Real Ale, Real Music

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

Which is not what I generally have! I am normally working on a Sunday afternoon pulling pints and pouring wines, served with a smile and a dash of conversation. But on a rare day off, I took myself over to a few places in Manchester to see how Sunday pans out elsewhere.... I had been deliberating over where to go on a rare Sunday off. OK, there were certain factors to take into consideration. First, a splendid Saturday evening watching my friends in their excellent blues rock band Blood, Sweat, and Beers on top form in Brighouse when purely incidentally several pints had been consumed, which meant I was a little slow off the mark. Second, a wish to avoid going through Halifax not because I would normally be working there at the Meandering Bear but because it would be busy with hordes of fans going to the Piece Hall to see Blondie. And thirdly, the current spate of weekend closures as upgrades are being done at Huddersfield railway station meant the number of trains going through Brigho

I recently took a short trip to check out the scene in the West Yorkshire town of Castleford, where I came across a mix of modern bars and traditional pubs in what is a friendly little place. Read on to find out more.... The last time I had visited Castleford would have been back in the 1980's so when the train from Leeds pulled in to the town's station I have to say I was unsure of my bearings. I'd come here because there were two pubs in the Good Beer Guide that I needed to visit to fill in some gaps, which along with one or two more that I'd spotted on WhatPub?  would make up a decent short crawl around what is the fairly compact centre of this town of 45,000 or so which is situated to the south east of Leeds and a few miles north east of Wakefield. The town is situated close to the confluence of the rivers Aire and Calder and it was here that the Romans built a fort and established the first settlement in the area. The Anglo-Saxons later occupied the area but for ce