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Past And Present In The Streets Of Leeds....

A Saturday afternoon wander around the centre of Leeds taking in some familiar old haunts and more recent additions to the city's drinking establishments.... I went to Leeds the other day for a close season catch up over a few beers with some of the lads I go to football with. A trip to Leeds is not unusual for me, but for some of my companions it was a rare visit to a city which for all of us is less than 20 miles from home. And it set me off thinking back to when I lived in the city in the 1980s as a newcomer and how different the pub scene in the city was then was compared to now.  We visited 5 different places over the course of a few hours, all of them pretty close to the railway station. Of these, only two had been around in the 1980s, the other three having appeared at different points within the last 15 years or so. The Leeds real ale scene back then was dominated by the locally-brewed Tetleys with aromas from the brewery regularly wafting across the city. That said, in ter...
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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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