No visit to Dorset is complete without a visit to the sea side gem that is Weymouth, a town of three thirds; a lovely sweeping beach and promenade with Georgian esplanades and everything the British seaside should have; an old town and characterful harbour with even more essential seaside elements; lastly a shopping centre with all the facilities a decent sized town has to offer.
I’ve stayed in Weymouth before, so on our day trip I was able to pick, what I thought were, the two best pubs in the town. I know there are others but after spending a week down there during the Olympics 2012, these were my favourites.
It’s strange, even after an absence of a few years you’re able to follow your nose to somewhere. I’d forgot what the name of the boozer was but after meandering through the back streets between The Custom House Quay and the Esplanade I soon located The Globe on East Street.
The pub is a traditional boozer with no concession to tourism at all. Although the pub looks very neat and tidy from the outside, it’s back street location would put most tourists off, certainly those with kids and dogs and executive cars wanting food who are more interested in being seen than in what they’re getting.
There’s one bar with a smaller room just off with a pool table, there’s also darts and other traditional games. Twelve o’clock and there’s a good few in having a nice lunch time pint, mainly older and principally locals who warmly received us. There’s six real ales to choose from; St Austell Cornish, St Austell Proper Job, St Austell Liquid sunshine, Doom Bar (can you go anywhere without seeing this OTB – is it the new Watney’s Red Barrel?), and Dartmoor Jail ale. The sixth pump was in the process of being cleaned through by the landlord so we didn’t get to see what else was on. That was another good feature, the landlord was in the bar and I’m 99% certain that the girl behind the bar was the same one who was there three years ago. I like this continuity, you know where you are. There was also a real cider on, as well as everything else the lager boys would expect. If I’m being over critical, I thought the choice of guest beer, a third St Austell brew, Cornish, made things just a bit top heavy in that brewers favour.
The beer? I tried a pint of Proper Job and a Jail ale. I enjoyed them, both were in good condition. You don’t see Proper Job much in Yorkshire and it is exactly what it says it is, which is surprising as I’ve never liked anything else they do. I think they have it sometimes in the Nicholson’s pubs in Leeds. The Jail ale was even better, what a lovely traditional bitter. I could drink it all day, especially when it was coming through the lines as good as this was. Prices seemed reasonable for the area, the guest ale was only £3 a pint.
The Globe isn’t old fashioned and it isn’t new, it is however spotless and very well run. The best way to sum it up is to say that it is one of those nothing special, almost ordinary, pubs that ends up being outstanding in a lot of ways.
This would be the best pub in Bridport, if it wasn’t a 
Geraldine was clearly on the same wavelength as me when I told her it was nice to be in a pub with a good local feel.
I sat pondering the various factors that make a pub like this a great boozer. Yeah, everything above, but to me it’s simple. Lovely landlady behind the bar. Landlord walking round, chatting and checking, making sure everything was as it should be. There’s far too many folk these days who take a pub on thinking that it’s all beer and skittles. Well it isn’t, it’s hard work. You can’t sit upstairs, you’ve got to be hands on. Every ship needs a captain and the sailors need to see them stood on the bridge. I think this is far more important than pursuing ACV’s. Lets start a, ‘We want proper Landlords & Landladies campaign.’
Tiger, Tiger, burning bright,
Bare board floors in the main bar are covered with a right old mish mash of old kitchen tables with unmatched, traditional style chairs and benches and a simple posy of flowers on each table. Hop garlands decorate the bar top and the exposed original beams. At the back of the pub there’s a second bar which seems to be used more at times of important sporting activity on TV.
Over two weeks I saw and tried: 
I’ve got to mention 
I was surprised it had only won the 
For the past six years I’ve spent a few August weeks in Dorset, specifically West Bay, the harbour village for the market town of Bridport. If you’ve never been I would thoroughly recommend it, it’s a very beautiful part of our sceptred isle, and the setting for much of the popular Broadchurch TV series. If you like pubs then there’s dozens of them, many thatched traditional country boozers nestling in pretty villages. There must be nearly twenty of them in the immediate Bridport area alone. Unfortunately, as a visitor, it gets a bit depressing when virtually every pub you go in is selling the same beer, not the same brew, but always the same brewer. In this case it’s 
We stay in the pretty village of West Bay, essentially the harbour for the nearby market town of Bridport. There’s a pleasant fifteen minute walk through fields, alongside the meandering river Brit into the town. As you reach the edge of Bridport you pass the magnificent stone building that has been 
There’s four pubs in West bay, six if you count the caravan park bar (open to public) and the Ellipse. My favourite is the 
I would give the 
I’m not going to cover the caravan holiday park bar, it is what it is. It isn’t a pub, but is handy if you want to watch Sky Sports. I think they have Doom Bar on hand pull.
I first encountered draught beer from New Zealand during 
I was quite interested to find out what the 
It took Todd a fair bit of linguistic coaching before I could pronounce Tuatara correctly, a combination of the beer consumed and my Northern accent. Apparently a Tuatara is some prehistoric lizard that lives in NZ. If he’d persevered for a week, I doubt whether he could have got me to say Aotearoa correctly? It’s the Maori word for NZ. Anyway, regardless of my pronunciation, the Aotearoa Pale Ale (5.8 %) was a very nice drink. The name is fitting because it’s bang full of tasty NZ hops; Pacific Jade, Nelson Sauvin, Cascade, Motueka.
There were quite a few, to me, newer breweries at 
Poppa Cap American Pilsner which was brillig. A proper Lager with some taste. For what it’s worth, I gave Todd some advice, ‘Put this in cans and it will fly off the shelves, mate.’ He laughed and told me they needed to maximise their bottling line first. Seriously, the lager was excellent, think sunny day or sat watching sport on TV gear, easy going but proper tasty. I’m predicting a massive rise in the number of canned, quality cutting edge, beers coming on the market over the next six months and this ought to be one of them.
I really enjoyed talking to these guys and drinking their beer. To their credit, it always amazes me how professional, committed and enthusiastic all these emerging young brewers are. Jo, the assistant brewer, said they were committed to quality and consistency in everything they do. He’s pretty new to brewing and is on a steep learning curve both with ‘on the job’ training from the other guys and with the formal qualifications he is studying for. He’s clearly on line with the company message and ethos. I’d back these boys to do well and I think they are one to watch, especially on the burgeoning Metropolitan beer scene,
Both Todd and Joe had really enjoyed being up in Leeds and thought it had been worthwhile attending the festival and raising their profile. If you’re from the Leeds area and interested in 
