.

Durham city is best blessed for great pubs - among them the "classic" Half Moon, "congenial" Dun Cow, "old style" Colpitts and the "gem" Victoria - Darlington has not only seen the immaculately-kept Britannia de-listed (an undiminished disgrace) but has lost the Quaker Coffee House, for two years the local CAMRA branch's top pub.

Recommended food includes the Lambton Hounds at Pity Me ("superb"), the Countryman at Bolam ("high standard"), the Beamish Mary ("above average"), the Hamilton Russell at Thorpe Thewles ("much praised"), the Kirk at Romaldkirk ("fine") and the "quality cuisine" at the Freemasons in Nosterfield, near Ripon.

Unexpected fun and games might be had at the Newton Cap in Bishop Auckland - something called Ringo - the Nags Head at Pickhill in North Yorkshire (bar draughts), the Travellers Rest at Witton Gilbert (boules) and the Ship Inn at Middlestone Village, near Spennymoor - CAMRA's North-East pub of the year - where they play something called toad in the hole.

The Guide is also enthusiastic about the Dovecote at Trimdon Village but warns, without explanation, not to play the landlord at pool. Its principal strength, however, is in guiding the stranger - particularly in areas like York and Tyneside - through the fizzy fug of pretend pubs to unspoiled drinking establishments and traditional beer.

Unlike the hairy mammoth, it's more relevant - and more necessary - than ever.

l The 800-page Good Beer Guide 2002 is published by CAMRA, edited by Roger Protz and costs £12.99 from bookshops.

EVEN the CAMRA crews, however, admit problems around Middlesbrough. An entry for Doctor Brown's in Corporation Road begins: "For a Teesside pub, prepare to be pleasantly surprised...."

Perhaps it's the port in a storm philosophy which explains the inclusion of the newish Myton Farm in Ingleby Barwick, a sprawling suburb near Stockton now reckoned Europe's largest village.

We looked in the other afternoon. Since Hallowe'en is upon us, suffice that the decor is hagricultural and the beer, called Hobgoblin, was fiendish.

NO need of a witch report for the Sportsman in Canney Hill, outside Bishop Auckland, a long time GBG favourite - "an excellent pint of Strongarm," says the Guide - and so, since Tommy Nevin's happy day, it has remained.

It's both friendly and football fevered, Whitby Town manager Harry Dunn - among the regulars - telling the other evening of the hitherto unrecorded streaker at the recent Cup match with Spennymoor.

"You should have seen his fishing tackle," said Harry, maintaining the Seasiders' tradition.

Trevor Hall, the landlord, recalled the jolly boys' outing to Chester in the summer for which they'd requested a coach with tables and were taken aback to see the Newcastle United team coach pull up.

Trevor's so great a Sunderland fan, that he drove to Chester in his car.

PROPERLY praised in the Good Beer Guide - though food's his bread and butter, Andrew Brown cherishes four hand pumps - the County in Aycliffe Village has been named Northumbrian Dining Pub of the Year in the 2002 Good Pub Guide.

The Blue Lion at East Witton, near Leyburn - one of Prince Charles's preferred spots - won both the Yorkshire and the national dining pub awards.

GBG and GPG are wholly unconnected, not least because whilst the Pub Guide might deep down prefer real ale, they'll drink anything.

The County, it says, might look like the sort of roadside pub "best left to the business of neighbourhood wakes, wedding receptions and pigeon club suppers" but the reality is different.

The guide also recalls that Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac dined there - "heads of government gnawing away at the BSE crisis over a good piece of local beef."

Andrew is the Newcastle lad who won a Raymond Blanc scholarship (not from Albert Roux, as we suggested a few weeks back). His cooking, says the GPG, is light and deft, the decor fresh and modern. His mood's absolutely ecstatic.

....and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew which fruit sits in the bowl calling for help.

A damson in distress.

Published: Tuesday, October 30, 2001