GAVIN AITCHISON would like to point out that his loyalties haven’t changed at all.

IT’S time for us to talk about the grapes. I’ve been meaning to broach this for a while but haven’t got around to it until now.

I know we usually focus on malt and hops, and I know it’s conventional wisdom that grape and grain don’t mix. But I can resist no longer; the grapes it is. Or rather, The Grapes, to be grammatically correct.

If you’ve started to panic, then rest assured: I’ve been winding you up a little. We’re not abandoning beer for wine. I’ve not betrayed you or lost my mind quite yet.

No, we’re simply heading to rural North Yorkshire, to the village of Slingsby to be precise, and to a cracking country pub called – yep, you guessed it – The Grapes Inn.

I had you going though, didn’t I? I could see eyebrows and hackles being raised. I could hear anxious gasps from my friends; perhaps even the rustle of newspapers being scrunched by angry hands. My wine counterpart Mike Tipping even thought he had won me round. Pah!

Anyway, back to The Grapes. I was drawn here not by the wine or even the beer if truth be told, but by a bizarre combination of bar billiards and a bygone barber.

When The Golden Ball and The Phoenix in York launched their inter-pub bar billiards league, somebody mentioned that The Grapes also had a table.

Then, a week or so later, I read an old story about a barber who used to visit Slingsby once a week to give people hair cuts in the pub darts room, which sounds like a threatening euphemism but isn’t. All in all, that was enough to prompt me to venture out to have a look. So here we are.

Slingsby sits just off the B1257 between Malton and Helmsley and the pub sits in the heart of the village, well back from the main road. (A mile along the road is a hamlet called Wath, and had The Grapes been there it could have been a headline-writer’s dream).

Leigh and Catharine Spooner bought the pub freehold from Punch Taverns last year and have done a fantastic job on the refurbishment, turning it into a very smart, sharp, well-kept pub.

The decor and furniture are bright but not garish, the ales are local, the menu is simple and the overall feel is of a homely but modern pub where you’d happily spend a day or an evening, or a whole day or weekend if you had the time and the stamina.

“We started with nothing and the village has been hugely behind us,” says Catharine. “There are people who have not been in the pub in 30 years and they are coming back.”

Guinness fans will feel particularly at home, because classic memorabilia dominates the bar room and spreads into other rooms too. There are tinplate signs; a lamp; a model bus behind the bar and other bits and bobs declaring that Guinness is good for you and gives you strength.

That it does, and it’s on the bar if you want some, but it is a poor substitute for Yorkshire ales, particularly in summer. Theakston’s Best, Black Sheep Best, Copper Dragon Golden Pippin and Timothy Taylor’s Landlord are all ever-present, and Sam Smith’s Taddy Lager was also on the bar when I visited, alongside Stella and Becks Vier.

For non-beer drinkers there is Stowford Press cider and a fair selection of wines as well. Although rest assured once more that we won’t go there today, or any other day for that matter – whatever this fine pub may be called.

@pintsofview