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.

The goofy moose head gazes down aloofly from his lofty perch below the rafters, and we sit cradling a kriek and a pilsner in a building that has almost a millenniums worth of years on us.

House of the Trembling Madness sits above the cobbled shopping street of Stonegate, York. The city walls skirt their circular path near here, the famous minster is but a Viking throw away.

Students from the continent order coffee and thirds of a Belgian tripel under bowed oak beams; York City fans grab another resinous pale Thornbridge ale and whatever fancy lager is on whilst wondering what to do on a Saturday afternoon in the middle of summer.

The pub building is overdosed on wood, much as you’d expect from a 12th century loft space. The ceiling arches high, it must have been a great hall we wonder, perhaps housing the descendants of Norse merchants or a collection of peasant families, rather than illustrious drinkers and tourists alike.

On the bar, a selection of beer to boast about: casks from the regions, drafts from mainland Europe, bottles from Brussels, Bohemia and beyond. Marinated olives and premium potato snacks peer from behind the populous beer list, and they’ll even provide a yard of ale for those game enough to call the bartenders bluff.

We whittle away 45 minutes sipping slowly and enjoying the break from the feet-heavy streets below, just wishing we had a glimpse of the Minster tower. There’s a sense though that you history you get here is ultimately more interesting, more personable than the ghost tours and tourist traps outside.

And as we leave we spot a well preserved tarantula specimen, lifeless and holed up in a deep picture frame nailed to a strong English support beam. Under the gaze of the moose and the influence of a cheeky bottle of Delirium Tremens, not even madness surprises us in this house.

The magnificent roof at House of The Trembling Madness

Afternoon Jever

The bar guard

Afternoon Timmermans

Sierra Nevada Harvest was off so Trashy Blonde formed part of my hangover cure in York yesterday

Friday’s trip to London was a hectic one. I woke up knowing that it would be 13 and a half hours until my return journey commenced, about as depressing a thought as you can have at 6am. I was on a late train home from the capital and after rushing between meetings all day and frantically trying to find wi-fi around Marble Arch in the afternoon, I  spent a couple of hours with Glyn from the Rake sampling an eclectic mix of their finest beers and chatting about the busy few months we both have ahead of us. That was the eye of the storm as I then rushed up to Kings Cross for the home bound leg, eventually crawling into Morley just before the new day started.

The morning brought with it a heavy head from staying up with a nightcap to watch Mad Men on iPlayer (not to mention a quick half at Leeds Brewery Tap because I’m incapable of timing transport links with any degree of coordination). It was off to York for the day then with Sarah with the promise of a nice lunch and a slow paced amble around the cobbled streets. Read the rest of this entry »