Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem, Nottingham

I paid a long overdue trip to Ye Olde Trip on a recent Wednesday evening when it was reasonably quiet so I got to have a good look around what is apparently the oldest pub in the land. This is Greene King pub so obviously their Olde Trip was going to be on the bar alongside IPA. One of the other six hand pumps was reverse clipped which left Theakston’s Old Peculiar, Little Star Brewery’s Shipstones Original, Beermats Brewing’s Matte Black, Brewster’s Brewery’s Decadence and Welbeck Abbey’s Portland Black as the cask options. Premium keg is also available, and ironically England’s “oldest” pub is now card payments only. The staff were surprisingly friendly for a Greene King pub, let alone such a tourist hotspot. There are at least two bars and lots of different seating areas including some upstairs that have been carved into the rock. I took a picture of the suit of armour, but I stopped short of buying a T-shirt. I think the highlight of my visit was meeting Lee, who would be world champion of Hook the Horn if there was such a thing. This game is basically a hoop on a length of string hanging from the ceiling and the aim is to swing it onto a hook on the wall. A great atmosphere was being generated as Lee challenged the tourists who passed through the small back bar to snag the hook. Not expecting much from my visit I actually left pleasantly surprised because my pint was decent, the service was welcoming, there was a good atmosphere, and it wasn’t too busy.

Must visit pub for those into their pub history and quirky locations. Loads of information available about its claim to be the oldest pub in the land. Certainly feels like it when you are sat in a cave excavation with moody lights and its smells like a fusty old cellar. Quiet on a Thursday night. A Nottingham brewery Legend seemed the locale thing to do.

Visiting on a Saturday afternoon is probably not recommended, but at least the warm, sunny weather meant that a fair number of people were sitting outside - in fact, by the time we came to join them it was standing room only out there. Given the popularity of the place, it was no surprise there was a queue for the bar and even when we followed the suggestion of moving around the corner to the hitherto empty bar extension, it still took 10 minutes to get served. There was a good selection of non-Greene King beers, mostly (if not all) local, which is to be applauded. Greene King get quite a bit of abuse, mostly because of their size and the concomitant industrial quality of their beers, but there are now a number of their pubs with a progressive beer policy. I went for the Nottingham Centurion, a 4.9% dark mild, while my companions went for the Welbeck Abbey Portland Black, with which I was already familiar; both beers were in very good condition. For a good look around the pub, on the other hand, I think I shall return on a wintery Tuesday afternoon.