It’s a drinking hole essentially, underneath it all. For all the domed skylights and stained glass, people come here to let off steam, to pass the time, to forget the day. To drink.

But to say that is to do York Tap a disservice as it stands resplendent next to the revived station complex. Like its Sheffield counterpart it was born in an old resting room, and the 104 year old building suits its new life as a pub, with big windows and plenty of seating space.

It’s the prettiest of the Taps, painted pink on the outside and showing off a bar cradled in curves. Large windows scatter light towards the central bar where you might expect the beer to be served on starched doilies in pristine hand painted china cups.

Attention gravitates towards the mahogany island in the centre of the bar, which is heavy with beer engines displaying an array of local and national cask ales, mostly renowned models from the most revered manufacturers. And though the bar is also heavy with the broad smiles of scooping punters the service doesn’t falter (not even when interrogates as to why they don’t serve John Smith’s Smooth).

Tonight the glistening keg fonts are the focus as Camden Town Brewery have taken over with their refreshing Helles lager, their broody Camden Ink stout, and Bleedin’ Hops, a black IPA that haemorrhages bitterness. Camden’s beers are excellent; particularly the staple wheat beer, noble and nubile in its tall narrow glass.

Locals test out guest beers; visitors inquire about the local beers. Tasting glasses pile up, halves and conics stack high. The night draws closer, the conversation brisker, louder, vivacious. In a place like this Rose de Gambrinus (spontaneously fermented sour beer from Brussels) is served in the same round as Great Heck’s latest mash in (a Yorkshire bitter brewed just down down the Selby Road). A limited edition beer from London is sampled alongside an old favourite from California. Tradition and progression sit side by side in this boozy chapel of rejuvenation.

Beers are shared, stories told, lives catch up with other lives. A night here is a journey and as the clock strikes somewhere just before midnight everyone heads for the train, lubricated for the last leg home.

Pretty in pink

Beautiful domed roof

York Tap as a tea room

York Tap's interior

Due to a broken camera lens (and possibly inebriation) our photos of the York Tap are useless, we borrowed some official ones. And Turnip Rail wrote about the Tap’s history as the railway station’s tea room. Thanks to both.

I never knew there were two 6 o’clocks in a day, neither did the wife, but today is the day I found out when Denzil from Great Heck Brewery told us to meet him at just after 7…in the morning!

Pulling up outside what looked like just another house in the sleepy village of Great Heck, with the odd glance from a passing “local”, my beer companion and I had arrived, not knowing what to expect, on the dot of 07:15 for the start of our days brewing.

Denzil greeted us more like long lost friends rather than mere “internet acquaintances” and was obviously more used to getting up at dawn’s crack as he had already got the hot water tank up to temperature and had his brewing sheet in hand ready to guide us through the process of brewing Heck’s Angel, a golden ale normally around 3.9%.

Great Heck Brewery

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Horsforth Beer Festival

Horsforth Beer Festival, North Leeds

Jam-packed with Yorkshire beer, Horsforth plays host to its annual beer festival this weekend and some of the pints you’ll find probably haven’t even left God’s Own County to get to your (half) pint glass. Local beers include:

• Great Heck ’Slaughterhouse Porter’
• Hambleton Ales ‘Cheeky Mare’ and ‘Stallion’
• Little Valley ‘Python IPA’
• Ilkley Brewing Co ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ & ‘Ugly Duckling’

Prizes for the most memorably weird and wonderful beer (and brewery) names go to:

• Dicky Ticker Brewery
• Leadmill Brewery’s ‘Old Mottled Cock’
• Bazen’s ‘Zebra Best’
• Blue Monkey’s ’99 Red Babboons’
• Millstone Brewery’s ‘Tiger Rut’
• Nutbrook Brewery’s ’Cow Juice’
• Old Spot’s ‘Dog in the Barrel’

Saltaire Beer Festival

This year Fletch and I made our second trip up the Northern line to taste beers and soak in continental drinking at the Saltaire Beer Festival. We discovered this gem of a brewery last year, whilst wandering around the Saltaire Arts Trail on a hot and sunny Saturday, and ever since we’ve been waiting to go back!

Saltaire Brewery

Saltaire Brewery is based on the Leeds/Bradford canal, a little nearer to Shipley than the world heritage site at Saltaire. It’s a modern affair from a contemporary and friendly brewery, with visitors on the beer festival weekend sitting inside the brewery building, with two bars crammed in the space that isn’t dedicated to fermentation tanks and brewing equipment.

70p is all it costs to get the train from Leeds to Saltaire Brewery

The first piece of news about Saltaire beer festival is how cheap it is to get to Shipley (the nearest train station to the brewery) from Leeds. An off peak return from Leeds costs only £1.40 – to put that in context a single from Horsforth (on the edge of Leeds) to the city centre of Leeds costs me £2.50 on the bus…how cheap is £1.40 to go double the distance?! Beer club is now firmly on the table as an option for starting a Friday night in the near future…watch this space!

Once we were on the 70p train Fletch and I turned the conversation towards our last visit to Saltaire Brewery. It had been for the beer festival last year although we had arrived mid afternoon on the Saturday and most of the guests had already sold out, but not this year we congratulated each other, thanks to Andy we had managed to get tickets to the sold out Friday night when everything was sure to still be on. We were heading towards a temporary Mecca of real ales and we had a strategy in place…

Brewers Gold at Saltaire Festival

The plan was to split up the beer list between us; in general Fletch would focus on the darker offerings and me the paler ones. There were 26 beers (listed below) on the list meaning that we could each have 13 halves and have sampled every beer available. Well we tried!!

Some of them we both wanted to try and some of them were worth revisiting for a full pint, needless to say that the strategy did not come to fruition although, in fairness, I think that there were probably only about six or seven beers that one or the other of us did not try. Under the circumstances it would be frankly impossible to try and offer tasting notes on every beer that we tasted, therefore the whole menu is listed below (sorted by brewery). Our five top beers of the festival are marked with an asterisk (for the sake of fairness I have also marked those that we did not try with a minus).

Acorn Brewery, Barnsley

Harvester
Mittlefruh IPA

Castle Rock, Nottingham

Reed (-)
Black Gold*

Crouch Vale, Essex

A lot of beer goes through a lot of pipes to keep the pumps flowing at Saltaire Beer Festival - thanks to Tony for taking us on an impromptu tour!

Hurricane
Brewers Gold*

Elland Brewery, Halifax

Catch the Rainbow
Night Porter

Great Heck, North Yorkshire

Union Gap
White Rabbit

Ilkley, Yorkshire

Ollcana Gold (-)
Ollcana Original (-)

Jarrow, Tyne and Wear

Slake (-)
Rivet Catcher

Old Spot, Cullingworth

Chilli and Chocolate
It’s Beer

Ossett Brewery

Cherry Porter
Summer’s End

Saltaire Brewery, Shipley

Raspberry Blonde (-)
Saltaire Blonde
Rye Smile (-)
Triple Chocoholic
Hazelnut Coffee Porter*
Cascade Pale Ale*

Wylam, Northumberland

Dognobbler
Northern Kite*

Westons Cider, Herefordshire

1st Quality Draught (-)
Traditional Scrumpy (-)
Old Rosie (-)

Although I have not named them, there were a couple of beers that I did not find exactly overwhelming. In the main however the beers selected for the event were wide ranging, in both style and origin, and sparked debate and discussion amongst the many beer fans at Saltaire. It was a quality evening and a great opportunity to meet many likeminded people with a passion for beer, a great opportunity for swapping recommendations and stories, finding inspiration and generally getting a little bit layer caked with a great bunch of people.

I’m already looking forward to next year and am hoping to dampen the wait with a few visits with some of the locals to Friday night drinks club in the meantime.