Real ale devotee Michael Baker has 35,000th tipple named after him

Oct 2 2009 by Edward Chadwick, Birmingham Post

With his ruddy cheeks and shopping cart, Michael Baker looks like any other city centre drinker as he props up the bar.

But the second he enters a pub he inhabits a world where he is a drinking legend known as Mick The Tick.

The 70-year-old was one of the country’s first “tickers” – real ale devotees who tour the country to try as many different cask beers as possible.

Now he has been honoured after a tipple was named after him to mark a staggering milestone.

When Mick, of Marston Green, supped his latest pint at Digbeth’s Anchor Inn this week, he had clocked up an amazing 35,000 ales. Nuneaton-based Church End Brewery named their latest concoction Mick the Tick’s 35,000th.

“It started in about 1975 when I went to a beer festival and it has just snowballed from there,” he explained.

“There were only about 70 different breweries in the country then and I was lucky if I got 40 ticks in a year at the start. But now you’ve got somewhere in the region of 700 breweries and I’m clocking up about 2,000 a year now.

“I do it because I love the beer but also because I meet so many interesting people all over the country at festivals and in pubs.”

Mick’s 2,000 “ticks” per year translate into about 1,000 pints because the fanatics drink in halves to maximise the numbers of beers they get through.

The Anchor pub will be selling the 4.4 per cent Mick the Tick’s 35,000th for the next couple of weeks.