Real Ale, Real Music

There has been a real buzz around the North West and beyond over the past few days as news has broken that a former iconic Manchester cask beer will soon be making a welcome return to some of the area's pubs and bars.... In recent years, especially in the wake of the 2017 Arena tragedy in 2017, there has been a revival of the use of Manchester's traditional worker bee logo on products, signage, and advertising,  culminating in the roll-out of the Bee Network as the city and surrounding area's increasingly integrated bus service. In the days that followed that horrendous event which shook the city to its core and still reverberates today, the city rallied round its traditional logo like a collective comfort blanket. It became a unifying symbol for all that was good and positive about this proud city, the spirit of which has continued to be embraced by locals and visitors alike, such these past two weekends when the hordes descended on Heaton Park to see those noisy lads from...

I spent another warm evening in Leeds the other week in which I visited a few pubs, had a decent pizza at a place I hadn't visited for a while, and went to see a band at the Brudenell. Here's how the evening unfolded.... It was another warm day, although not actually classed as a heatwave, but after weeks of hot weather they all seem to blur into one. A look back of the last few blogs I have done seems to suggest that; it was hot when I went to Burnley in early May. hot when I went to North Wales in the middle of that month, hot when I went to Hull a couple of weeks later, hot when I went to London to see LCD Soundsystem in June, and hot when I went to York a couple of weeks ago to watch some cricket. In fact I had been thinking of going to Leeds again this last weekend to watch some more cricket, but the incessant heat and the resultant disturbed sleep over several nights had induced a sense of lethargy. But on that warm evening the other week I visited a few of the options fo...

I spent a splendid few hours last Sunday watching some County Championship cricket at York's beautiful ground in lovely warm sunshine. Needless to say, a few beers were involved at both the cricket and later on in the city itself.... Cricket and beer are an ideal combination, seemingly symbiotically entwined like bacon and eggs, fish and chips, Laurel and Hardy, Morecambe and Wise, Anderson and Broad. I could go on. Ying and Yang. Watching cricket on a sunny day with a few beers is a fine way to pass the time. But no, I had not gone to York Sports Club to drink beer specifically but to watch some of the County Championship Division One game between Yorkshire and Essex which was one of several games allocated to this lovely ground this season. Any beer consumed was purely coincidental.... York has emerged on to the county cricket circuit in the past few years in a reversal of a trend that had seen first-class cricket no longer being played at several other grounds across the county,...

I've just returned from a couple of days in that London, where I combined seeing one of my favourite bands on one of their rare UK visits with visiting a few different parts of the capital, taking in a few pubs along the way.... Sunday morning and it was an early start to catch the train first to Leeds, and then on to London. So first a breakfast at the Station Cafe in Brighouse before wandering around the corner to wait for the train. The temperature had dropped a bit overnight from the extreme heat of the past few days, and it was pleasant waiting in the sunshine which had been joined by some welcome, freshening winds. The train arrived after a bit of a delay, we got to Leeds, and from there it was an event-free journey to Kings Cross. As I emerged from the busy station it was immediately apparent that down here they hadn't had the message re the heatwave, so it felt as warm here as it had done in Yorkshire yesterday. I set off for my Travelodge and gradually realised I had g...

A flying visit to Wharfedale last weekend prompted me to reflect on some of the pubs I have visited over the years in what is one of the most attractive parts of the Yorkshire Dales.... Over the years, certainly up to lockdown, but not as much since, I used to go up to the Yorkshire Dales quite regularly. It was a regular destination for walking, and as all hikers will know, and end of walk drink is part of the routine. One of our frequent haunts was Wharfedale, or more accurately, Upper Wharfedale, which covers the stretch from the source of the Wharfe a few miles north east of Ribblehead  down as far as the large village of Addingham, although for the first 15 miles through generally wilder countryside it is known as Langstrothdale. Further down the valley from Burnsall, around Appletreewick, and Bolton Abbey it becomes heavily-wooded, which is fairly unusual for the Dales, before broadening out as it approaches the towns such as Ilkley and Otley close to the West Yorkshire conur...