Pub 23, Day 6 – Frog & Parrot

By Rob

For those of you keeping count, you'll note that by the time we left the Heeley & Sheffield we had each drank four pints. Now, that's not nearly enough to warrant a drunken haze, but four pints do have the cumulative effect of making the recipient a little merrier than usual.

As such, I wanted to stay out. Living in town, it would be ideal to get a tram into the city centre, have a drink, and then walk home from there. For Andy, living just five minutes away from Gleadless Townend, it made sense to end the evening where we were.

So, given our conflicting views on what constituted the best course of action, we did what I wanted.

However, any fantasies I harboured of a wild night on the town transpired to be wildly unrealistic. Instead of hitting the clubs and bars, we found ourselves inexorably drawn to – you might have guessed – a pub. Maybe we were developing a supernatural sixth sense for public houses? Maybe we'd just come to love pubs beyond all measure?

Whatever the reason, we ended up in The Frog & Parrot. A trendy pub on a trendy street, the Frog & Parrot is delightful inside. Smartly decorated, with just the right amount of quirkiness to not be pretentious (a difficult balance to strike), it had a great feel to it. We ordered two pints of Lord Parrot Ale – a drink we could be certain we would not come across again as it was brewed by the pub, in the pub, for the pub.

The increasingly blurred certificates for Roger and Out

When it first opened in 1982, the Frog & Parrot (then called the Prince of Wales) was one of very few Sheffield pubs in which the landlord brewed and sold his own beer on the premises. When it was later bought by Roger Nowill, the brewing process was expanded to five ales. One of these, labelled 'Roger and Out', was so strong that customers were permitted only three glasses a day before being cut-off, with each glass holding only a third of a pint.

After your first drink, you got a certificate. After the second, you were issued with a yellow card. Once you'd downed your third and final glass you had precisely one full pint of the stuff inside you. That earned you the red card.

In June 1988 the ale entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the strongest regularly pulled beer in the world, apparently attracting people from right across the globe.^[1]

The ale we had was considerably less lethal, but enjoyable nonetheless.

While there wasn't any music playing during our visit, from previous attendance I know that the pub often hosts live bands and also serves good food.

Just one of the quirky seating areas in the Frog & Parrot

After sitting on public transport for twenty minutes in order to get to town, we had the pint and then Andy endured a further twenty minutes in order to get home.

That, ladies and gents, is dedication to the cause.

Pub: Frog & Parrot (94 Division Street, S1 4GF)
Rating: 7/10
Beer: Lord Parrot Ale 
Brewery: Frog & Parrot (Homebrew) 

NEXT UP: A trip to Bulgaria, at The Fat Cat...

References:

[1] Peter Tuffrey, Sheffield Pubs; Landlords and Landladies, Fonthill Media, (2012), p.61