Real Ale, Real Music

Another much-loved pub which has played a big part in so many people's lives over the years has recently closed its doors.... News broke the other week that The Red Rooster, at Brookfoot, near Brighouse, was to close at the beginning of March. With the rent being increased by an incredible £935 a week , landlord Eddie Geater decided that it was simply not viable to keep the popular free house open. And it is sad news, as the Rooster has been at the forefront of the area's pubs for most of the last 30-odd years. And it is a big deal. Before it opened as the Rooster there were hardly any free houses in the area as we know them today where there was a truly wide and unrestricted choice of beers. Prior to being the Rooster, the pub had been a Webster's tied house, The Wharf, which had been built in the early 20th century to cater for workers from the nearby wharf from where local coal was transported via the canal network. And to this day, three former wharfmen's cotta...

Chesterfield may be best known for having a church with a crooked spire, but the north-eastern Derbyshire market town is also home to some fine pubs.... We spotted the twisted tower as the train from Leeds approached Chesterfield. We had just seen the floodights of the Proact Stadium, the home of Chesterfield FC, who Town were playing later in the afternoon. We disembarked from the train and walked up into the town centre, past the delightfully-named Pomegranate Theatre, where around the corner was the church of St Mary and All Saints with its amazing crooked spire which leans and twists almost 3 metres from the perpendicular. This has been attributed to various causes: the use of unseasoned timber, the lack of skilled craftsmen at the time, and insufficient cross-bracing. Whatever, the reasons, it makes for a spectacular sight as it sits proudly overlooking a town with an unexpected number of attractive buildings and streets with historic names like Steeplegate, Glumanga...

It was the Manchester Beer Festival last week, and it remains one of the best beer festivals around. Here's my thoughts.... Years ago, when I lived in Manchester, I used to park my car in the former Manchester Central railway station. Draughty and leaky, back then it was a crumbling relic from a bygone age, when the train was king and the car was the privilege of the few. Over the ensuing 40 years, times have changed dramatically so that buildings shoot up at an alarming rate in the city, but more positively, many old, often iconic, buildings have been given a new lease of life. Buildings like Mackie Mayor and the former Mayfield Railway Station have been re-invigorated recently, but long before that, the old Manchester Central morphed into G-Mex and became the home to many trade fairs, exhibitions, and other events. A year or two ago, it reverted to Manchester Central, and for the last few years, every January, it has hosted the Manchester Beer and Cider Festival. And so I wa...