Real Ale, Real Music

Ok, this is something a bit different as I take you to Huddersfield and the Colne Valley and then to Newcastle. Some live stuff written about the place I am sat in as I am away for a few days. So more random I suppose, some of it more like a diary, with a recurring theme of snacks.... Last Wednesday , a group of us who either work, rest, and/or play in the Grayston Unity and Meandering Bear in Halifax headed out for the afternoon to the nearby Colne Valley. We were heading to Marsden which with the ongoing Huddersfield Station works involved catching a train to Mirfield and a 35 minute wait to catch our connecting train. Needless to say, we made the most of our wait, wandering over to the nearby Navigation for some refreshment. Back at the station we boarded the train and after a journey of around 15 minutes, we were duly decanted at Marsden on what was a bright, sunny, and warm day for early October. Down the hill to the Riverhead we went after a short diversion along the canal to vie...

After a night and afternoon in Worthing, our Saturday evening saw us venturing to another place in the county of Sussex. Read on to find out about our evening in Chichester, visiting some of the city's real ale pubs and a few other bits and pieces.... Chichester is the county town and only city in West Sussex, situated around 18 miles to the west of Worthing and 30 miles from Brighton. There is a regular train connection from Worthing, and our journey to this historic city took us less than half an hour. We arrived in still bright sunshine and as we left the station we had the inevitable wait for the gates of the level crossing to lift so we could enter the town centre. We walked up a street with plenty of shops, restaurants, and the odd pub ( although none on my list ), arriving after a few minutes at an old market cross. This was Chichester Cross, which is a type of butter cross familiarly seen in old market towns. It was built in 1501 as a covered marketplace and stands at the i...

This was all brand new to me, a visit to an area that I had never been to before as we headed down to the Sussex Riviera in search of some good beer and a win at football. Read on to find out how the trip unfolded.... I had maybe been to Sussex once before. I have vague memories of once catching a ferry back from Dieppe in Northern France to the small port of Newhaven but not much else, so I assume we didn't linger. And so therefore, in terms of exploring the county, this visit was definitely the first proper visit I had made here. And, no surprises, the rationale behind the trip was the first-ever visit by FC Halifax Town to the Sussex Community Transport Stadium, aka the home of Worthing FC, who had been promoted as champions from National League South at the end of last season. Three of us had travelled down from the north via the Grand Central on Friday morning, arriving in London after lunch. We caught the tube to Victoria, then another one for one stop to St James for a pint....

As a recent report revealed that sales of cask beer are down year-on-year, I spent an afternoon in York where it appeared to be as popular as ever, not least at the city's annual beer festival.... The spectacular and magnificent bulk of York Minster has been a constant presence in the city for hundreds of years, keeping a watch over its citizens and the many thousands of visitors that are drawn to the city every year. In its time so many of the significant events in the history of this country have come and gone; the War of the Roses, the English Civil War, the Great Fire of London, the Industrial Revolution, the first and second world wars. Guy Fawkes, who plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament, was born in the city. There is so much history here, from the Romans who first established the settlement here as  Eboracum in AD71, to the Vikings, to the Normans, to the railways, to the chocolate barons of Rowntree and Terrys that seemingly every turn of a corner in its ancient str...

I went to Manchester last week on a team day out from the Grayston Unity/Meandering Bear in Halifax and rather than traipsing around the usual suspects we mixed it up with one or two places I don't get to visit that often.... We normally have a team day out in September after the summer gigs at the Piece Hall in Halifax, which being very close to both bars, bring in a lot of extra business. And whilst I don't generally do as much as I used to during that period, I always get tasked with sorting out the pubs and bars to visit on our trips. And so this time I felt that we should mix it up a bit and include some places that might appeal to those who are not particularly interested in cask ale. Manchester had been chosen as the venue this time, and whilst we had been before, with more recent visits having been to Liverpool and York, it was our first team visit here for a year or two.  We arrived at Victoria via the train from Halifax around 1pm. DJ Turnip was already there, having ...