Real Ale, Real Music

September came along and with it some pretty wet weather, although nothing in comparison to what was wreaked on the Caribbean as hurricane after hurricane have been pummelling the islands and archipelagos. We have had our share of flooding not that long ago, and whilst there has been nothing on the scale meted out by Hurricanes Irma and Maria, with no loss of life, the impact of the December 2015 floods on towns like Hebden Bridge and others in the Calder Valley affected the community and lots of the businesses there for a long time afterwards. I visit Hebden regularly, often feature it in my blogs, and once again I visited the place last week, not once but twice. The first time was for a gig at the Trades Club, one of my favourite venues, and the second time I had seen The Rails there, a gig I wrote about a couple of years ago  here . They were promoting their new album 'Other People', and very enjoyable it was too, with a drummer and bassist featuring this time as the

Last time I mentioned the fact that the Beer Festival Season was with us. One notable exception was Huddersfield, where for years there has been a CAMRA-run festival the first weekend in October. The reason, apparently, was that the organising group could not be bothered, and they had lost money last time. Now fair enough, you want to make a profit or at least cover costs, but scale it accordingly so it is more manageable. But not holding a beer festival sends out the wrong message. It should be a flagship event in the local beer lover's calendar, and certainly for quite a lot of people, they are a destination to visit from other areas too. You could argue that with the choice available in some pubs - and in pubs like The Grove, Kings' Head, Sportsman, and Rat and Ratchet, Huddersfield itself is particularly well-served with places with a great choice of beers - why bother with a beer festival? Well, it serves to send a signal out that the Campaign for Real Ale is alive a

August. Still the summer, but with autumn breathing down its neck. The nights are drawing in, and there is now the whiff of another phase of the year in the air. That means that the past few weeks have seen the start of the festival season, as following the Cross Keys in the middle of August, we had the Brighouse Summer Festival, and then over the Bank Holiday Weekend just gone we had the Indyfax Festival in Halifax, plus the Rock of the North Festival at the Cock of the North in Hipperholme. I managed to visit all of them for at least a short part of the time. The Brighouse Summer Festival lived up to its name by starting off with winds plus the odd shower, which did contribute to a few delays in the bands performing. I saw a curtailed set from The Rainey Street Band, then after a beer at the Market Tavern, I headed over with some friends to Millers Bar, where as I mentioned a week or two ago the beer choice is getting more interesting, with, amongst others, Blackjack and Brewsm