A pub-loving couple have splashed £15,000 trying to visit every boozer in the country on a 'Great British pub crawl' - but claim to be rarely hungover despite visiting up to 23 A DAY. Dale Harvey, 37, and his wife-to-be Holly Booth, 31, set out in March last year on their pub challenge and have since visited 1,549 spots across the country, having an alcoholic drink in every one.
What started as an unusual New Year's resolution has now turned into a daily activity and this week the couple celebrated their 460th day visiting pubs around England. The pair, who got engaged in a pub last October, said they average out visiting three pubs a day and spend every weekend downing pints in locals across the country.
At the weekend, the duo try to visit around 12 pubs on their tick sheet and they once visited 23 pubs in a single day. While trying to conquer the monstrous challenge, the duo are also wanting to beat a Guinness World Record of visiting the most pubs in 24 hours which at the moment stands at around 80.
Dale, from Sneinton in Nottingham, said: "I've always been interested in pubs, especially the old ones as I love their history and I even ran my own pub for 10 years. Since starting the challenge last year, I would estimate we've spent around £15,000 so far.
"I wouldn't even want to guess at how many miles we've covered but it's got to be thousands. The first pub we went to was Lady Bay in Nottingham, which is right next to the football ground.
"I really want to beat the Guinness World Record attempt of going to the most pubs in 24 hours. I reckon if I was to do the challenge on my own I could hit that 80 in 24 hours.
"You would have to meticulously plan it out so some pubs you would only be in for a few minutes and have a quick shot, but I reckon I could do it."
Being Nottingham-based, the pair started their pub crawl across Nottinghamshire and have since visited more than 1,300 pubs in the area with only 50 left in the county to try. At each pub, Dale and Holly always order an alcoholic drink and normally choose a 'quick' half pint as it lets them visit multiple pubs in one day.
And, despite the excessive amount of drinking, Dale claims to rarely be hungover. Dale said: "We normally manage to do it [the pub crawl] hangover free.
"I think it's because I'm so adapted to drinking nowadays I get away with it. I'm twice the size of Holly so I can obviously drink more than her as she's only five foot four, but she can definitely drink a lot more than she used to before she was with me."
Dale and Holly took a two-day trip to the capital last weekend and also visited St Albans in Hertfordshire where they checked out a pub called Ye Olde Fighting Cocks which claims to be the oldest in England being built in 793 AD.
Despite enjoying the day drinking in London, Dale says his favourite place to grab a pint is at The Ned Ludd in Nottingham.
Dale said: "London was very expensive. In some places you were spending £18 for a single, vodka, and coke but if you go to a place like Ilkeston, we can have two halves in a pub there and it's £3.
"The London pubs were cool like the Jack the Ripper pub and it's nice to soak up the history. [In London] we visited 12 pubs on the first night all around Camden and then we were really hungover the second day but still managed to do 10.
"But, I'm a Nottingham Forest fan and I'm in love with Nottingham so this will always be my favourite place to drink. The Ned Ludd has got a great selection of beers and it's run really well.
"The staff and managers are on the ball and they confidently do good entertainment. It's also dog friendly and a really good all round pub."
After visiting each pub, Dale and Holly write an honest review and post it on their Facebook page which is followed by over 6,000 people. Dale added: "We find out as much as we can about each pub and put it in the review.
"We've got about 6,300 people following us on Facebook which is mad. I can't believe this many people like to watch us get drunk every weekend.
"We take into account how good the service is, what drinks they have on, if it's clean and tidy and dog friendly, just what's going on with it really.
"Out of the 1,549 we've visited so far, I've only come up with negative things to say about 10 I wouldn't want to go back to. We're totally honest with our reviews.
"There's great reasons to like different pubs. We've found great community pubs and then there are the five star dining experience pubs where the food is amazing."
To complete the colossal pub crawl, Dale has estimated he and Holly will have to visit more than 60,000 pubs. Dale said: "I wrote down a number which was around 65,000 but you never know if this number includes micro pubs, bars and cocktail bars.
"I've estimated between 60 to 65,000. I don't think I've got enough years in my body to complete this.
"I'll never be happy until it's completed though. We'll keep going until we can't do it anymore.
"The whole point of this bar crawl is that we were really sad that lots of pubs were closing and it's really sad to drive past them and see them boarded up. Anything we can do to help to keep British Pubs open we want to do.
"We've had a few people message us saying thank you for the great reviews and have tried the pubs out and they are now their new local pubs. We want to keep British pubs open."
