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
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