Real Ale, Real Music

I made a welcome return to the North East the other week to catch up with family and managed to spend a day sampling some of the area's wonderful beers. Here are my recollections.... The last time I had been to Newcastle was way back in July 2020. Like most people, I haven't ventured very far over the subsequent months and so the two hour journey was felt like a proper odyssey, punctuated by a higher than I remember percentage of idiot drivers. I reached my hotel on the Quayside, dropped off the car and bag, and headed into the city centre to get the metro. Walking up Side, many more places were open - though not the Crown Posada, unfortunately - than on my last visit. A carpet of artificial grass and seating and tables lined much of Grey Street as I made my way to Monument, giving the city centre a real buzz in the warm lunchtime sunshine. The place was coming back to life. I had decided I would check out a new micro pub that had opened up at North Shields since I had visited ...

A legendary Calderdale pub re-opened its doors a few weeks ago. As a former regular, like many others I have been to check it out. Here's my thoughts.... Sat on a prominent corner in Brookfoot, near Brighouse, the Red Rooster makes for an imposing sight, especially when approached from the front. Even when closed, which it had been since March 2019, it still retained its air of importance, a silent sentinel to a community it was not able to welcome through its doors.  After several months, rumours began to swirl around the area that the pub had been bought and would re-open. Nothing happened, and then we were into the pandemic, when the Rooster was in the same position as every pub that had closed because of lockdown. And then at the back end of 2020, the rumours started up again, only this time with more substance to them. It seemed a family of builders from nearby Shelf had bought the pub with a view to restoring and re-opening it, and then we were into another lockdown. However,...

A return after several years to the so-called 'Gateway to the Dales' as Skipton likes to call itself, with the inevitable visits to some of the North Yorkshire market town's drinking establishments.... I was chatting with a couple of friends one day last week and I said that given my post-retirement working routine I was planning to use one of my days off during the week to have a day out somewhere. I said I hadn't anywhere in mind for my next jaunt and they suggested Skipton, a place which I hadn't been to for years, and I quickly decided that I would take them up on their suggestion. So Friday came around and I got the train from Brighouse into Leeds and then a quick platform move to catch a Morecambe-bound train which called at Skipton en route. I emerged from the train which had a mix of travellers including walkers heading for the Dales and holidaymakers with suitcases heading to the coast, recalling the time when Morecambe was known as "Bradford-on-Sea...

A brand new bar, a familiar bar under new ownership, and a classic city centre local make up the list of places visited as I once again venture across the Pennines....  I was on the train. The journey was nearly over. Familiar buildings glided into view. The outline of the Marble Arch stood beyond the old tobacco warehouses. I smiled to myself, giddy with excitement that I was going somewhere different after all these months. We reached Victoria, I stood up, and lurched towards the doors as the train slowed to a bumpy halt. I had a couple of targets on this return to Manchester, only my second visit in well over 12 months. The previous day Cragg Vale-based Vocation Brewery had opened a dedicated bar in the city, whilst a few months ago Aberdeen brewers Fierce had taken over the premises formerly occupied by Marble Brewery at 57 Thomas Street in the Northern Quarter. Two brewery-led bars bringing even more choice to the one of the country's best drinking cities. It was a promising l...

The iconic Grayston Unity in Halifax celebrates its 5th anniversary this week, and it is hard to remember life before it existed, such has been its impact on the town's bar scene, its drinkers, the wider community, and much further beyond. As someone who has spent a lot of time there I have been looking back over the past few years, and here are some thoughts as it moves into the next exciting phase of its life.... Well, where do I start? I have written many times in these blogs over the past 5 years about The Grayston Unity. Indeed, back in October, with another lockdown looming, and as the Grayston went into a self-imposed hibernation a couple of weeks early I wrote the following:  "...the Grayston is something special. Yes, the staff are very friendly, beer is good, the gin selection is vast, the pork pies pretty decent, the soundtrack can be amazing, and it attracts an eclectic mix of customers. I have made a lot of friends and met some really interesting people there. The...

A stylish new bar has just opened in Halifax, and early indications are that it will quickly become an important part of the West Yorkshire town's burgeoning and vibrant bar scene. And as you might expect I have been along to check it out.... There can't be many bars across the country that actually opened their doors for the first time ever immediately after lockdown eased last month, but that is exactly the situation with Dukes Halifax, which is situated on Russell Arcade near the northern entrance of the town's beautiful Victorian market, just across from the excellent Temperance Movement cafe. The plan had been that owners Sean and Elly would sign for the former charity shop on the day the first lockdown was announced in March last year, but it was actually August before they were finally able to put pen to paper.  Over the subsequent months, the building was slowly transformed into a classy and tasteful bar, with vibrant colours, light wood, exposed brickwork, and pot...

The impact of bad weather. Charity run by an ex-landlord. The thoughts of a newly-recruited bar keep. Two weeks on since pubs re-opened on an outdoors-only basis, here are a few stories from a special corner of Yorkshire.... We have been lucky, very lucky. Since the pubs could re-open on an outdoor service basis from the 12th of April, the weather has been generally unseasonably settled and sunny, with only the sharp drop in temperature from early evening serving as a reminder that we are actually in early spring. And so it was a timely and sobering reminder when a huge deluge hit one evening last week that running a hospitality business based on an outside-only model at a time of year when there are potential heavy showers and plunging temperatures in the mix was never going to be all beer and skittles.  And that's even if you are sitting in a government-permitted blow-through marquee next to a heater as I discovered last Tuesday when I was enjoying a pint at the Dusty Miller near...