Riding High In Scarborough....

A breezy afternoon and heavy seas in Scarborough meant it was more of a day to seek shelter in some of the North Yorkshire resort's fine pubs rather than take in the sea views. And with good beer on offer everywhere it turned out to be a most enjoyable visit....

My most recent trips to Scarborough haven't always gone to plan. The last one saw me driving in bright, warm sunshine all the way from home to the outskirts of the North Yorkshire resort only for a thick sea-fret to descend, obscuring the sun and dragging the temperature down so that the entire visit was spent in gloom, the colours and sounds of the seaside muted and downplayed. Another time, I had booked a stay so I could spend a day watching Yorkshire play cricket, only for the rain to start coming down as I drove east, so there was very little play, resulting a long session in the neighbouring North Riding just down the hill along with plenty of other soggy fans including the legendary Bloke from Hull.

And this latest one looked to be heading the same way, although through my own making. I ended up getting caught up watching the final throes of England falling to an inevitable crushing defeat in the 5th Test in Dharamshala, so I was later leaving home, meaning that I had to catch a later train from Halifax which would mean I had to wait an hour for the next train out of York for the final leg to Scarborough. As luck would have it, when we arrived in York there were still a few minutes before the earlier train left, and I managed to get across the station and leap onboard (metaphorically, I hasten to add) before it pulled out. I sat back smugly in my seat and enjoyed the journey through the misty North Yorkshire countryside, the train arriving in Scarborough just before 12.55, just about 2 hours since I'd left Halifax.

We emerged from the station, everyone scuttling off in different directions. I had spotted a micro pub just across from the station, opposite the art deco Stephen Joseph Theatre, so I made a beeline for that, There was a lit up sign in the window announcing it was open. This was Craft, which opened in a former shop unit just before lockdown. Brightly-decorated with all sorts of paraphernalia, the bar is opposite the entrance and features 4 handpumps and around a dozen keg lines. From the cask selection I ordered a pint of Enigma, a 4% single hop pale ale from the Wensleydale Brewery. It was a bit lively, so the guy behind the bar said he'd bring it over to me once it had settled. I grabbed and seat and looked around. There were a few old guys sat across the room. From their accents and the flow of their conversation I worked out they were fans of Tamworth FC, who were in town visiting Scarborough Athletic, no doubt hoping to maintain their position at the top of the National League North. My beer arrived. It was well worth the wait, well-balanced with a touch of dryness om the finish. A strong start to the day (a 3.5 on the National Beer Scoring System scale). And a good place to start my visit, and I left thinking I might call in for a final pint before I got the train home if time permitted.

Craft, a cracking little bar

I headed off then towards the North Bay, the more unspoilt of Scarborough's two bays. I walked down past rows of B & Bs, many of which were displaying No Vacancies in their windows despite it only being early March. I turned up a short hill just before I reached Peasholm Park, and across the road at the top of the slope was the bulky shape of the North Riding Hotel, situated next door to a cinema. It is a large brick-built building prominently situated at the bottom of North Marine Drive, set just back from the North Bay  and just down the hill as mentioned above from Scarborough Cricket Club. It dates back to the 1850's and houses its own in-house brewery which has continued to brew although brewing of the majority of North Riding beers re-located a few years ago to a unit in the village of Snainton, a few miles inland from Scarborough, which I visited on a trip with Halifax & Calderdale CAMRA just before lockdown when we were met and shown around by the brewery's ebullient owner, Stuart Nielsen.

I walked in to the North Riding by a side door entrance and turned left into the public bar. Last time I had been in it had been a sea of bodies, most of whom were cricket fans displaced when rain stopped play at the nearby ground. There was a great atmosphere, the beer was flowing, and it was a more than acceptable trade-off for an early finish. Today it was very different. A couple of guys sat at a table near the bar, a couple ordering drinks, a couple sat at a table by a window, and a guy sat on a stool near to a stove, its heat welcome as a relief from the cold wind blowing in off the North Sea. When it was my turn I ordered a pint of the North Riding Pale Ale, which featured Citra and Mosaic hops and was brewed to an ABV of 4.3%. I grabbed a stool across from the bar, plonking my beer down on the shelf beside me, and looked around. A very traditional room with an old wooden bar and a plethora of framed CAMRA awards on the wall. There was a pool table in the middle of the room, the wooden floor beneath it relatively shiny and showing the original colour in contrast to the rest of the room. I took a sip of my beer, which was crystal clear. Wow, it was good: clean, fruity, and refreshing, a definite NBSS 4 and one of the best beers of the year so far!

I was tempted to have another pint of the Pale, but I felt it made sense to try one of the beers brewed on the premises, so this time I went for another 4.3% pale, this time featuring Nectaron and Motueka hops. It had a different character, a more intense fruitiness, and was another excellent beer (NBSS 3.5). I could have quite happily have stayed here for the rest of the day, but time was moving on, and there was work to do before I caught the train home. So I grabbed my coat, took my empty glass back to the bar, and left the warmth of this wonderful pub, emerging back into the cold wind outside.

I headed off to towards the sea, and when it came into view there was the spectacular sight of waves crashing down as the tide came in on to the seafront road down below. I turned right and walked up the road back towards the town centre. The wind was blowing strongly and I had to keep pulling the hood on my coat back up. Over on the headland that separates Scarborough's two bays stood the ruins of Scarborough's castle. I arrived in front of a hotel where the road split, and here I took the right hand fork away from the sea which led me through a quiet, somewhat rundown area with empty buildings, some in desperate need of a little tlc. I walked through busier streets as I got back into the town centre and then took a path which brought me out above the town's South Bay, where in the distance the boats in the harbour were spared the impact of the powerful waves crashing on to the beach.

I walked along the path, past the tram which ferries passengers between the town and the promenade below, past the Grand Hotel where I once stayed, feeling positively youthful compared to the generally geriatric crowds delivered by the coachload in regular drops throughout the day, and where I encountered the joint worst breakfast I have ever had in my life (a tie with the Wetherspoons in Sowerby Bridge, if you're interested). I crossed over at a mini roundabout by the Crescent Hotel and on the opposite side of the road to the Brunswick shopping centre on Somerset Terrace was the Scholars Bar. It is a long-standing Good Beer Guide entry that I have visited before. It was busy, with plenty of people watching the sport on one of several TV screens dotted around the pub. There were at least half a dozen hand pumps on the bar, which all seemed to be from Yorkshire-based breweries, and from the selection on offer I ordered a pint of Yorkshire Blonde from Ossett, which was in great form (NBSS 3.5). I enjoyed it sat in a pub to the side of the bar where everyone seemed to be watching Italy hang on to beat Scotland 31-29 in the Six Nations. There was a good friendly, if somewhat blokey atmosphere, and with plenty of West Riding accents we could have been in a pub in Leeds. But well worth a visit.

I finished my pint and headed off, I had two more places to visit before I left, plus I was hopeful of getting some fish and chips as I was by now feeling a little peckish. I headed off back to the station and them turned along Westborough on which both pubs, neither of which I had previously visited, were situated. I walked past a huge chapel, its walls covered in green moss no doubt encouraged by the damp maritime air. I passed one of the pubs, the Stumble Inn, but I was first working a little further along to the neighbourhood of Falsgrave to the other pub on my list.

The Tap & Spile is a white-walled pub situated on a corner by some traffic lights, next door to which my stomach noted with delight was a fish and chip shop! But first a beer. I followed a guy into the pub, going in to the room to the right of the door. I walked up to the bar and from a choice of 5 beers on hand pump I went for the White Rat from Ossett. I went and sat at a table where a large TV screen was flashing up the latest football scores in Final Score, the modern and slicker equivalent of the old teleprinter that used to print them out on screen when I was growing up. The beer was another really good pint (NBSS 3.5) to maintain the very high standard I'd enjoyed here. The pub was reasonably busy but not as much as the Scholars Bar had been. It is not far from the town centre and is well worth making the trip out here, but it is far enough out to mean it feels more of a locals' pub.

Right now for those fish and chips! I took my empty glass back to the bar just after Boreham Wood had equalised against Town on Final Score, and I walked next door to the fish and chip shop. The lights were on, the windows were steamed up, and according to its published hours it was open, but the door was locked. A guy emerged carrying a pizza box from a neighbouring takeaway, saw me trying the door, and told me it had been like that when he had tried to call in earlier, which is why he'd got this, nodding at the pizza box. Cheers, I said, and muttered some words of disapproval towards the proprietors. Well I was hungry! However, relief was not too far away. About 5 minutes along was another fish and chip shop and it was open. I walked in, there was a small queue, and bearing in mind I wanted another beer before I caught the train I ordered a small fish and chips. A friendly Goth girl took my order and a few minutes later was asking me if I wanted scraps ( I did) and then my fish and chips were brought to me by another friendly Goth girl. And they were excellent! I ate them outside sheltering from the drizzle under the awning of a nearby shop, and if that was a small portion, what size was the regular?

Duly fortified, I made my way to the final place on the day's itinerary. This was the afore-mentioned Stumble Inn, situated less than 10 minutes walk away from the station near Sainsburys on a corner at the end of a row populated by dentists, solicitors, and the like. The Stumble Inn with its joyously steamed up windows and happy thrall of customers, of both two and four legs, made for a welcoming atmosphere in what was a former solicitor's office. This was the first micropub in Scarborough and clearly has a loyal local following. That said, when I sat down at the only empty table with my pint of Turning Point Three Way Joust, a 4.8% hazy pale featuring Simcoe, Amarillo, and Azacca hops, I was joined by a couple of Tamworth fans on their way back from seeing their team gain a vital way win in their push to get promoted. Back to the beer, it was another excellent pint (NBSS 3.5) and with the bar dominated by Turning Point I did wonder if there'd been a tap takeover. Another cracking place to call in when in these parts.

Time was moving on, so I finished my pint, bade my farewells, and made my way back to the station where the train was in, the engines running, but they weren't for letting anybody on until it was virtually time to depart. It'd been a great day visiting several places all of which were completely different other than the fact they had all served some top quality beer. And I look forward to coming back to Scarborough some time soon....

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