Real Ale, Real Music

Here's my own personal round-up of the best beers, breweries, and pubs I have encountered over the past 12  months.... It doesn't seem 12 months since I was going through my favourites of 2023. Well actually it isn't quite, as I didn't get to do it until the first week in January, but I didn't want to let it slip again, so here in a more timely fashion are my favourites of the year. As ever, whilst celebrating the best, there are of course some breweries that have unfortunately closed down this year, such as Elland and Chapter Brewing, whilst there have been regular shenanigans again this year from Carlsberg Marstons who seem to be doing the best they can to undermine the cask ale market. The Beers It is difficult to grade these as it very much depends on the setting, the way you feel, as well as the actual beer itself. But the most objective way I can think of is to look at the beers that I have rated as being a 4 or above on the NBSS (National Beer Scoring System)...

I had an afternoon in Keighley recently, where I spent my time sampling beers from the Town's most famous brewery, found out the story of its most famous beer, and paid a visit to a few of the pubs in the town.... I'd had loads of plans during the week of different places to go at the weekend for a research day for the blog. Gradually, one by one, they were all dismissed, mainly in light of the cold and extremely blustery weather brought to us courtesy of the latest celebrity strong wind event, Storm Darragh. In the end I settled on going to Keighley, a town I had not stopped in for years, my only visits being the slow and frustrating part of a drive on the way to or from the Dales or Lakes. There is an hourly daytime bus service that runs between Halifax and Keighley, which for whatever reason I hadn't been aware, so I decided to give it a go. The journey takes you through the hidden suburbs of north Halifax, the large linear hilltop village of Denholme, nearby Cullingwort...

The lights are going up, Santa's sleigh is back from its annual service, and the elves are going through their final refresher course before it all begins. Meanwhile all across the country pubs and bars are gearing up for what they are hoping will be a busy few weeks. Yes, it's that time of year again, although sadly all is not well everywhere.... We say it every year, but Christmas does seem to begin earlier all the time. OK, the shops have been full of it for weeks, bagged up Christmas trees welcoming you to every supermarket, but the general mood out there does seem to have started to feel a little bit more festive earlier. Now you could also say that there seems to be a collective willing of the coming of Christmas as it allows people to escape from the reality of their daily lives, and with the current state of things out there, you can't really blame them. Last Friday I went to a Christmas do, still in November, which would have been deemed too early not that long ago...

A stopover in Leeds for a gig with a few beers in a mixture of pubs and bars, which with some decent food to be had made for an enjoyable time predominantly wandering around a former edgy part of the city.... I caught the train over to Leeds from Halifax, arriving in the city just before 5.30. I popped in to one of the several drinking places close by, the Friends of Ham on New Station Street, which is currently not in the Good Beer Guide but to me these days is always worth a visit and its inclusion or not is probably more down to the level of competition to be found in the city these days. It was fairly quiet, being a Monday, with just a few tables occupied by people enjoying a post-work and/or a pre-train drink. I went for a pint of the 4% Hamthology pale ale, a collaboration between the bar and local brewery Anthology, which was a very pleasant beer in excellent condition (NBSS 3.5). I spent an enjoyable 20 minutes here before my mind turned to checking in to my hotel and then sor...

A reflection on rural pubs, how things have changed over the years, and how some of them have adapted in order to survive in these difficult times.... I revisited a pub at the weekend where I used to go sometimes when I was a lad, and whilst I have called in intermittently over the years, it was quite a while since I'd last visited, and so it was interesting to see how it had changed. The pub in question was the Fleece at Barkisland, which is situated high above the West Yorkshire village of Ripponden on the edge of the Pennine moors, where I was attending the evening part of the wedding of one of the football lads, whose stag do I referred to in the blog I wrote following our recent visit to  Boston and Newark.   The Fleece is a traditional pub which, according to an inscription in the stone over the door, dates back to 1737. It was situated on an old pack horse route which in these parts tended to go over the hills and avoid the valleys below, which were often dangerous with...

A rare new pub has joined the select group in Bradford city centre that are in the Good Beer Guide for the 2025 edition, so I have been along to give it a try whilst checking in on some old favourites....   I caught the train early Friday evening from Halifax to take me on the short journey to Bradford Interchange. I alighted from the train and walked down the steps from the platforms to the concourse and out to the front of the station where the normally taxi-dominated car park was closed off behind fencing. But it wasn't just there. As I left the station I had to follow a walkway between fenced-off areas. Every now and again there would be another walkway heading off in a different direction, whilst behind the fencing were stacks of stones, bulldozers, and other equipment as a vast swathe of the city centre is being pedestrianised and a new urban park created as Bradford prepares to take on the mantle of UK City of Culture for 2025.  The walkway finished at the other side of...