Real Ale, Real Music

I recently paid a first-ever visit to Burton-on Trent, famous for being one of the spiritual homes of the British brewing industry, just as one of the stalwarts from the town announced it is exiting from brewing altogether.... As far as I can recall, I had never been to Burton-Upon-Trent before, the nearest I'd been was driving past the town on the A38, with the nearby site of the Marstons brewery with its clouds of steam rising into the sky a splendid spectacle. I have to say though that given Burton's pre-eminence in the history of the brewing industry, the fact that this was the first visit to the town for a beer writer is an admission of a serious omission, a dereliction of duty some might say.  The original settlement that is now known as Burton-Upon-Trent, or Burton-on-Trent or just plain Burton grew up around an abbey which had been established near the river, although the Romans had been here earlier. The town was granted a charter to hold a market by King John in 1200,

Last week I took a short road trip into a local area where the wildness of the moors is left behind in a delightful wooded South Pennines valley. This is a place with history and points of interest aplenty, whilst as you would probably expect my trip also included visiting a couple of splendid pubs.... And so I was driving high into the Pennine Hills along the A58, which runs for 75 miles between Wetherby in West Yorkshire to Prescot on Merseyside, although I was only doing a short stretch around the Lancashire-Yorkshire border. I had passed through the large village of Ripponden on the Halifax to Rochdale stretch, from where the road climbs into the hills, leaving the houses largely behind save for the odd farmhouse or barn sat within the fields. In the distance were the moors, looking gloomy under a glowering sky, dark grey clouds broken up occasionally by a flash of blue and burst of sunshine. A chain of pylons stretched across the vista, their steely presence adding a sense of mena

I spent last Saturday afternoon in Hebden Bridge, visiting a few of the pubs and bars. And whilst it was in no way an exhaustive tour, it did provide a snapshot of the town on a typically busy weekend.... Hebden Bridge is situated in the narrowest part of the Calder Valley in West Yorkshire, surrounded by steep, wooded hillsides that climb up to the Pennine moors high above. Here the Hebden Water and various streams flow off the moors into the River Calder, a location that has led to serious flooding over the years, most recently on Boxing Day 2015, although various conservation efforts to slow the flow of water off the hills along with work on the river have reduced the threat somewhat. It was the local abundance of water and the wool from the sheep who roamed the local hillsides which led to the growth of weaving in the cottages in hilltop settlements like Heptonstall when Hebden Bridge was nothing but a cluster of cottages beside the old pack horse bridge which still crosses the Heb

I've recently been to Selby in North Yorkshire, where in the shadow of the impressive abbey I found an interesting town with quiet streets and a decent number of pubs where I encountered some mysterious beer in and amongst the more familiar.... I have to admit Selby is not somewhere I have thought about visiting many times over the years. I have vague memories of driving over from Leeds with my mate Dave back in the 1980's a couple of times, our aim to win the supposed big jackpot up for grabs in a Sunday music quiz in one of the pubs, which I think was by the river. What it was called, I'm not sure, how big the jackpot was, who knows, but I am pretty sure I would have remembered if we'd won it.  That was a long time ago, but fast forward to last Saturday, I had decided to go for a look around and so caught the 10.17 train from Halifax, which dropped me off in Selby before continuing its onward journey to Hull. It was a bright sunny morning, and a few people were waitin

New blogging territory as I make my first visit to the historic city of Lancaster for many a year. And I find a thriving, interesting, and down to earth place which is home to a large number of pubs and bars.... I haven't been to Lancaster many times over the years. Once I had called in on a trip on my way back from the Lake District probably back in the 1980's and have vague memories of a couple of ok places but not much else. Back then Lancaster had two breweries, Mitchells, and Yates & Jackson, whose beers I'd first tried in the Dales villages of Bentham and Ingleton where they had a smattering of pubs. Yates & Jackson ( the better of the two in my opinion ) ceased brewing in 1984 when they were taken over by Thwaites, whilst Mitchells carried on brewing for longer, but became a pub group only. They subsequently acquired York brewery, who had been brewing in the city since 1996, in a cross-border foray, but the company eventually folded in 2018.  My only other an