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,...