Real ale buff who spent five years checking out ALL 700 pubs in the Good Beer Guide (ending with a pint at his local)



It was always going to be a challenge but it was not one real ale lover Stuart Ashby was going to shy away from.

After a five-year odyssey, he has finally made his way to every pub mentioned in the Good Beer Guide - at times hitch-hiking to the remotest corner of Britain to ensure he visited to every one of the 700 pubs listed.

The 60-year-old retired railway worker, from Shoreham, West Sussex, downed a pint in each of the watering holes mentioned in the 1990 edition of the book, averaging three pub visits a week.



He finished his trek at the Lamb in Yapton, just a few miles from his home.

Stuart Ashby, 60, downed a pint in each of the watering holes mentioned in the 1990 edition of Good Beer Guide, averaging three pub visits a week

He said after completing his milestone: 'I managed to keep going. I thought by now I'd be fed up with it or infirm.'

STUART'S GOOD BEER ODYSSEY

Time taken: Five years



Pubs visited: 700



Pub visit rate: Three a week



Pints drunk: One in each pub



Hardest pub to get to: On Lundy Island, off Devon coast. Four-hour ferry to get there



Hardest pub: South Bermondsey where he was 'greeted' at the door by man with shotgun



He estimates he has visited more than 17,000 different pubs since 1984 in his quest to find the perfect pint, and he is still looking.

His dedication is even more impressive given that he can not drive.

He said: 'When there is no public transport I hitch-hike. I don't think anything of it. Enough people stop to get me from A to B and people are interested when they find out where I am going.

'I do a lot of walking, which stops me putting on more weight than I would otherwise.'

Mr Ashby is so dedicated to his hobby he even travelled four hours by ferry to enjoy a drink at an isolated pub on Lundy Island in Devon.



The retired 60-year-old said: 'If it needs doing then I'll travel as far as I have to by whatever means to make it to a pub on the guide.'

However he says he can not pick just one favourite watering hole out of the thousands he has tried.

He said: 'It's hard because I have done so many to remember one to two. But it is sad to see the decline of the traditional British pub.

'Fortunately, I don't think it will decline to such an extent as to affect me but if I was to come back to Earth in 100 years, I would be sickened. People used to go to the pub five or six times a week but now they only go twice a week.'

The real ale aficionado celebrated completing his impressive feat the only way he knew how - with a pint at his local.

Reflecting on his achievement, he said: 'I've had some wonderful times and some scary times. I once travelled to a pub in South Bermondsey and the place was shut at 5pm so I banged on the door for a bit only to be greeted by a very angry man and his shotgun. I left that one pretty quickly.

'I did go back later, very discreetly, because I had to have a pint from there so I could cross it off my list.

'Most of the time the people are a lot friendlier. I've met some real characters in pubs all across the UK - although people tend to think I am the character because of what I get up to.

'I always get chatting to the bar staff and the locals and they like to know if I think their pints are up to scratch.

'I'll always order a pint of whatever The Good Beer Guide recommends but if I had to choose favourites then that has to be London Pride or Deuchers IPA. But I'm definitely not an ale expert - just a very willing connoisseur.'

Despite having drunk his way through the guide, Mr Ashby is not giving up his nomadic drinking.



'I have no plans to stop visiting pubs,' he said. 'I love it too much.

'In fact, at the end of the month I'm off to North Wales for eight days and I plan to visit 100 pubs.'

