Real Ale, Real Music

It's a place that often gets overlooked by visitors these days, with to-let signs and empty shop fronts a-plenty dominating parts of the city centre. But until recently it had been well before the pandemic since I had paid the city a visit. Here's what I found.... It was a hot day as I queued to buy a ticket at Halifax railway station. The lady with the dog in front of me was wanting to get to Blackburn but had numerous questions for the guy behind the screen, so by the time I'd got my ticket and headed down the stairs to the platform, my train had just departed, the next one going to Bradford was 30 minutes later. Slightly frustrated at this unscheduled delay, I took what seemed to be the best course of action and went to the Ring O' Bells, the nearest pub to Halifax station, which is situated just over 5 minutes walk away. Set beside the town's Minster, the pub is not one that generally features in the usual pub circuits, has hardly if ever featured in the Good Be...

Last week I headed down to South Yorkshire and paid a very rare visit to Doncaster to visit a number of pubs in and around the town centre. Here's what I found.... The last time I visited Doncaster was a few years ago when we were following Halifax Town away and we had to change trains there for our connection to Lincoln. We had about 40 minutes to wait, so we decided to go find a pub. The nearest one - and it was only a few yards away - was a pub called, surprisingly, the Railway. There was some ok hand pump beer on, but that day the pub wore it charms lightly, and didn't really stick in the mind. Whether it clouded my view or not, I don't know, but I never considered giving Donny another look. Until last week. The Railway is still there, and still open. The big difference now is that there is an even nearer pub now if you are changing trains, or if you are not on the train and simply want a good pint, and it is to be found on Platform 3B. This is the Draughtsman, situated...

I have just spent a couple of days in one of the country's most unsung counties, where I stayed in a lovely market town with a good number of pubs in the Good Beer Guide. Here's my thoughts on what I found.... Early in 2020, Uncut magazine ran an interview with musician Robert Wyatt, formerly of the 70's prog-rock bands Soft Machine and Matching Mole, and who briefly bothered the singles charts with covers of The Monkees' I'm a Believer and Elvis Costello's Shipbuilding. Within the article it came out that he and his wife have lived in Louth in Lincolnshire for over 30 years, and as I was looking out for new places to visit, I added it to the list, only for nothing to happen as we became overwhelmed by the pandemic. But the place stuck in my mind and I finally visited last weekend. And in any case a visit made sense as I am technically 25% a  Yellowbelly , as people from Lincolnshire are sometimes called, as my Grandma on my Dad's side was born in the county...

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...