Real Ale, Real Music

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...

A return to the famous Lancashire town of Wigan for the first time since I visited the town's beer festival in that strange period when Covid cases were increasing and rumours of an impending lockdown started to swirl around. And so with no festival on this time (or so I thought) my plan was to take in a number of pubs in the town centre that I'd not visited last time.... Last time I visited Wigan I had introduced the town as follows: "Home of the so-called Pie-Eaters. Home of Uncle Joe's Mint Balls. The location of the former Empress Ballroom, which in the 1970's morphed into Wigan Casino, the spiritual home of Northern Soul. A town whose famous people include George Formby, Stuart Maconie, Andy Gregory, Kay Burley, and Georgie Fame. A traditional rugby league town. A former mining and mill town. The inspiration for George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier , in which he highlighted the poor living conditions of Britain's working class. A historic town, with ...