Real Ale, Real Music

Or to be more precise a couple of hours, as I took a morning train to this historic market town and former textile centre beside the River Aire a few miles north west of Bradford and checked in to a few of the local pubs and bars before footballing matters took over later in the day.... I arrived at Bingley's railway station just before 11.30 on a sunny Spring Saturday morning. I'd caught the 1043 train from Halifax to Bradford Interchange, then walked through the expansive newly-pedestrianised streets of the 2025 City of Culture to Forster Square Station, where I was just in time to board a Skipton-bound train before it began wending its way up the Aire Valley. This hadn't been the original plan, but when I arrived at Halifax station I found that the train I'd booked on, the 1038 to Leeds, had been cancelled due to a fault with the train ( yawn ). So I had to hastily re-plan my route, but the fact that I managed to get to Bingley almost 20 minutes earlier than the rout...

Last weekend I went with a group of friends to Manchester for the annual Good Friday beer trip, and once again a good time was had by all as we visited a number of the city's finest pubs, bars, and brewery taprooms.... The day began for some of us with a decent breakfast at the Station Cafe in Brighouse, following which we caught the train from the adjacent railway station to Manchester Victoria, where made a beeline for the Victoria Tap  in order that we could meet up with other members of our party who had come in on different trains from from Bradford and  Huddersfield. Here I bought a pint of a 4% session IPA called Hot Lick from Green Arches, who brew close to Victoria at Red Bank, having been set up by some of the team who worked at the now-closed Beatnikz Republic brewery. Their beers are seen with increasing regularity in the pubs and bars in and around the city centre, and they seem to have a beer on the bar at the Victoria Tap every time I go in these days. It w...

There are several places that I have visited over the past few months over that have not made into a blog for various reasons but are well worth a visit if you are in the area. Here's a few of them.... It happens quite regularly. Often when on a rail journey where I have to change trains I have enough time for a pint while I wait, so I call in a station buffet bar or nearby pub. If I end up writing a blog, to include this particular place may well not fit with the context or general rhythm of the piece and so the visit never gets a mention, even if the place or beer would otherwise merit it. Or it may be somewhere local or random that you visit on its own that isn't easily accommodated within a blog. So I decided to pull a few of these together that I have visited in the past few months, with most of them falling into the first category, and a couple fitting into the second. One place that I have called in a couple of times this year and numerous times in the past is the York T...

A brand new area for me as we headed way down south and visited Southampton and Eastleigh where we came across some excellent beers and pubs in and amongst taking in some rather uninspiring football.... Last weekend I went what was probably the greatest distance I'd ever undertaken to watch FC Halifax Town, although it wasn't the longest journey in terms of time, that being an FA Cup tie many years ago at Ipswich where we had to endure an interminable return journey after a 3-1 defeat through the vast expanses of rural East Anglia where the train never climbed above the pace of an asthmatic snail attempting to climb the Matterhorn. For this trip, we'd left Halifax at 10.40, arrived in London just before 2, and then caught a train from Waterloo to Southampton Airport Parkway, from where we got a taxi to the Travelodge in Eastleigh, ironically right opposite the railway station, our home for the next 18 hours or so. It had just gone 4.30, and with FC Halifax Town's  telev...

I had been in Rochdale on a fleeting visit only last week en route to watch FC Halifax Town away at Oldham, but having been made aware of a few new establishments in the town selling real ale I decided to take the opportunity of a free Sunday and make a quick return.... I was later catching the train than I'd planned from Halifax, but fortunately it is only half an hour to Rochdale on the fastest trains, and with a regular connecting tram services even on a Sunday it doesn't take long at all to get to the heart of Rochdale town centre. Whilst the approach down Drake Street with its forlorn and rundown look with boarded up premises in and amongst the takeaways, vape shops, and Polski Skleps doesn't look promising at all, as you arrive at the tram terminus things start to brighten up. In fact, I think it is no exaggeration to say that one of the finest open urban spaces in the country is the area around Rochdale's newly refurbished town hall. After several years shuttere...