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