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Previous Pint Pleasures - June 23, 2003

The Bath Hotel, 66-68 Victoria Street, Sheffield S1, South Yorkshire

In a busy city centre, on a hot weekend afternoon as throngs of people mill about, the last thing you'd expect to encounter would be a quiet, secluded pub. But hidden away on the western edge of Sheffield City Centre is a refuge from the teeming masses. At the gorgeous well-kept Bath Hotel, which was recently featured in CAMRA's publication What's Brewing, my partner and I enjoyed a couple of gorgeous well-kept pints.

A Joshua Tetley Heritage house featured on CAMRA's National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors, the Bath has two separate bars and a lovely checkerboard tiled floor, tiled walls, and stained glass details. This was an Ind Coope pub back during World War I and was refitted in 1931, and just recently it has been lovingly restored. The only hints of modernity are the oddly modern ceiling lights -- but if you try real hard you can imagine they're art deco. The pleasantly cool interior offers a fine environment for relaxed conversation. There are no jukeboxes or pool tables to distract -- just stacks of CDs behind the bar. During our visit we listened to Disk 1 of the Good Morning Blues compilation, which provided fine country blues to accompany our city pints. Ah, yes, the strains of Memphis Minnie, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, T-Bone Tetley, Blind Timothy Taylor, Robert Johnson Resurrected...

Oops, sorry, I'm confusing my blues and brews! Andrew sipped a fine pint of Landlord (4.3% ABV, Timothy Taylor & Co. Ltd., Keighley, West Yorkshire) and I had a pint of Abbeydale Resurrection (4.6% ABV, Abbeydale Brewery, Sheffield, S Yorkshire). This is a pale and hoppy beer, similar to myself these days since I've been feeling quite fit from my daily two-hour walks. A few sips and I felt definitely resurrected, like JC Cottontail, ready to hop down the real ale trail. And I didn't even need to leave the coolness of the pub -- I could simply play hopscotch on the checkerboard tiles, although I suppose the other customers might object to my noisy intrusion. No, I decided to sit quietly and let the hoppy mouthfuls hop around on my palate instead -- a much wiser choice on such a hot day.

For those Sheffield residents who aren't within walking distance of the city centre, the Bath is located conveniently close to a Supertram stop. So there's really no reason not to come enjoy a pint or two, and perhaps even a game of blues hopscotch.