Real Ale, Real Music

I re-visited a favourite haunt last week for the first time in over two years, and it brought home to me just how the best pubs and bars have that ability to become more than just a place for a pint .... After over two years, I finally made a return to the Buffet Bar at Stalybridge Railway Station. And it was a big deal, as f or over 14 years it was where I went for a pint after work, to chill out, let off steam, chat, laugh, and put the pressures of the working day behind me. A plac e of faces who I began to recognise when I first went in who became friends over the years. And then there were the familiar faces that I would see regularly, maybe exchange pleasantries, but never really got to know, and those that the US sociologist Mark Granovetter would call  the weak ties  that made up the frequent arrivals and departures, our routines often coinciding, influenced but not dictated by the happenings on the tracks outside. Stalybridge Buffet Bar is one of the few remaining Vict...

The first-ever Town music festival has just ended in Halifax. It has been a fantastic weekend with some excellent music and events that will linger long in the memory for the hundreds that attended and no doubt for many of those that took part.... The Festival officially started on Thursday, but I suppose for me it started and ended at two different pubs both in the Calder Valley rather than Halifax. As I was due to be in conversation with several of our guests, I had reached out to them in advance to get an idea of how they would like to do it, any topics they would like to cover, etc. And so that was why, on a miserable, drizzly early evening last Wednesday I visited the Golden Lion in Todmorden to have a pre-festival chat with Richard Walker (who everyone calls Waka). Over an excellent pint of Big Trip - a new brewery from Ancoats - an expected 20 minutes conversation stretched to over an hour and a half, giving me plenty of ideas for our conversation on Saturday. Fast forward 24 ho...

The local festival season is in full swing with the Halifax and Calderdale Beer Festival taking place the other week, whilst upcoming this weekend is the first ever Town festival, a grassroots music festival curated by the Grayston Unity in Halifax which is taking place at several venues across the town.... The Halifax and Calderdale CAMRA Beer Festival was held at the back end of September in the Viaduct Theatre, which is situated in the huge former mill complex of Dean Clough in Halifax. Stretching across the narrow Hebble Valley, the buildings that once housed the biggest carpet factory in the world, Crossleys, is now home to insurance companies, offices, bars, and restaurants, as well as the theatre, and is a thriving part of Halifax, situated just a few minutes' walk from the town centre. It was the first beer festival that the branch had held since 2019, and over 60 cask ales were on offer, with 19 of them being served from a wooden cask which has become a regular and popular...

Things are certainly not easy at the moment in the world of pubs and beers, but even amidst a difficult and uncertain backdrop, it is heartening to discover that there are still some good news stories.... We have become used to hearing about pubs and breweries closing down ( only in the past couple of days it has emerged that long-established Cornish brewers Skinners have called in the administrators ), but even in these difficult times there are still some good news stories about that lift the spirits and gladden the heart. In the last few days, news broke that a much-loved brewery that had closed earlier in the year has been bought and will start brewing again, whilst I have been along to a couple of pubs that for different reasons had closed, but have re-opened in recent months, reinvigorated and raring to go.   Shockwaves were felt across Sheffield and way beyond the South Yorkshire city when the closure of the much-loved Kelham Island Brewery due to financial pressures was ann...

I recently took a short trip across the Pennines to visit one of the largest towns in Lancashire and check out some of the pubs in an area with a rich and fascinating history. Here's what I found.... Oldham doesn't generally get a load of great press these days, but I have to say I have always had some affection for this former cotton town which sprawls across a large area to the north east of Manchester before it climbs towards the Pennine hills. A proud town, with solid roots borne out of the Industrial Revolution, the mills and associated industries that grew up around them gave the town some heft in the 19th and well into the 20th century. For a time, it was the world centre for cotton manufacturing: in 1871 the town had more spindles than anywhere else in the world other than the United States but having reached its peak in the 1920's with up to 360 mills in operation, the industry began a slow decline through the rest of the 20th century, although it continued to attr...

I went to York Beer Festival the other day, only a few days after visiting the lovely but very small beer festival at The Blue Pig near Hebden Bridge. It was a much grander affair with around 450 beers available over the forthcoming days, so you approach it from a different point of view. Here's my thoughts, along with some other bits of news and other stuff.... A guy nonchalantly rode through the huge marquee passing the bar on a bicycle. Meanwhile, an earnest CAMRA member was trying to welcome a group of us to judge some of the beers available at the festival, but his efforts were, initially, in vain, as one thing or another distracted him from what we thought was his main purpose here. Next up, a low loader pulled up across the way to collect some key kegs which appeared to be empty. And then a group of guys dressed in medieval-style peasant dress armed with Viking drinking horns and a flag marched through the marquees bellowing a football-style shout of  "Rud-ga-ate" ...