Real Ale, Real Music

A return to a well-known station buffet bar and a first visit to a new craft bar are featured in this latest set of ramblings.... Another Friday night, the start of another weekend, and I decided to follow the pattern of the last few weeks and head off on the train to a place I hadn't visited for a while. And this time I decided to pay a visit to the West Riding Refreshment Rooms in Dewsbury, which is only a few minutes ride away from Brighouse. I alighted the train and crossed over the bridge to the other platform and whilst I could have gained access from it, I decided to go outside and take a picture of what is a pretty imposing building. The pavement area outside the bar had been re-flagged and plenty of picnic tables were laid out, some of which were occupied, and as I walked past one of them I spotted a mate, with whom I had a few pints before getting the train back. Imposing: The West Riding Refreshment Rooms, Dewsbury I went in to get a beer. The bar is situated in the midd...

Over the past few days in and amongst the usual day to day stuff I have been on a leaving do, attended a CAMRA presentation, and visited a beer festival. These are all things that a couple of years ago would have scarcely raised an eyebrow, but such have been the limits on our social activities over the past 18 months or so that each one was anticipated with a certain degree of excitement.... Leeds was buzzing in the late afternoon sun last Friday when I got off the train to attend a leaving do for one of my work colleagues. I had arrived a little earlier than the arranged meeting time, and anticipating - correctly - that our likely calling points over the coming hours would be devoid of any decent cask or craft beer, I decided to try out the Bankers Cat, Thornbridge's relatively new outpost in Leeds, situated minutes from the station on Boar Lane. I had never had the opportunity to visit before, it actually opened in December 2019 but successive lockdowns restricted the periods it...

Less than 10 minutes on the train from my base in Brighouse is Mirfield, and I went over recently to check what this small town in the Lower Calder Valley has to offer these days.... It's a place I have driven through for years, hardly giving it a second thought, visited on several occasions in the past, but with 4 entries in the current Good Beer Guide, two of which I had never visited, and it being so close to home, I realised this town of around 20,000 souls was way overdue a visit. It is also the birthplace of world-famous actor Sir Patrick Stewart, Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek: The Next Generation no less, former Chancellor of Huddersfield University, and plenty more, as well as Brian Robinson, the first British cyclist to win a stage in the Tour De France, way back in 1958 and long before the more recent ascendancy of the sport in this country. The weather earlier in the day had been showery and changeable, but late afternoon blossomed into a bright sunny evening, meaning m...

I love visiting the Lake District, having been dozens of times over the years, but I can count my visits to Kendal, the town that lies at the southern tip over the area, on the fingers of one hand. So I decided to go along to check out the beer and pub scene....  I had never really considered visiting Kendal for the day. In fact, embarrassingly,  I had only found out recently it had its own railway station, but then a recent blog by  Martin Taylor  suggested it might be worth a visit for its pubs. It is also home to the new Lakes Brewery, formed by some of the old brewing team at  Hawkshead  and so with a few other breweries based in and around the town it suggested there is maybe something happening in this corner of the South Lakes, although I learnt during the day that other than a few collaborations with other breweries, Lakes haven't really got going yet. I caught the train from Halifax to Preston, then changed and caught a Pendolino heading up the Wes...

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...