Keen to maximise our “Day to Go” bus ticket, last Friday afternoon Mick and I caught a bus towards the city and got off in the suburb of Canton. Mick had spotted at least six pubs within a very short walking distance. He was particularly interested to visit the Admiral Napier as the signs were advertising a pint of Brains beer for £2.25.

After visiting pubs in Bristol where a pint could cost more than £5 (sure Mick had picked an expensive IPA), this looked like it was going to be a much cheaper exercise. Plus, Mick had never tried a Brains before.

But, the bus dropped us off closer to this pub – so we visited it first.

It too was a pub that sold Brains. Tafarn Treganna was quite a large pub with a good selection of beers on tap – both ales and lagers. At the time of our visit, it wasn’t really busy, but we were confident that would change when we looked at the food menu – lots of cheap deals to be had, like on Wednesdays, all kids’ meals cost only £1, and on Friday fr £20 you could get two main meals and two wines.

Mick ordered a pint of Brains Bitter for himself and a half pint of Brains Smooth for me. He handed over his card to pay and almost fell over when he was told it was £2.84. Pleasantly surprised, he asked why. Was it Happy Hour? No, all January, the Brains’ Pubs were selling Brains beers 33% cheaper than usual. Mick’s eyes lit up.

Our next stop was the pub he really wanted to visit, the Admiral Napier, and it looked more like the kind of pub Mick enjoys. There were several tables of locals enjoying a catch up with friends on Friday afternoon. At 5pm, it was already dark outside.

I chose a half pint of Brains Stout and Mick selected the Brains IPA. This was even cheaper – only £2.77 for the shout. These were actually much better than the first beers we had tried – more to our tastes.

Mick was interested to see that these fellows who were sitting next to us, obviously drinking with each other, were not involved in a ‘shout’. Despite the fact they were drinking at the same pace, each of them would go to the bar and buy his own drink. This is very different to drinking in a pub in Australia. Although, I think this is a much safer way to drink.

The lady in this photo was not sitting with these men – she was sitting closer to the television – but she spent quite a bit of time interrupting their conversation – and they were none too pleased. They were also not pleased that Elton %$#@$ John had donated a large sum of money to support the Australian Bush Fires – he should be spending money in the UK, Wales in particular and probably in Cardiff.

On a ‘high’ now, Mick and I headed to our third, and what we thought would be our last, pub for the evening. It was not a pub that sold Brains beers, but one of the very prolific chain of pubs in the UK known as Wetherspoon. It was called The Ivor Davies

We think the pub is named after a Welsh contemporary artist who was born in 1935.

Our English-based son refuses to drink in a Wetherspoon pub. He doesn’t like the concept of the traditional pub being taken over by a big chain. But Mick and I hold no such biases. So, in we went. And it could have been something to do with being later in the (Friday) afternoon, because it was doing a roaring trade.

There was a whole new range of beers on tap from which to make a selection, and one in particular caught Mick’s eye  – Crooked Hooker. Mick played Rugby for way too long (as his knees now know), and he had played mostly in the position of ‘hooker’. He had to try one at £2.15 for a pint.

Before we left for our afternoon outing, Mick had researched Ivor Davies as he wanted to know more about the pub, its name and its reputation (he takes this kind of stuff [pub crawls] quite seriously). The first thing that came up in his Google search was “Worst Wetherspoon ever!”. It didn’t look like all the patrons who were there when we were held that same view. But, the beer was pretty dreadful and the glass of red wine I had was ordinary. The shout cost almost £5 as my wine cost more than half a pint (of anything). Not the ‘worst’ pub ever, but certainly the weakest link in our pub crawl…. so far.

We decided we should get the next bus home to make sure Mitzi could go for a little ‘wee’ walk and we could have our dinner.

As we headed to the next bus stop, Mick spotted this pub.

It was hidden down a side street, and Mick needed to visit a loo. So in we went and almost immediately we wanted to walk out. But we were too late. Mick ordered a pint of Guinness at some extraordinary cost, and I wisely chose to ‘sit this one out’.

We definitely did not save the best until last on this occasion.