Sunny Cambridge

A mini-survey in the city of my birth saw me on a bus in the glorious sunshine, starting my research in the Good Beer Guide listed Haymakers:

This is a member of the small chain of places owned by the nearby Milton Brewery, and like the others it's a great pub!  I found the full range of their beers on offer as well as some guests, and I had a fine pint of Pegasus.

The interior decor is plain pastel coloured walls plus some bare brick, with wooden floor and furniture.  At 1230 on a Wednesday it was pretty quiet, with just a handful of customers, mostly eating I think.

Yesterday I had a bit of a shock in London when I was charged FIVE POUNDS for a pint of decent real ale*. Particularly painful after paying £1.79 in my local 'spoons on Monday.  I'm trying to remember, I think five quid might be an all time record, certainly for a pub in the UK.

Anyway, the prices in here were more reasonable, equivalent to the more expensive end of the Liverpool price range.

I was appalled to see, on the sign above the bar, a section headed WHISKEY listing mostly Scotch whisky.  Oh dear.  (To be fair there were three Irish Whiskeys in the list.)

On to the Green Dragon:

A rather fine riverside pub, this, with Greene King's Time Well Spent branding.  If I was in charge I'd rename it the Greene Dragon.

The interior is pleasantly antiquey with some very old looking beams and an enormous brick fireplace.  Most of the customers, however, were choosing to sit on the other side of the road in the beer garden by the river to eat their dinner.

Two GK brews were on offer along with a couple of guests, and I selected Elgood's Cambridge Bitter, a classic bitter in perfect nick.

My next port of call was the GBG listed Maypole, which I haven't visited since 2010:

Unusually, I entered by the correct door and was faced with no less than eight handpumps.  I eventually chose White Horse Bitter which was very good.  There was also a wide range of craft beers.

Following my grumbles about prices above, I must point out that one of the real ales, at 6.7%, was £6 here.  My 3.7% pint was a marginally less eye-watering £4.20.

Most of the few customers were outside on the terrace, but I stayed in the bar to enjoy my pint in splendid isolation.

There's a bit of classic pub architecture in here, the curved matchboarded counter front and canopy above are redolant of the 1940s or 50s.  There's a fascinating timeline of the pub's history from 1851 to the present day on the wall but the crucial entry, a rebuild after 1936 and before 1957, only has a question mark for the date.

* Name and shame?  OK, it was the Betjemen Arms in St. Pancras station.