Black Country pub-crawlers visit their 20,000th boozer
A group of pub-crawlers from the Black Country have chalked up their 20,000th boozer – three decades after setting off to tour just 300 inns listed on a brewery map.
Members of the Black Country Ale Tairsters – who dossed down in a graveyard following their inaugural visit to a pub in Wales in 1984 – arrived in a minibus to toast their latest milestone at the Knot and Plough in Stafford.
The group's co-founder Pete Hill was among those who considered calling time on the epic odyssey in 1985 after successfully ticking off hundreds of ale houses run by Wolverhampton-based Banks's. But the friends decided to press on – darkening the door of more than 1,000 pubs in Herefordshire and Worcestershire before embarking on a tour of Britain's coastline and then every bar in Wales. As more than a dozen members of the group raised a glass to their 20,000th pub, Mr Hill celebrated with a pint of Marston's 61 Deep pale ale.
The retired engineer – whose father Joe died in 2014 after fulfilling his ambition of 'conquering' Wales – has knocked back 46,632 pints during the Tairsters' journey.
The 60-year-old said: "Last May when we'd done 19,000 I took my lump sum out of my pension to get to 20,000 and I have spent the lot. It has been a bit emotional to be honest because it was my dad's ambition to get to 20,000 and it would have been his birthday over the weekend." Mr Hill, who has collected around £24,000 for charity from licensees around Britain by asking for a £1 donation at each pub, joked: "I am the Samuel Pepys of my day. On every pub crawl everything is documented – from the beers in the pub to the decor. Every detail is recorded."
The unofficial group leader regards an ability to drink a gallon of beer as a minimum requirement for membership and advises drinkers to make a will before joining up. "You never know when you might go the way of Oliver Reed," he said. "He's the hero – though I try not to go over 1,500 pints a year. If I'm in danger of going over the annual limit I stop in for a couple of days."
When asked if the milestone represents the end of the line for the group, Mr Hill said: "Don't be saft." Several veterans of the group, including stalwarts John Drew, 53, and 72-year-old Malcolm Maynard, attended the event at the Knot and Plough, where they were given free beer.
