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Riding High In Scarborough....

A breezy afternoon and heavy seas in Scarborough meant it was more of a day to seek shelter in some of the North Yorkshire resort's fine pubs rather than take in the sea views. And with good beer on offer everywhere it turned out to be a most enjoyable visit.... My most recent trips to Scarborough haven't always gone to plan. The last one saw me driving in bright, warm sunshine all the way from home to the outskirts of the North Yorkshire resort only for a thick sea-fret to descend, obscuring the sun and dragging the temperature down so that the entire visit was spent in gloom, the colours and sounds of the seaside muted and downplayed. Another time, I had booked a stay so I could spend a day watching Yorkshire play cricket, only for the rain to start coming down as I drove east, so there was very little play, resulting a long session in the neighbouring North Riding just down the hill along with plenty of other soggy fans including the legendary Bloke from Hull. And this lates
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A Manchester Institution....

A look at one of Greater Manchester's oldest surviving independent breweries which celebrates its 175th anniversary this year, followed by a pint of their beer in a couple of pubs in the Shudehill area of the city centre.... I first came across the beers of Joseph Holt when I moved to Manchester as a student in the 1970's, particularly when I lived in Salford which was in those days one of the family-owned brewery's strongholds. Having been weaned on the gentler flavours of beers from the likes of Websters and Tetleys, when I moved over the Pennines, I was struck by the bitterness of some of the local beers I discovered like Boddingtons, and more particularly Holts, whose bitter really was eye-wateringly bitter when I first tried it in the Grafton Arms, just round the corner from the university. The brewery had been founded in 1849 on Empire Street in the Cheetham Hill area of the city in the days when Manchester was expanding rapidly and demand for beer was high. Other bre

A Good Day Out East....

A trip into the deepest parts of the East End of London which involved visiting a couple of classic pubs, then some football glory, plus a stop-off in Farringdon a few minutes down the Hammersmith & City line from Kings Cross.... It was a bright blue sunny morning as the train pulled into Kings Cross, the temperature several degrees higher than when we'd left a cold and frosty West Yorkshire a few hours earlier. Shortly afterwards we were heading east on the Hammersmith and City line, with a plan to pay a visit to Wapping, the riverside area which once was a thriving hive of maritime activity and where several historic and interesting pubs are situated. However, when we arrived at Whitechapel, whose shiny, modern interchange belied the lowly status given to the area on a Monopoly board, we were unable to access the relevant platform of the Overground by which we were going to complete our journey to Wapping ( it turned out later that there had been rather limited services opera

A Monday Pint....

Changing routines and economic pressures have reduced the times that pubs are generally open these days. But looking back, the times when it was possible to get a pint were once much more tightly restricted than they are now.... Monday. The start of the working week for so many people. But for many too, a day they don't work due to their shift patterns, or it's their designated day off, or they are retired, or they are on holiday. A day then for many that might fancy a pint to take the edge off a gruelling return to the working week, or a chill out before the return on Tuesday, or simply to enjoy a relaxing drink. But in many places, getting a decent pint of real ale on a Monday ( or indeed a Tuesday ) is frustratingly often not as straightforward these days as you might expect unless you happen to be in a city centre or a popular tourist area.  But hang on a minute. Didn't the 2003 Licencing Act, which actually came into effect in 2005, allow pubs to open for 24 hours? Wel

1872 And All That....

News has broken over the past few days that Elland Brewery, famous for their 1872 Porter which was voted the Champion Beer Of Britain in 2023 have ceased trading. And with other breweries also struggling, the upheavals I wrote about last month are showing no signs of letting up.... I was out with some friends last Saturday afternoon, celebrating one of our number's birthday. With the drinks and conversation flowing as we enjoyed a most enjoyable catch up, we were joined by another friend who mentioned that he'd been out a little earlier and had heard a story from a good source in one of the local pubs that Elland Brewery who, a mere 6 months ago had won Champion Beer of Britain at the Great British Beer Festival for their flagship 1872 Porter, had gone bust. During a break in the conversation, I scoured Google for news about Elland Brewery. Nothing, apart from that win at the GBBF last year. I mentioned it to a couple of people when I was working at the Meandering Bear in Halif