Real Ale, Real Music

With a mere two weeks to go before the 2026-27 National League season kicks off a few of our group of Halifax Town supporters went on an away day to discuss our prospects and sample a few beers in a wander around a number of pubs on the fringes of Manchester's Northern Quarter.... We were arriving on a number of different trains, so as I was due to arrive earliest I said I would see everyone in the Victoria Tap, which is not just a great meeting place due to its location at the eponymous station, but always worth popping in for a beer and its discerning, eclectic soundtrack. It does have a regular churn of visitors and there is always the chance of seeing into someone you know here. And on this occasion as I waited for the boys to arrive as I nursed a pint of Coleys Pub Ale (NBSS 3) I bumped into a guy who used to work at the Buffet Bar in Stalybridge a few years ago who has since moved on to be a schoolteacher in Stockport. Always nice to catch up with people you haven't seen ...

CAMRA have brought out a new, words-based, beer scoring system, about which I have my doubts. But alongside that I have just enjoyed what has been almost certainly the best weekend of music in my life. And what's even better is that it was close to home in Halifax. ... Regular readers may have spotted that I often  refer to scores in terms of quality for the beers that I have been drinking on my travels, a numeric system that CAMRA have been using for years. Whilst it is of course going to inevitably be subjective, they have recently come up with a new words-based system which to me seems a bit too simplistic. I would always qualify my scores under the old style with words, but I am not sure if the new scheme is maybe a case of dumbing down too much. Anyway, here it is for you to decide for yourselves.... It also reminded me that adjectives these days are often used differently to how they were in years gone by, or different ones are used to what was normal a few years ago. Ha...

This was my first-ever visit to the administrative centre and county town of North Yorkshire, which sits between York and Darlington on the main East Coast railway line. Read on to see what I found.... It was another hot day in yet another spell of above-average temperatures and I had decided to take advantage of Brighouse Railway Station's elevation as replacement for Huddersfield which was closed for the weekend as part of the ongoing upgrade of the Trans-Pennine Line. This meant that there were plenty of additional services to destinations that do not have a direct service from Brighouse, such as the one I caught around lunchtime which was heading to Redcar Central. I didn't go as far as Redcar, alighting instead a few stations before there at Northallerton. This was my first ever visit to this North Yorkshire market town and administrative centre of around 17,000 people, but the Good Beer Guide had three pubs in it with several others in the town so I reckoned it would be w...

A few bits and pieces this time around. Lunch at an award-winning pub, some thoughts on the passing of Humphrey Smith, the owner of Samuel Smiths Brewery in Tadcaster, and a return to one of Halifax's most popular pubs a few months into new ownership to see how things are going.... I had visited the Highland Laddie earlier in the year and had decided that when I next visited I would l try some of the highly-acclaimed food at this award-winning pub tucked away to the west of Leeds city centre between the Kirkstall and Burley Roads. I had originally booked for the beginning of June with lunch here followed by 20/20 cricket at Headingly where Yorkshire and Lancashire. Howevèr waiting for a blocked drain to be cleared scuppered that plan, so I had re-scheduled another attempt for a few weeks later when Yorkshire were playing host to Durham.  And so I duly made it to the flat-iron shaped Highland Laddie for lunch. A brief recap : This former Peter Walker pub ( who became part of Allied...

The opening day of a new pub in Manchester provided an excellent excuse to have a wander around what is now another fashionable part of the city, but also one with a rich and fascinating history. And so come and join me and see what I found.... My plans to come to Manchester for a day out were being thwarted at every turn, or so it seemed. The train from Halifax would be half an hour or so longer, due to a replacement bus service from Rochdale. Same from Brighouse. No worries, I thought, I'll go from Huddersfield, and I'll get the 549 bus there from the end of the road. Plan formulated. But no!. I arrived at the main road, to see the bus sailing past. I was contemplating my next move when my luck changed when a neighbour kindly offered me a lift to Brighouse, from where I could get a different bus in to Huddersfield. And within half an hour or so, all was good, I was on a train to Piccadilly and passing through some lovely countryside. After arriving at Piccadilly, I wandered u...