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To Hull And Back....

Join me as I take a walk through the warren of streets and narrow alleyways that criss-cross Hull's historic Old Town, during which I visit some of the area's old pubs along the way, many of them having their own fascinating stories.... This was my second visit to Hull this year, having visited one Wednesday back in March with some friends. With it being midweek, one or two of the places I had earmarked for us to call in that day had not been open whilst we were there. So to visit them when they were open on a Saturday was one of the reasons I had made my way back to this East Yorkshire port and city of around 275,000 people, the other being that I always enjoy wandering around what is surely one of the most fascinating places in the country. Kingston-upon-Hull, to give the city its Sunday name, grew up where the River Hull joins the Humber, that huge river that flows out into the North Sea some 25 miles further to the east. Hull has always had a different feel to other places,...
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A Grand Day Out....

I went on a lovely trip this weekend on as part of the celebrations for the 10th anniversary of the opening of the original micro pub in Halifax, the Grayston Unity. We visited two excellent local breweries, first Wishbone in Keighley, followed by Goose Eye near Bingley, travelling by an old Halifax Corporation bus. Here's the story.... The plan for a grand day out had been hatched some time ago, and as the date approached so did the sense of eager anticipation, a day to enjoy some excellent cask-conditioned beer at source in the company of some lovely people, many of whom were good friends that I have got to know over the 10 years since the Grayston Unity first opened. A potted history :  The first Grayston opened in May 2016 at Wesley Court, in the shadow of Halifax Town Hall, and was a two-roomed micro-sized bar with a retro-style lounge room which soon acquired the title of the smallest licensed venue in the country with a capacity of just 18, and whilst that was later inc...
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A Beer for Ten Years....

I recently got involved in the creation of a special beer to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Grayston Unity in Halifax. Here's the story of  the beer from its inception to a pint in the bar.... The idea for a special commemorative beer first cropped in conversation over the bar and a couple of pints at the Grayston Unity early on this year. " What do you think? ", owner Michael Ainsworth asked me when he told me of his plan, one of several he had by way of celebration in honour of the bar's 10th anniversary later in the year. Sounds like a great idea, I said. And to cut a long story short, with me having bèen one of the long-standing customers, plus my interest in beer, aside from putting in the odd shift behind the bar at the old Grayston and sister bar Meandering Bear over the years, would I like to be involved in coming up with the beer? And of course, I said yes. But first we needed someone to brew the beer. The house beer at the Grayston is...
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Penrith's Pubs And Past....

A visit to a town in a part of the country I love, but not somewhere I had visited before. But in what was only a stop of a few hours, I found a thriving, bustling place with plenty of history, oh, and a few pubs. Welcome to Penrith.... Much as I like visiting places like Manchester, Newcastle, and even London these days, I always like to mix things up in terms of where I go when visiting places for this blog. And so on the basis I had written plenty about the above this year, I needed to go somewhere different. The fact the National League season had concluded ( bar the promotion final ) and the teams relegated to and promoted in to were either known or at least on the cards already gave me a few options for football/blog tie-ins for next season - subject to the usual mid-winter/mid-week no-nos. Cumbria was a place I hadn't been to for over a year, but with Carlisle now down in the National League for another season the option for that city remained, and if the fixtures don't ...
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