NEXT time you find some kind of creature in your pint glass, don't complain to the management - take a photo. Yes, that's right, animal hunting is the new craze set to sweep York pubs and one of our boozers is taking the search to extreme lengths.

Colliergate's Last Drop Inn will be hosting a hunting night in the near future with a pub full of Page Three girls as the prize.

As your beer leaves your glass into your mouth, a strange froth is left on the side. And like clouds, strange shapes can form in this froth.

If you look hard you can find anything from kangaroos and elephants to llamas and giraffes.

Pubs around the country have been issued with hunting kits and the Beer Zoo Ring Masters (landlords) will be competing to win the Sun's Page Three girls for the night.

Punters in the pubs will be attempting to 'capture' the beasts on the camera and the best will win the girls.

Ring Master James Butler, at York Brewery's Last Drop Inn, has received his hunting pack and along with his staff has begun searching for the creatures.

"It is the first time I have found flies in my beer and not been upset," said Mr Butler.

"We have found white sheep, but not black ones."

Research has proved that Guinness displays an overly flamboyant, velvety head that, perhaps surprisingly, results in a far too even glass coating and should be avoided.

Traditional, warm bitter can sometimes be too watery while strong lager can be too 'treacly' and not adhere to a glass's interior.

Weaker "cooking" lagers, such as Fosters, Carling and Heineken yield excellent animal harvests.

For taking the photos in dark pubs, use a flash against a dark background and try not to shoot the beast head-on: the glass will reflect the flash, causing over-exposure.

Beer Zoo can be seen in all its finery at www.page3.com/beer-zoo

u THE Blue Bell, Fossgate, York, is about to ring the changes. Tim and Eileen Worrall are ready to sell the lease of the Pubmaster house to Jim and Sue Hardie, current managers of the Golden Ball, Cromwell Road, York.

If all goes to plan, Jim hopes to be signing on the dotted line on Monday.

Jim said he has always wanted his own place, and is sure that the historic Fossgate gem will suit him down to the ground.

Golden Ball supremo Don Butler is looking for new managers as we speak.

Meanwhile, Tim tells Bar Talk that he and Eileen have plans to retire to the sunshine resort of Haxby when they leave the pub in a few weeks.

u THE Frog Hall is under new management and as tonight is the new landlord's 40th birthday it's going to be a party night with a jam session.

Wayne Allen, formerly known as the drummer with Hard Lines, along with wife Deanna and, presumably, his performing snails, have taken over the tenancy of the Layerthorpe boozer.

Hopefully things will go better than the first couple of nights when a certain local shop's alarm went off throughout the night keeping everyone awake.

The emphasis will be on live music with regular jam sessions every Thursday, live music on Saturdays and karaoke on Sundays.

Anyone attending the karaoke will be glad to know that the two Bar Talk occasional contributors who sang the full-length version of American Pie in there not so long back, without any musical backing, do not put in regular appearances on Sundays.

There will also be a quiz on Wednesdays and, as seems to be usual when somebody takes over a pub in York recently, they have big plans for future but are not revealing what just yet.

Dan Beergutstein, Rachel Liggin' Lacy, and Joshua Titley

PICTURE: Jessica Thompson, barmaid at the Last Drop Inn, finds a baby kangaroo in her beer glass (Garry Atkinson )