Morrissey and Fox have been brewing for little over a year now, the following beers are available all year round, according to the official site, there are also some seasonal drinks that I look forward to tasting too. The beers were the reason for and result of a Channel 4 program in which Morrissey and Fox try to brew the perfect beer. Did they manage? Let’s see.

First of all we’ll look at the Blonde. Brewed at Neil Morrissey and Richard Fox’s microbrewery in North Yorkshire, this was perhaps the biggest ale-based surprise so far this year. The bumph on the bottle describes the beer as trying to find a good middle point between ale and lager. I didn’t get this, nor did Bernie, my second in command. I’ve drank my fair share of lager in my time, and this did not bridge the gap in any way. This however was not a bad thing. The Blonde’s taste was an aromatic mix that tasted like barley flavoured pale ale. I’m not sure if this was the intended result but it works very well. The drink leaves a distinctive but pleasurable aftertaste on the tongue. Is it the perfect beer? No, there are a few things that it falls down on however it does come close though and I would highly recommend it. Congratulations chaps. A job well done.

Now we’ll look that the Brunette, the bottle promises nutty, caramel, toffee and hoppy flavour with fruity overtones. These are all delivered without fuss or celebration. I was able to sup away at this quite contently. I do however feel this should be accompanied by something meaty, preferably a steak. This would complete the drink perfectly. As a stand alone drink, I’m not hugely overwhelmed. Not in the way I was by the Blonde. The Brunette is certainly a nice beer, very possibly a classic in the making. Another good effort by Morrissey and Fox, my only issue with this ale is that it’s certainly a ‘time and place’ ale. I wouldn’t spontaneously drink it.

Have a look at the official site, the Aussie IPA looks very, very tempting.

www.morrisseyfox.co.uk

No tags

First of all an apology, this should have gone up last night but being drunk at a wedding reception in Southport put pay to that. Whoops.

The following beers are all available in Altrincham Tesco, you can probably get them in other Tesco stores. I have to say that Tesco in Alty does have a tremendous selection of ales. Second opinions came from the impending father in law, a man who knows a lot about beer and owner of a Good Beer Guide, which proved to tell us nothing useful about this evening’s ales.

First of all was the Bluebird, from the Coniston Brewing Company. Named of course after the vehicle in which Donald Campbell took his ill-fated speed record attempt. I found this award winning beer to be enjoyable but with a flavour that could only be described as ‘neutral’. As drinkable as Bluebird is, the flavour although hoppy, doesn’t leave any particular aftertaste. A drink that I can only describe as nice but instantly forgettable. This is a shame as I’m generally a fan of Lakeland ales.

Secondly comes the Ubu from Warwickshire. A drink I’d never seen nor heard of before. Brewed by the Purity Brewing Company, they promise a fresh, malty and fruity flavour which; to be fair they do deliver. I have to admit that my enjoyment of the drink was somewhat spoilt by it directly following the supreme Morrissey fox (will be discussed soon). I enjoyed this unusually monikered drink, if it bears any relation to the Ubu of “Sit Ubu sit, good dog, woof” fame, I don’t know. It had a sharp hoppy taste, refreshingly so. The downside to this beer’s taste is that it’ll taste superb early afternoon but it doesn’t serve too well as an evening drink.

These were followed up with a measure of Laphroaig, definitely one of the best single malts around.

Blond · Bluebird · Ubu

I recently spent the weekend in Kirkby Lonsdale and quickly became aware of the many reasons that house prices there are as high as they are. Firstly, it’s an undoubtedly lovely looking place- all narrow lanes and old stone buildings. It’s also handily situated just few miles from the M6 and contains one of the world’s great cheese shops, a similarly magnificent butchers and even an old-school sweet shop. But, and this is the most important factor of all, it’s got brilliant pubs. Lots and lots of brilliant pubs.

Oddly, despite this plethora of magnificent ale houses, there’s no official Kirkby Lonsdale ale trail as far as I can work out, possibly owing to the fact that the 7 town centre establishments detailed later are all within about a 3 minute walk of each other.  Truly, this is heaven.

Before we get to the Kirkby Lonsdale pubs though, my recent drinking excursion around the area began with a few places in the surrounding districts. First up was The Marton Arms Hotel in Ingelton which came extremely close to becoming the first, last and only pub of the day. It had 7 beers on at the time- plus Old Rosie Scrumpy, a personal favourite- as well as a lovely spacious bar area with low, snug, beamed ceilings. So far, so nice. But it also had whiskeys. Many whiskeys. 290 whiskeys (their ultimate aim is to have one for every day of the year- at which point I’ll take up assassination or male prostitution in order to have enough money to stay in the Marton Arms’ accomodation for 365 nights). Temptation was, as ever, difficult to resist and the call to move on to the next pub was only heeded as it was still just 12.30pm and a little bit early in the day to embark on a full-blown single malt session.

The Marton Arms- where I might go to die if ever I have to pick somewhere

Next up, slap bang in the middle of not very much, is the Old Hill Inn which claims to be in Chapel-le-Dale but is actually on the B6255 surrounded by lots of craggy hills. Just after White Scar Caves. In the cosy pub itself there’s the definite feel that it should be snowing outside with no chance of a let up in the next week to really get the best feel out of the place with it’s dark wood and roaring fires. We, meanwhile, have to make do with mild drizzle. 4 real ales were on at the time and Aviator from the nearby Dent brewery was the chosen tipple. Very nice and malty it was too and certainly helped clear the mind of the recent anti-Dent propaganda heard the previous night in Kirkby Lonsdale Rugby Club (basis of propaganda- everyone from Dent is gay because Dent rhymes with ‘bent’. This is what passes for humour in rugby clubs.)

The Old Hill Inn- exactly how old the hill is was never made clear

To the village of Barbon next for the simply-monikered Barbon Inn. As nice as this place is, and as revelatory as it is to discover that Tetley Green Shoots is the first known example of an interesting pint from that blandest of brewers, it’s clearly one of those establishments that makes it’s money on the food and so more than three quarters of the building on this quiet Saturday mid-afternoon, is dedicated to empty tables while the band of drinkers are crammed into a small bar area. There’s plenty of places that do this when it couldn’t possibly be too much of a hassle to make a place a little more accomodating for drinkers away from meal time. Then we wouldn’t feel resented on suspicion of being too poor to stump up for a risotto.

Following on from this, we headed to the Pheasant Inn in Casterton for which I made absolutely no notes so it’s fair to say it was probably a bit dull, as was the beer.

And now, to business. After ferrying the group around pubs on B-roads all day our chauffer, my missus, decides she’d like to get rid of the car and get stuck into the Bacardi. So it’s back to Kirkby Lonsdale and time for another tour of one of the finest drinking towns in the country. First up is Plato’s, which is admittedly a slightly poncey bar/restaurant but it usually has 2-3 real ales on and the food is so good it’s been known to make grown men cry.  A burger from there was recently measured in height at 14cm bottom to top.

Next it’s The King’s Arms which usually has one of the local football teams in demolishing chip butties while gazing at the big screen; with this in mind, it was the obvious place to check in with Jeff Stelling and co to watch the results come in. The ale selection here is never that great so, if you’re on an ale tour, you can easily drop this place and not miss much- though the atmosphere is always a little livelier than elsewhere in town if you fancy waking yourself up or meeting the locals (the anti-Dent propaganda here is particularly spicy).

To the Orange Tree next, via the churchyard from which you can also look upon the stonking Ruskin’s View, for a revitalising pint of Old Rosie and a little bit of Six Nations. The beer choice here is constantly changing- as often as between trips to the bar on an exciting day- though there’s always a slightly musty odour in the place. Sorry people of the Orange Tree if you’re reading this, but get a Glade Plug-In or two and you’ve got the best pub in town.

Avanti now- the second slightly poncey bar/restaurant of the day but, much like Plato’s, also a purveyor of fine real ales. The handy hint I have to give you for this place is to be in at around 5 or 6pm when, if you’re lucky, a bloke who I suspect is the landlord wanders round giving utterly gorgeous mini-steak pies or slices of garlic bread around to the customers absolutley free of charge. Consequently, this can be the only pub in Kirkby Lonsdale with anyone in it for much of the early evening- any landlords out there looking for a way to increase custom, take note.

Kirkby Lonsdale- You can't see them, but purely in the space contained within this photo are 6 superb pubs

Three pubs still to visit on this packed day and they are The Snooty Fox, the Red Dragon and the Sun Inn. It says much about Kirkby Lonsdale that these three establishments all sort of blend into the background. That’s not to say they’re bland or rubbish- they’re anything but. They are all the sort of pubs that the drinkers of most towns or villages would kill to have on their doorsteps and yet, here, they’re just part of the de rigeur trend for brilliant hostelries. That said, the Sun Inn gets a special mention for carrying Thwaites.

And so, after 14 pints and 11 pubs, it’s time to retire to the B&B for Match of the Day and a well earned sleep. If you ever do this, by the way, make sure on Sunday morning you head to the Lunesdale Bakery Tea Room where the ultimate hangover-busting breakfast can be bought, though the vegetarian options are limited. While myself and her parents got stuck into out full-Englishes the missus was grumpily munching through a meagre toasted teacake. Following on from this, all that was left to do was go and pick up the half a butchered lamb we’d won in an auction at the Rugby Club on Friday night (long story) and head back down the M6 to a land where there isn’t a great pub on every corner i.e. the rest of the world.

Crap, isn’t it?

Avanti · Barbon Inn · King's Arms · kirkby lonsdale · marton arms hotel · old hill inn · Orange Tree · Pheasant Inn · Plato's · Red Dragon · Snooty Fox · sun inn

It’s funny how you chance upon a song or artist, my journey to Richard Shindell starts with my dad, travels via Radio 2 and ends with Amazon.co.uk. As a teen, I was exposed to High Wire Live by Willy Porter, a stunning live album with several stand out tracks, one of which was You Stay Here, in which Porter’s sublime 12 string playing is accompanied by Martin Barre’s electric meanderings. Hauntingly dark yet stunningly beautiful at the same time, it’s up there in my top songs; I’d even nominate it for the coveted Double Tune status.

Anyway, a few months ago I had Radio 2 on and this very song came on, but not only was Porter not singing, it had violins and other instruments. This did not compute, anyway, after standing stunned for 3 minutes and 59 seconds, I then returned to whatever it was I was doing and promptly forgot all about it. Later on something sparked the memory so after Google, Last.com and finally Amazon.co.uk (my beloved Play.com didn’t have this to download). After some stressful program wrangling with Amazon’s download manager, I’m now in possession of Somewhere Near Paterson.

I think Paterson is in New Jersey, which is where Shindell hails from. Released in 2000, this is his fifth studio album. The album is a pleasant and thought provoking journey, Shindell’s lyrics are very much written from the heart, although the subjects have been pretty much covered before, the stories he tells are both engrossing and easy to relate to. Simple yet phenomenal, you will be recommending this artist.

The album maintains a folk/borderline country feel throughout, opening with more upbeat songs, with the song Spring; it takes a pure folk turn, concentrating on violins more than guitars and drums. Waiting For The Storm picks up the country vibe again and the album nicely mixes all the styles for the last few songs. As much as I could talk about all the tracks at length, I’ve highlighted two superb efforts. The rest are by no means filler, these two just poke their heads slightly higher.

You Stay Here. This is the track that lead me to the album, the reason why I knew that buying it wouldn’t be a mistake and possibly one the best songs ever written. I don’t say that lightly. Essentially a tale of surviving, the images generated by the lyrics are stronger than any book I’ve ever read, even books with pictures. The hauntingly stunning guitar playing on this track maintains a constant tempo which carries you through while other instruments arrive in a perfectly worked arrangement, not too fast, not too slow. It’s easy to see why Willy Porter covered this, he’s possible the only artist who can do this justice. Simply stunning.

Merritt Parkway, 2 AM. When it comes to instrumentals tracks, this is up there with New Order’s Elegia. Very, very simple, there isn’t a complicated riff in to be found yet Shindell is able to create an atmosphere that leaves you transfixed and almost tearful, yet you won’t know how or why. Just like Pixar films are a lesson perfect film making, this song is a lesson perfect arrangement. Everything is balanced. When they make a movie of my life, expect this to be on the soundtrack.

I can’t rate this album high enough, nor can I give it a grade, it transgresses such things. Expect to be changed.

Do buy this album if…

You want to spend an hour away from the world.

You like REM but find them a bit weird and questionable at times.

You’ve got some very good ales in the fridge.

Don’t buy this album if…

You refer to guitar riffs as ‘shreds’.

Violins scare you.

You have stuff to be getting on with and want some background music. This will take precedence.

Track listing.

1. Confession
2. Abuelita
3. You Stay Here
4. My Love Will Follow You
5. Spring
6. Wisteria
7. Waiting For The Storm
8. The Grocer’s Broom
9. Merritt Parkway, 2 AM
10. Transit
11. Calling The Moon

Facts and stats from Last.com

album · Music · Richard Shindell

Drinking beer in the name of Jesus H. Amen.

Tonight is the first session of this year’s Preston Beer Festival, held at St Walburge’s church. It is not a CAMRA festival, instead being in aid of the restoration of the building which the website describes as “Preston’s architectural gem”. I envisage a dilapidated old ruin of a church, left to succumb to the elements while the Church of England sits merrily on its amassed fortunes.

I’m going over tomorrow night with my fair lady and must admit this will be my first time at this festival, which is a poor record considering it’s in its 17th year and I lived in Preston for two of them. So far this year I’ve been to fairly big festivals – the Winter fest in Manchester, Fleetwood and so on – so this should be a nice change of pace. There is something pleasant about being able to drink good beer in a quiet, yet not solitary environment; I think it’s a happy middle ground between sitting at home drinking bottles on your own and cramming yourself into a Wetherspoons on a Friday night. Clitheroe’s festival in May should be very much the same if last year is anything to go by.

I can never decide if I prefer the small or large festivals, but tomorrow evening should help me decide.

Beer festival · Beers · Clitheroe · Preston · St Walburge's Church

Being from a staunchly working-class background, my only memories of Marks & Spencer as a child was of it being the place that people with white hair who wore pastel coloured slacks went to pay more money for their shopping than could be explained. As I grew up a little I began to see that they get away with it by selling the image – if you “shop at Marks”, it means something in certain circles. Just like wearing Nike means something to other people.

Nowadays I see Marks & Spencer as a shop I simply have no reason to go near. The food costs more for no reason I can see and the clothes are aimed at a demographic whose only link I ever want to have with is being from the same planet. What I didn’t expect was their beer range. Is this a new thing? By chance I ended up in the beer section – it’s not an aisle by any means – and spotted the “4 for 3″ deal that works out about a quid more than Morrisons “4 for £5.50″ deal.

The full range of Marks & Spencer's middle of the road beers. Note: drinking all of these will turn you into a Dire Straits fan.

And to the beers. This has been a troublesome write-up as I’m doing it live over the night, and I’m looking after a one year-old and a dog which has just pissed and shat diarrhea on the floor in front of me. So I must look back on the Cornish IPA in hindsight, as part of a golden age of this night which didn’t involve screaming children and canines with loose bowels. At 5% you’d expect some kind of taste but this ranks among the most flavourless beers I’ve ever come across. No smell, no real taste, nothing standing out at all. It’s bland personified, utterly inoffensive yet totally unmemorable like a drunken conversation at a party with your girlfriend’s friends of friends who you can’t even remember her connection with.

Next, Suffolk Bitter. What is this concoction? Another tasteless one, is what. It’s perfectly drinkable in the way that you buy a carton of Ribena and drink it without expecting it to taste like anything other than Ribena. But it being within expected parameters doesn’t make it good; it just tastes exactly like the last Ribena you bought, just like this beer tastes exactly like the last one.

And on to the Sussex Golden Ale. A near carbon copy of the previous two, tasting just like the most generic bitter you could ever hope to imagine. If you had to give an alien a beer to summarise the entire spectrum of beers, this would be the one to use – slightly malty, slightly hoppy, slightly impatient to finish the damn thing so you can move on to something different. My last great hope for a good finish was Staffordshire IPA, and generally being a big fan of anything IPA I was optimstic. Oh no, cruel night, you wouldn’t even let me off at the end. This is a sharp, strange beer with a feel that’s difficult to swallow and was flat in the glass half way down. A sure sign for me is that if I go more than a minute without instinctively thinking of picking the glass up, there’s something amiss. In this case a lot was amiss as I totally lost interest in drinking the rest and it dragged on for over an hour. Roger Protz said “the beer is straw coloured with sulphur on the nose, a digestive biscuit maltiness and tangy hop resins”… and “very refreshing”. I must have been drinking a different beer because mine made my mouth taste like mud.

In summary, I thought these four Marks & Spencer beers are shit. They neatly fit into the image of the rest of the place – middle of the road and awfully polite. We couldn’t have a beer that didn’t look like beer, now, could we Marjorie! What they appear to have collected is a group of beers which virtually all of their customers will find acceptable, and will think that the regionalised names on the label mean they are “trying real ale”. I find this idea as dangerous to the real ale ethos of drinking mad beers because you never know what the next one will be like, as the attempts to make ale brands big and national eg. Spitfire and Old Speckled Hen. They are taking the essence of real ale and sanitising it for the masses, which I find very wrong.

If you ever find yourself in the beer section in a Marks & Spencer, just keep on walking. You’re not missing any beers you won’t have tasted a million times already.

Beers · Cornish IPA · Marks & Spencer · Morrisons · Old Speckled Hen · Spitfire · Staffordshire IPA · Suffolk Bitter · Sussex Golden Ale

It is a Thursday, the day of the week that hints at coming freedoms yet pulls back your lofty dreams with another day’s work. Thursdays are not great days even if you have a pub quiz to look forward to (and we all know Thursdays and Tuesdays have forever been locked in an eternal battle for the title of Best Pub Quiz Night Of The Week) so it is usually a day my mind wanders to a pint at dinner.

The first hint of spring shines through our beers.

Today we tried a couple of beers, the names of which elude me as the clips were quite grotesque and the lettering utterly illegible. Picture light brown writing on a hay yellow background, in 6pt text, and you get the idea. One of them may have been a George Wright Blonde Moment but I wouldn’t like to be quoted on that. It was pleasant, light, quaffable, or as my esteemed co-drinkee says:

The first pint has a slightly spicy odour and I was richly rewarded with a very hoppy pint almost peppery to the pallet; quite surprising at first but it developed into comforting flavour. The colour was light and its head fluffy and it was a very easy drinkable beer. 4/5 “Good quaffing beer”

That’s a resounding thumbs up for quaffability, then. Note to self: “quaffability” to be considered for inclusion on list of favourite beer phrases.

The other, nameless, one in this photo was a grapefruit beer – one of those pale ales that doesn’t taste anything like beer at all and could pass as a can of weird fruit juice from an Asian grocers. His second one is described as:

The second pint was much darker than its predecessor; at first glance it was almost opaque ; but as the glass titled towards the sunshine it became obvious the ale was a rich dark brown in colour. A creamy head covered a rich almost chocolatey flavour rich with treacle and smoky overtones. Less drinkable than the first but an experience nevertheless 3/5

“An experience” eh? I always like a good beer experience. Even the bad ones aren’t far off being good, because they give you a story to tell. Beer, the gift that keeps on giving.

Overall, it was a good cheeky hour in the first hints of spring sun, filtering through the Postal Order windows as a reminder that summer is just round the corner.

Beers · Blonde Moment · dinnertime drinking · George Wright brewery · Postal Order

Mondays to me are typically a halfway house between feeling slightly jaded after the weekend’s beer exploits, crossed with not really being too bad because I tone things down on Sundays. It’s like that first day feeling vaguely human again after having an irritating cold for a week. This being the way it is, it’s not often I fancy a dinnertime pint on a Monday.

Having had a quiet weekend, though, I got the taste on the Monday just gone and tried a bottle of Theakston XB with my dinner. It wasn’t cheap; £3.15 for the bottle, and this is from a council-owned cafe (Blakeys if you happen to know Blackburn). That’s more than double the price in the shops round here and leaves a bitter taste in your mouth before you even taste the beer; it wasn’t even pulled from a cask, for Christ’s sake.

I went for XB because of the label, to be honest. I don’t like hoppy beers with food and judging by the label I pictured this being a big bastard of a beer with really strong flavours to live up to the food. Medium malty beers don’t work for me either – I always find the only ones that work are dark beers that punch above their weight. Picture what I had on Monday, a Lancashire cheese sandwich, with a flowery beer – does that seem to match up for you? Perhaps it does, taste being individual of course, but for me cheese works best with something sharp and biting, full of its own flavours rather than just a compliment to food.

XB does, I must say, work well in these situations. The flavour is intense and lingers even while eating. It lasts just around the right time to match an easy-paced dinner break, so a fifth or so will be left for you to finish off when the food’s out of the way. I wouldn’t call it a great beer if I was out drinking – its strength and potency make it a slow one to get down and it’s definitely more suited to a casual dinner hour. However, on the occassional evenings where I knock together a few cheeses, breads and fruits and fancy a couple of beers to go with it, I’d definitely give XB another go.

Additional note: this would be a very efficient beer for getting banjoed in a short space of time.

Beers · Blackburn · Blakeys · Theakston · XB

According to horse racing people, going to The Derby doesn’t feel like going to The Derby anymore. Not since they moved to a Saturday from it’s previous long-standing slot on the first Wednesday in June. In it’s original place in the calendar, people had to take the day off work to go to Epsom for the race- it felt mischevious, it felt naughty, it felt deliciously like skiving. And now it doesn’t.

Well in the spirit of such devil-may-care bunking off, me and m’colleague Richard took this past Wednesday off work and set off to sample the Rail Ale Trail that is to be found headed out to the east of Manchester. At it’s heftiest this particular excursion can take in 8 different stops along the way between Stalybridge and Batley but only half of these paid host to us over the course of the afternoon – though another drink was tied on in Manchester at Official BadPoo Mighty Pub the City Arms Inn.

Two light ales and a debate on the merits of tiles in pubs.

Proceedings got underway at The West Riding Refreshment Room on Dewsbury station with a couple of perfect session-starting pale ales from Yorkshire’s Rooster brewery and Durham brewery‘s Magus. They both slipped down easily, light and refreshing- only serving to strengthen our belief that pale ales are the ultimate way to get a day’s session drinking underway; though this decision was only reached after lengthy and appropriately grave debate. In fact, like many of the establishments on this journey, The West Ridings is a place where a man’s conversation can turn easily to the most heightened of philosophical musings. Naturally, we choose to go on and wrestle with that most unwieldy of beasts- is tiled decoration in a pub acceptable?

This debate rattled on for so long, and we got so comfortable in the pleasant surrounds of this station bar (the food smelled particularly alluring) that we briefly forgot we were on a tight schedule and came close to missing our train. Luckily the journey from our table to the platform and onto the train took less than 10 seconds so disaster was happily averted.

Huddersfield next where, in the Head of Steam, you’ll find 4 rooms of varying decoration; including a games room, where you’ll find brilliant old-fashioned two-player arcade table machines nestled amongst the Connect 4. We take up residence on the platform side of the pub in a room clearly set up more for dining than drinking. This is a good hint at what you absolutely must do if and when you find yourself in this establishment. You must eat here.

For they serve proper chips. Big, crispy, fluffy, gorgeous, proper chips.

We both plumped for the usually safe option of a sandwich and some of those chips for some lunch as we hoped to avoid eating too much and being struck down by the dreaded affliction of PCL (Post Consumption Lethargy, acronym fans). However, owing to the size of the chips and the butties being made with the world’s fattest slices of bread, it’s a close call and we only just get away with it after wofling the nosh down.

Food and beer in the Head of Steam.

In between gorging on foody delights, we had the time to take in the decoration and a couple of pints. Decoration first, which in the room we were sat is a beguiling mixture of railway based art and promotional material for various Drinks That Time Forgot (Virgin Vodka! Carling Premier!). This is probably an attempt to differentiate themselves from most station bars which content themselves with plastering the wall with various bits of brass from engines and lots of old signs- all very pleasant and evocative but a little bit akin at times to drinking in a skip.

As for the beer – there was 11 listed to pick from and we ended up sampling Organ Grinder from the Brass Monkey Brewery as well as Whispers and Lightyear from the Glentworth Brewery who appear to name all their drinks after aspirational 80′s nightclubs. All beers were nice though, unfortunately, rushed at the death owing to The Huddersfield Dash. This is a tradition at Huddersfield where, every time I do this ale trail, I forget that the platform you arrive into Huddersfield on is not the one you leave from if you want to get to Marsden. This leads to a last-gasp charge across the station- an easy activity normally but difficult when already a few pints into a session and in the early stages of digesting those chips and that massive bread.

On to Marsden and, with a tight schedule to keep, we foresake the trek down the hill into the village itself (recommended if you have the time) and drop into the Railway which is on the station’s doorstep. This pub is not officially part of the Ale Trail- possibly owing to it being a Marston’s pub and therefore light on the independently brewed stuff. It’s a nice place though and there is a dartboard on which a quick round of 301 is despatched (no doubles to finish though, as we don’t have a spare fortnight) while we sup a Wychwood Dirty Tackle and Marston‘s Sweet Chariot- you may be able to spot a rugby theme.

A little deviation from the suggested route, but it saved time.

Game of darts over we settle down to read through Innspeak – a fine example of the magazines put together by real ale enthusiasts and usually frothing over with intriguing adverts for lovely looking pubs, notice of upcoming beer festivals, news about Debbie and Steve who’ve just refurbished the Lamb and Flag, and borderline hysterical invective against the government for whatever new law or taxes associated with drink that they’ve just come up with. These magazines are, almost without exception, brilliant and- since their written by enthusiastic amateurs rather than ego-riddled journalists- infinitely more informative than almost all other printed publications on the market. Plus, in the case of Innspeak, you get to find out about this issue’s Star at the Bar, the lovely Michaela who works at the Cross Inn, Halifax. You don’t get that in the NME.

A short stint on another train that we can watch arrive from the bar takes us to Stalybridge’s Buffet Bar and their choice of 7 ales from which we select Blair Atholl by Little Ale Cart and The North’s London Calling (or that could be the other way round, we never figured it out). Again, these are both very quaffable and it’s nice to report an entire days run without a single dodgy pint. Our conversation by this stage is hitting the ‘Hatching Mad Plans’ stage and there’s various talk of elaborate drinking holidays which’ll almost certainly never get followed up.

One of the few remaining Victorian station bars.

All this takes place surrounded by the Buffet Bar’s slightly odd decor of 70′s wood panelling and 50′s leather chairs all contained, in the bit we were sat, in a very 1990′s suburban conservatory. On the walls, meanwhile, the usual old fashioned pub paraphenalia (adverts for Martini and Bovril etc) and supplemented by a few maverick touches- like a certificate for a Domestic Millinery exam from evening classes at Ashton-Under-Lyne in March 1912.

Beyond this lies Manchester and our final drink of the day at The City Arms, but his isn’t part of the ale trail and this particular pub needs BadPoo consideration on it’s own sometime in the future rather than here.

And that was our day. I’ve done this ale trail on a weekend before where it’s so popular that the arrival at every station is marked by a mass charge to the bar by the dozens of people who’ve ended up on the same schedule as you. The descent down the hill into Marsden on these days really ought to be reclassified as an extreme sport. Far better is to skive the day off work and do it this way, on a weekday afternoon when you have have that little naughty thrill I mentioned earlier and where two men can find the time and freedom to experience 2 of the great means of opening the mind up to thought and contemplation – travel and a pint.

And where we can decide that yes, tiled decoration is acceptable in a pub.

Beers · Brass Monkey brewery · Buffet Bar · City Arms · Dewsbury · Durham brewery · Glentworth brewery · Huddersfield · Innspeak · Little Ale Cart · Manchester · Marsden · Marstons · Rail Ale Trail · Rooster brewery · Stalybridge · West Riding Refreshment Room · Wychwood

Celebrating the Lake District’s most beloved author, in beer form. 

The list of great Blackburnites is both grand and many. Lee Mack, Carl Fogerty, Corrie’s Wendi Peters. None of these however have ale in their name. Not according to Google anyway. Alfred Wainwright spent most of his days meandering around the Lake District and writing about his jaunts. Lucky bugger. His book was recently turned into a TV show. Much like Coast, but with less boats and that no mental shouting blokes. 

In 2007, Thwaites decided to honour his achievements with an ale. Originally just a seasonal, it proved so popular they decided to produce it all year round. Good call. Like the good man himself, the beer originates in Blackburn and is available unsurprisingly in northwest pubs. If you can’t get to a pub, you can order it online or buy it in Waitrose or EH Booths. 

The notes on the bottle invite us to ‘savour a refreshing golden beer with soft fruit flavours and a hint of sweetness’. As long as the fruit flavours don’t consist of bananas and kiwi fruit, we should be onto a winner. I’m first greeted with a pleasant but light aroma that smells simply of beer. It doesn’t give anything away about the actual taste. There is no bitterness to this drink, if anything sums up sitting in the early afternoon summer sun, probably by a lake or river; this is beer for the job. Very, very drinkable. This is the ideal warm up to evening session or the pint you have with a lunchtime bite. 

This is also where the beer falls down. It’s eminently drinkable; I could drink this by the case. Problem is the taste betrays the 4.1% volume. It tastes so light that I could quite easily neck this without it touching the sides of my mouth. The sweetness provides for a very nice drink, but one I could probably accompany with some toast before leaving for work. I’ve discovered the first drink I can class as a breakfast beer. 

I like this drink, the taste is very refreshing. My feelings are that it should remain seasonal. Brilliant summer lunchtime drink, in March however, I feel somewhat short-changed.

Beers · Thwaites · wainwright