No, it's not some simian vagabond, or a mythical beast from years gone by. It is actually a private members club situated in a village in a heavily-wooded valley to the south of Huddersfield. And it's rather good, as I discovered when I paid it a visit recently. I have also been catching up with some of the pubs in the town centre....
Armitage Bridge is a village a mile or two to the south of Huddersfield in an off-shoot of the Holme Valley, situated between the villages of Berry Brow, Netherton, and South Crosland in an area that has traditionally been known as Big Valley. It is home to the former woollen mill of John Brooke and Sons, reputedly the oldest family business in the country, having been founded in 1541. The site of the mill is now the home of the Yorkshire Technology and Office Park. The village church is St Pauls, whilst the local cricket club is a well-established member of the Huddersfield Cricket League. You can approach from Lockwood as I did by following the road to Meltham under the viaduct and through a succession of very tall and well-established trees, and then take a sharp left just after you pass a nursery run by the Kids Planet group on the site of the former Big Valley Garage, the last building in the area to reference the name before it closed. As an alternative approach via the A616 road towards Honley and Holmfirth, turn off to the right next to the Laxmi Restaurant.
I turned off, and then stopped to let a car through that was climbing up the hill past a line of parked cars opposite a row of houses. A car at the bottom of the line flashed me to come down, and so a few minutes later I was parking up at the bottom of the hill with the Armitage Bridge Monkey Club in sight a little further down the hill. A stream gurgled down at the side of the road, with a line of cottages each having their own little bridge over it to their garden gates. Tall trees and houses on the steep wooded hillside as I looked around enhanced the hideaway, bolthole impression of the place.
I approached the club, which is situated on the corner of a row of solid stone terraces with a small car park across the road. "How ya doin', lad?" said a guy a bit younger than me as he came out for a smoke. I said I was fine, and walked into a busy room with a lot of people stood around the bar which is just to the left as you enter. I wormed my way through the friendly scrum of lads and lassies of mixed ages and alighting on an empty slot at the bar I ordered a pint of the house ale from a very friendly tall guy who was doing the honours behind the bar. It was brewed by Empire, based a mile or two away over the hill beside the canal in Slaithwaite. "The guy who owns this place works at the brewery so he managed to get a beer named for us.", the barman told me. Apparently it is one of Empire's best-known beers, Golden Warrior, their 3.8% flagship pale, rebadged, and is a very pale, easy drinking session ale, created with an eclectic mix of Anglo-US hops. It was in excellent form, definitely worth a NBSS 4 rating.
What struck me most about the Monkey Club was the friendliness of all who were there. A guy sat at the bar in front of my table was engrossed in Man Utd v Fulham in what was the first Premier League match of the season on one of the screens around the downstairs room (apparently there is another room with a pool table upstairs). Like me, you were free to sit on your own and take it all in. It had the feel of the best of a village local and the best of a decent micropub, and I look forward to calling in again soon. It has won multiple local CAMRA club of the year awards over the years as the certificates on the wall testify. As I was leaving the guy behind the bar called out that they have their annual Monkeyfest charity beer festival on the 7th of September when they will have another bar in the car park across the way and a multitude of real ales on offer. Unfortunately I am away that day, otherwise I would have been strongly tempted to pay a visit. If you do fancy it going, despite it being a club there is no need to be a member to visit this little monkey at its home in Big Valley.
Family circumstances have dictated that I have been in the Huddersfield area a lot of the time recently which has given me the opportunity to catch up with some of the pubs in the town and see how they are getting on. I have spent a lot of time in the town centre over the years, although not so much in the last year or two. and unlike a lot of towns the real ale pub scene has been pretty static over that time with very few changes, other than the coming and going of the Corner, and the resurrection of the County under the ownership of the Beerhouses Group who already had the Sportsman on the other side of the town centre. Much of the real ale in the town centre is sold in traditional pubs, with a separate eco-system of modern bars catering for the non-real ale drinker. Unlike other places, for whatever reasons, Huddersfield and much of the surrounding area has remained a micropub-free zone and you would have to travel to Brighouse or Elland across the border in Calderdale to find the nearest.
One of Huddersfield's best known pubs and one I have visited many times over the years, is the Grove, just to the north side of the ring road and opposite the town's leisure centre. I called in the other Saturday evening, and found the place to be very quiet, with just a few imbibers dotted about here and there. This would not have been the case a few years ago when its incredible range of cask beers were a big draw. Admittedly, it isn't term time, with students having traditionally been a significant proportion of the clientele, but even so. The beer list, on at the wall at the far end of the first room you come to after entering, with a second list on the wall beside the continuation of the bar in the second room, was severely depleted compared to how it used to be, with only 7 of the 20 available hand pumps in use (although according to the Good Beer Guide there are normally only 11 cask beers available). I suppose it is a reflection of the times, though, and as I have said many times over the years, there is no point in having all your hand pumps in use if the footfall doesn't justify it and you risk selling old, tired beer or simply pouring it away due to lack of demand. But to see a pub with the reputation of the Grove in this situation is rather sad. I have to say though that there was nothing wrong with my beer, the single hop Columbus from local favourites, Mallinsons, which I gave a NBSS 3.5 rating. It featured along with other cask beers from Vocation, Oakham, Thornbridge, and Brew York. There was though a lengthier keg list with beers on offer from the likes of Deya, Cloudwater, Thornbridge, Vault City, Neon Raptor, and Stone, a reflection of the fact that beers in this format are less dependant on a quick turnover than cask. I will have to pay another visit when the students are back in town.
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| Quiet times at the Grove, Huddersfield |
Across town, beyond St George's Square and the railway station, is the Sportsman, which seems to be at the centre of most things beer-related in Huddersfield these days. The pub dates from the 1930's and was given a makeover in the 1950's by then owners Hammonds, who eventually were taken over by Bass Charrington who gained a strong presence in the Huddersfield area. In contrast to the Grove, it was much busier and more lively when I walked in a little later that evening, with a full bank of hand pumps on the attractive curved bar which faces you as you go in to the main room from the corner entrance. There are 8 beers on hand pump, with Taylors Boltmaker on permanently, and 7 guests which usually includes beers from Vocation and Thornbridge. I ordered a pint of Pennine Pale, an old North-Eastern favourite from Allendale. I took it into one of the attractive smaller rooms off the main room, the one to the right with its traditional banquette seating and original push buttons in the wall which were traditionally used to ring for service. My beer was in cracking form, fruity and refreshing (NBSS 4), which prompted me to get another one, with a half of the delicious Milk Stout from Bristol Beer Factory (NBSS 3.5) drawing the evening's proceedings to a satisfactory conclusion.
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| The Sportsman, Huddersfield |
As I mentioned earlier, the Sportsman is part of the Beerhouses group, who also have the Buffet Bar at Stalybridge and the West Riding at Dewsbury within their portfolio. A couple of years ago they acquired another pub in Huddersfield town centre, the long-established County situated across the road from the Town Hall. This is a former John Smith's house with traces of their ownership reflected in an exterior light and the Magnet-etched windows, whilst inside it has been refurbished in a pleasing modern style with a few quirky touches here and there. I called in with a friend the other evening for a pre-gig pint, where we were able to enjoy a pint of Doubtless, a 4% pale from RedWillow, a well-balanced ale with citrus and mango notes courtesy of the Citra and Amarillo hops. The pub was fairly quiet, but for a Friday night the whole town seemed quiet as we walked there. A few small groups came in as we were enjoying our pints, but the overall vibe here is a relaxed one, and with the quality of the beer on offer on both cask and keg (with Pollys available which to me is always a plus point), the County, which is the local CAMRA Pub of the Year for 2024, is well-worth making a detour to call in.
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| The County, Huddersfield |
One place that I haven't called in on my most recent visits, which is rather unusual as it is a place I have probably been more than anywhere else in the town, is the King's Head at the railway station. Part of the reason has been due to the weekend closures of the station that have become routine over the summer due to ongoing work to create a new platform and upgrade the facilities. The pub, located on the right hand side of the attractive station building, has remained open throughout as has the bar to the left, despite the barricades and reduced visitors resulting from the situation. And the pub has very much continued to be an excellent place for a pint. I last called in with a couple of friends a few weeks ago when, despite all the disruption, the place was rammed and so we ended up drinking on the steps outside. I'd gone for a pint of Farmer's Blonde, brewed by Bradfield on a working farm on the hills near Sheffield. This is the beer that has enabled Bradfield to become one of the biggest breweries in South Yorkshire, and when you see how many places it is sold, that is not surprising. With my normal go-to at the King's, Ringmaster, from Huddersfield's increasingly under-the-radar Magic Rock, undergoing a barrel change, I'd gone for my usual second choice from the 9 or so cask ales available in this tastefully-renovated bar which continues to thrive following the death last year of previous owner Bruce Travis. The beer was in decent form (NBSS 3), as you would expect in this friendly bar as the staff continue to work to the high standards set by their late boss.
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| King's Head, Huddersfield, prior to the recent workings |
Meanwhile, across the other side of the station, the Head of Steam, part of the popular chain run by Hartlepool-based brewers Camerons, was granted a slot in the fairly unchanging Huddersfield selection in the 2024 CAMRA Good Beer Guide. It is a well-established pub which was one of the first Head of Steam bars in the country when it originally opened. Like the Kings Head, it is a popular spot, but with its charms spread over a larger space encompassing four separate rooms each with their own distinct character, with toilets along a corridor which reaches towards the main part of the station. As you might expect, the beers on offer include a number from Camerons including Strongarm, their flagship bitter, often augmented by a number from their small-batch pilot brewery Tooth & Claw. But with up to 14 real ales on offer, there are plenty of beers from other breweries as well. Taylors Dark Mild is on the bar permanently and with other milds featuring regularly this commitment has seen the pub crowned this year's local CAMRA Mild Pub of the Year. The HoS also has a extensive bottled beer range along with a wide choice of keg. Railway paraphernalia decorates the walls along with old photographs. Whilst the place can get busy like the King's Head, particularly at weekends when the trains are running and the visitors include groups doing the Transpennine Real Ale Trail, it can also be a relaxing spot for a pint, particularly in the room off to the right as you go in. Here I enjoyed an excellent pint of Northern Monk's A Little Faith, a sessionable 4% ABV scaled-down version of their best-selling hazy NEIPA, Faith, unusually in cask form, and very good it was too (NBSS 3.5).
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| Head of Steam, Huddersfield |
The final stop on this whistle-stop tour around Huddersfield town centre is Arcade Beers, a couple of minutes walk away from the station on Station Street. This is a popular bar with exposed brick walls with an impressive list of keg beers on draught, plus an extensive range of cans and bottles from the fridge. No cask ale is available, but it does have a friendly atmosphere with a great soundtrack and was busy with most tables taken when I called in the other Saturday evening. From a list which featured amongst others beers from Northern Monk, Tartarus, Lervig, Zapato, and Vault City, I ordered two-thirds of Catch the Colours Everywhere, a 4.8% hazy American Pale from Verdant which I have to say was extremely drinkable.
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| Arcade Beers, Huddersfield |
Before anyone says anything, yes I know I've not included the Rat and Ratchet, but I simply haven't had chance to get there recently. Likewise the excellent Star at Folly Hall, although you could argue that it isn't really in the town centre. But it does give me a couple of excuses to get back over there visiting again when I get the opportunity....
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