Real Ale, Real Music

A flying visit to Wharfedale last weekend prompted me to reflect on some of the pubs I have visited over the years in what is one of the most attractive parts of the Yorkshire Dales.... Over the years, certainly up to lockdown, but not as much since, I used to go up to the Yorkshire Dales quite regularly. It was a regular destination for walking, and as all hikers will know, and end of walk drink is part of the routine. One of our frequent haunts was Wharfedale, or more accurately, Upper Wharfedale, which covers the stretch from the source of the Wharfe a few miles north east of Ribblehead  down as far as the large village of Addingham, although for the first 15 miles through generally wilder countryside it is known as Langstrothdale. Further down the valley from Burnsall, around Appletreewick, and Bolton Abbey it becomes heavily-wooded, which is fairly unusual for the Dales, before broadening out as it approaches the towns such as Ilkley and Otley close to the West Yorkshire conur...

It was the annual get together with some of my old work colleagues last Saturday in Manchester visiting a few familiar places across the city, whilst on Sunday I was back in the town where I grew up.... Manchester, Manchester, so much to answer for sang someone once . And I think that applies to me too, like how the place has weaved in and out of my life ever since the days when my Grandad would take me there sometimes as a young lad in the 1960's. He was the head of the local Co-op and sometimes he had to visit the head office in the city for important business, the details of which we were never to know, but it never took him long. We would catch the train from Sowerby Bridge station on a Wednesday afternoon which was early-closing day for the Co-op and most of the shops in town back when that was a part of the weekly routine. In those days, the station had the presence of somewhere important, a grand facade with a booking office within, waiting rooms, and the like, now long gone...

It's a big city miles from anywhere beside a huge river. And it's got plenty of history and points of interest as one of our major ports. And it's got some wonderful pubs and bars. Lots of them. And so I've paid another visit... I had been thinking of re-visiting Hull for some time, and then a few conversations with people who had been recently persuaded me that it was time to return there for the first time since  2022.  It helps that there is a direct hourly service that starts from Halifax, the journey taking about an hour and forty minutes, with over an hour of it being through the increasingly flat land and big skies once it has got beyond Leeds. The train was actually slightly delayed en route so, having left Halifax around 11.15, it was after one when it pulled into Hull's Paragon Station, having taken us alongside the mighty river Humber and past the impressive Humber Bridge which was the longest single span bridge in the world when it was built. I walked ou...

It is just over 4 years since this old guy started pulling a few pints behind the bar as opposed to just being served and drinking in them. Here's a few reflections.... I have not worked behind a bar for that long, really. Until recently I'd only had few stints helping out at beer festivals over the years, but even that was very intermittently. So when, a few years ago, I mentioned to my good mate Michael Ainsworth who runs two bars in Halifax that I had retired from my full-time job and he asked if I wanted to join the team, it would be more or less the first time I had worked in a pub or bar. And I wasn't certain at first, as whilst I was a regular particularly at the original bar, the Grayston Unity, I knew all the staff, had got to know many of the customers, and I had helped out at various events over the years, I wasn't immediately sure if it was for me. That said, I had always been a bar hanger so I suppose it was only one step beyond. Eventually though I said I ...