Real Ale, Real Music

I recently got involved in the creation of a special beer to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Grayston Unity in Halifax. Here's the story of  the beer from its inception to a pint in the bar.... The idea for a special commemorative beer first cropped in conversation over the bar and a couple of pints at the Grayston Unity early on this year. " What do you think? ", owner Michael Ainsworth asked me when he told me of his plan, one of several he had by way of celebration in honour of the bar's 10th anniversary later in the year. Sounds like a great idea, I said. And to cut a long story short, with me having bèen one of the long-standing customers, plus my interest in beer, aside from putting in the odd shift behind the bar at the old Grayston and sister bar Meandering Bear over the years, would I like to be involved in coming up with the beer? And of course, I said yes. But first we needed someone to brew the beer. The house beer at the Grayston is...

A visit to a town in a part of the country I love, but not somewhere I had visited before. But in what was only a stop of a few hours, I found a thriving, bustling place with plenty of history, oh, and a few pubs. Welcome to Penrith.... Much as I like visiting places like Manchester, Newcastle, and even London these days, I always like to mix things up in terms of where I go when visiting places for this blog. And so on the basis I had written plenty about the above this year, I needed to go somewhere different. The fact the National League season had concluded ( bar the promotion final ) and the teams relegated to and promoted in to were either known or at least on the cards already gave me a few options for football/blog tie-ins for next season - subject to the usual mid-winter/mid-week no-nos. Cumbria was a place I hadn't been to for over a year, but with Carlisle now down in the National League for another season the option for that city remained, and if the fixtures don't ...

And just like that, Manchester has yet another new pub, which was good enough reason on a blank Sunday for me to have a wander over there to check it out. Here's what I found when I called there and one or two other places in and around the Northern Quarter..... With very little build-up and seemingly little warning to other than those in the know, a new pub has just opened its doors in Manchester. It's been brought to you by the same people who have the excellent Crown & Kettle on the corner of Oldham Road and Great Ancoats Street, and the smaller Rat & Pigeon on Back Piccadilly to which to be honest I have never really warmed. The Badger , which is on Dale Street, only opened a few days ago, on Friday 1st May, with no less a figure than the mayor of Greater Manchester and ' King of the North ',  Andy Burnham, performing the ribbon-cutting duties. He would have found, as I and the rest of those that have already been can testify, an amazing pub interior seeming...