Quite frankly, the White Horse was a terrible pub.

Nothing made going there enjoyable. Defeat hung in the air, fighting for headroom amongst depression and drink problems. The lights and jingles from the slots an unnerving theme tune to a nicotine stained prison.

Unfair perhaps, as I only ventured there a handful of times in the four years it competed to be my local. The Commercial that overlooks the same t-junction was a lively, friendlier place to spend time. (It was easy to choose Carling and karaoke at The Commerical over empirical research into a less salubrious side of pub going at The White Horse. And a cheerful bar manager helped too). Not that karaoke would have helped The White Horse survive.

Now the wooden boards are down from the windows, light once more hits the columns that used to block the view of the bar. It’s a Friday night and The White Horse is heaving again.

The mucky sign still hangs over the door, but it no longer lead to sticky carpets and dingy rooms. Instead the building is refreshed as a family run Italian restaurant, bustling with chatter and brimming with customers.

White walls are banded with travertine tiles, not a yellow stain in sight. Decaying lounge furniture is long gone in place of treated wooden tables and chairs with intricate iron cast finishing. Immaculate floors, a wood burning stove, walls covered in frames of family snaps, all the family, and it’s a big family, celebrating their communal efforts. The kitchen, somewhat oddly, looks out onto the street, as pizza bases fly in the air and vegetables disappear under the knife.

But it’s the noise and smell that have changed the most. The vibrancy of cooking rushes through what was a dank and musty chamber. The clatter, clash and splash of pans; a symphony of oil, ingredients, spice and chefs gesticulations; even the lick of a flame, silent but somehow resonating aurally – wispy and crackling against metal.

And cook these guys can. Chorizo – with those fatty bits that perturb me and my mediocre flash frying skills – is no trouble for the chefs at Kasa Rosa, and served with garden peas and shallots the salty meat lifts penne pasta and a tomato sauce from something you could attempt at home to something there’s no point trying.

What more could you want from a local restaurant?

And what more could you want from a broken and finished pub building, long since a lost cause to the local community?

A better pub in its place perhaps? Of course, but on this occasion I, along with many other local people, am counting my blessings.

Since the dawn of my drinking days I’ve been a big fan of the dark side. Stouts, porters, milds or brown ales, I’ve always enjoyed savouring their brooding malty richness. And as autumn has arrived with a bang, it’s fitting that I happened across a couple of unusual and very worthy offerings from Wentworth on my travels last week. This South Yorkshire brewery is one step ahead of the game in the stout stakes this year and has concocted a delicious selection of flavoured fancies for their “2011 Stout Festival” (as advertised on the pump clips). So if you aren’t a fan of wacky adjuncts or prefer your beer plain and simple you may want to look away now….

My first find was at the Narrow Boat in Skipton, a fantastic backwater pub with a cracking reputation and repertoire of real ales and foreign beers. Nestled amongst a typically eclectic mix was Wentworth’s Medium Chilli & Chocolate Stout (4.8%). The dusky half pint certainly lived up to its billing. A rich coffee and chocolate aroma persisted after the initial sip oozing into a silky palate. With perfect punctuality a fiery crescendo kicked in and lingered through the finish; a great counterbalance to the soft cocoa foundation. An explosion of taste and just up my street!

The Narrow Boat Skipton by Bob W

A few days later I found myself in Bury for lunch. This good-sized town just north of Manchester is famous for its fish market, but it also has a peppering of top-notch real ale outlets if you know where to look. One such place is Malt Bar at The Met (which also plays host to the enticing Bury Beer Festival in November). Despite being quite a classy modern cafe bar it always serves a few cask beers, usually from Outstanding Brewery with occasional guests. This was my lucky day as they had another Wentworth special on tap: Vanilla & Almond Stout (4.8%). A faint whiff of vanilla guided me into a maelstrom of sour cherries, dark fruits and berries riding on an undercurrent of mild bitterness. I was just beginning to wonder where the almond was lurking when it caught me by surprise in a delectable marzipan finish. Well-crafted with a powerful yet nicely balanced punch. Mmmm….

Peculiar and flavourful craft brews are growing in popularity and are well worth sampling if you get a chance, if only to illustrate just how different quality real ales can be. I’ll certainly be on the lookout for more weird and wonderful stouts while the season lasts!

Wentworth Chilli and Chocolate Stout

Wentworth Vanilla and Almond

Just like Mike Parker, the author of Map Addict, for years I’ve been mesmerised by the enigmatic Spurn Point, that strangely shaped strip of almost-land that stretches from the tip of the East Riding of Yorkshire and awkwardly attempts to reach back downstream towards the sands of the Humber estuary.

Spurn Point (or Spurn Head for many) is a sand bar that has been precariously edging it’s way westwards over the last millennium of geological time as the sea plays out its role of destroyer and replenisher in equal measure (Spurn currently aims its point towards the revellers of Cleethorpes and the fishing boats of Grimsby, but has had 5 different versions of itself in the last 1000 years as the tides have breached it and rebuilt it time after time).

Brooding skies and dull tinted flora reflect the eeriness of this surreal spur set perpetually to a state of precarious balance, a place demanding reflection, that screams silently, in the same way as Munch’s famous frozen moment of fear, of solitude. It’s not a place you’d expect to find myriad good pubs, but then this windy forgotten corner of Yorkshire is exactly the type of place where a haven from the North Sea weather is required. Read the rest of this entry »

Dent Rescewe was bought for Yorkshire month, the month of June where we planned to sample mostly Yorkshire ales and report back on our regional fare. Surreptitiously it stared back at me when I needed a beer for an unexpectedly sunny day in the garden in May, and there I saw it on the label, the address that I had neglected to check: ‘Dent Brewery, Dent, Cumbria’. Cue immediate fast track to Cumbrian month!

I’ve been to Dent only once, on a whistle stop weekend to the North Yorkshire Dales. It’s a living breathing Warburton’s ad, except Land Rovers rumble and bumble (depending on the age of their reg plate) across cobbles where flat-capped knee-socked boys should be cycling home, peddling against gravity and the extra weight of bakers fresh, crusty loaves.

I’d always assumed it was a forgotten Yorkshire village, one of those quaint border settlements that nonchalantly gets on with life amidst the whims of policy makers and county councils who can’t decide exactly which authority should be organising the bin rounds.

Dent Rescewe - premium bitter raising money for the Cave Rescue Organisation in the Yorkshire Dales

Yorkshire village pub by www.graphicalstatus.com

Time flies in the beer houses of Kingston-upon-Hull, where Yorkshiremen plotted against King Charles; studs fly in the grand hotels of Huddersfield where the North plotted against the Rugby Union.

In Halifax they have long memories, just ask The Running Man. In York they never forget, Guy Fawkes will tell you that.

In Sheffield they have an island for their beer, in Swaledale they make you climb a thousand feet for a pint (you might even have to do the washing up if you’re lucky!)

From the gastro pubs of Ilkley to the cove-view nooks of Robin Hood’s Bay; from the alleyway drinking dens of Leeds, to the walkers respites littering Garsdale, Wensleydale, Dentdale, Ribblesdale, Malhamdale, Nidderdale…

The Grove Inn, Leeds - surviving against the odds

Whitelocks, Briggate - the alleys where Loiners get their name

Station Inn, Ribblehead - take a map and a train timetable!

Yorkshire is blessed with pubs, nearly 10% of all the public houses in Britain. Some good, some bad, each and everyone someone’s favourite. All 5,115 of them.

What better way to spend the Bank Holiday than oiling your discourse down the local, or heeding Milton Crawford and taking a  moment to reflect on life. And when your done, you can vote for your favourite Yorkshire pub at Yorkshire.com/pub

"Yorkshire, Yorkshire!!"

There are 54,000 pubs in Britain and 5,115 pubs in Yorkshire. Ish. Thanks to the border hungry constituency of Brigg & Goole which straddles both the East Riding of Yorkshire and the northern climes of Lincolnshire we’ve had to apply some educated guesswork to the final tally. Thanks to the CAMRA press team and the British Beer & Pub Association for help locating the raw data. And thanks to Dan Cohen, John FotoHouse and Rick Harrison for the pics!

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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Tom Waits got it right when he sang about ‘thirsty jackaroos’ and ‘no spirits, no bilgewater and 80 dry locals’ on Town With No Cheer, a sombre (and sober) tale of a shut down and forgotten canteen at a blistering hot Australian train station. I can sympathise with you, Tom. We’ve all been there haven’t we? That missed connection, that cancelled service provoking an edgy and desperate search for something, anything other than anaemic coffee from a battered vending machine. You might get lucky and find a decent pub right next to the train station – but what are the chances of a takeaway from the station shop itself? Zero I reckon.

Thanks then to Sourced Market at St Pancras International. Hardly a backwater I know, and not somewhere the punters in Waits’ song would recognise, but the level of choice for this thirsty jackaroo was more than impressive.

Pricky Back Otchan (prickly-backed urchin) by Great Newsome

Racked up in a tall cabinet opposite expensive sounding claret, are the ales. There is a broad farmhouse style table for tasting on the spot if you can’t wait to get home, or you can take away. Not wanting to upset Mrs B I went for the latter option, and chose a couple of the guest ales – a smart promotion for the Great Newsome Brewery up at Winstead, Hull.

Pricky Back Otchan (you’ll need a translator for that one) is a sweet amber bitter with enough hop to make it a fanciable session beer and, at 4.2% ABV, it has a roundness and complexity to keep you guessing. Hints of citrus but without ruining what I found to be a solid enough brew. It went well with pasta and chicken pesto but I would imagine deep chunky casseroles would be the best match. A nice alternative to Shepherd Neame’s Late Red of which I’ve been chewing down recently. Read the rest of this entry »

Built in 1741 as a house for the timber merchant Edmund Maude, The Palace was first recorded as an inn in 1841 and is believed to have been named after one of the breweries whose ale it sold. In 1830 the Beerhouse Act was passed which allowed any householder who paid rates to apply for a two guinea excise licence to sell beer and brew it on their premises. This led to 46,000 new pubs being created within eight years.

In the ten years following the Beerhouse Act the number of pubs in Leeds rose from 270 to 545 and it is thought that The Palace may be one of those along with the Eagle Tavern on North Street. The licensing laws were changed in 1869 and this had the effect of tightening the rules to apply for a licence. Originally outwith the Leeds boundary, being located just outside the East Bar, (the marking stone for which can be found just slightly higher up Kirkgate towards the city centre set into the boundary wall of Leeds Parish Church) as Leeds expanded it became a city centre pub.

The Palace and Leeds Parish Church

Seen better days? The bar at The Palace

Vintage pub livery at The Palace, Leeds

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Roosters Brewery, whose beers are the staple diet of many a Yorkshire pub, marked this Hallowe’en with a pumpkin beer. No ordinary pumpkin beer though, a pumpkin beer served in nothing less than a giant pumpkin. A really, really giant pumpkin.

Pumpkin 5 Spice Ale was tapped at North Bar in Leeds, in front of Calendar news and a small selection of excitable beer lovers. Arguably a more delicate task than tapping a cask, the job in hand was left to Sam Franklin of Roosters Brewery.

And what of the beer? Well, it’s eminently drinkable: sweet without being at all syrupy; conditioned to perfection with just a hint of carbonisation; spicy but not hot – nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves dominate, ideal for warming the spirit on a cold day.

Everything in moderation including moderation they say. Strangely perhaps, Roosters 5 Spice Pumpkin Ale is a beer that you could drink with little moderation. One of the best session beers of the year.

And it’s served from a pumpkin. A giant pumpkin. What more could you want on a lazy Saturday afternoon in autumn?!

Roosters Pumpkin Ale at North Bar

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Hooky takes pride of place above the stairs at Bart 'At, Ilkley

I’ll be going back to Bar t’at, Ilkley’s ‘North Bar’, because the first time around I wasn’t bowled over. We didn’t need to comment to the forgetful bartender, he only had to see the look on my Dad’s face.

Suffice to say my pint of Thornbridge Hopton was just the ticket and our longer than expected wait for my mums coffee gave us the chance to admire a host of brewery related posters and paraphernalia. Our beloved Hooky took pride of place over the stairs whilst Sheps, Brakspear, Harvey’s and Bass adorned the walls around our table.

There was even some Belgian bits and bobs hiding way up towards the ceiling, including a prominent pink elephant poking his head up above the doorway.

We even had time to piece together the West Yorkshire dialect that litters the wall, with it’s talk of unfortunate lovers, worms and ducks.

Nil points for the service (we’re blaming it on the lack of hats, or even Mary Jane) although that’s only because it was my Mum who got the worlds smallest coffee after the worlds longest wait (if it had happened to anyone else I’d have just used the opportunity for another pint).

Bar t’at will certainly get a second chance though and I’ll be jumping on the train from Leeds one weekend to drink the hand pulls and the fridges dry, hopefully to the point where I’m singing along to the walls even though I can’t read them.

Anyone fancy it? Read the rest of this entry »