Pure Dead Brilliant

What is? Leeds is. That's what. Following on from my full of praise blog post for the city here, I had a much closer look on Saturday when CAMRA's Rochdale, Oldham and Bury Branch descended on it mob handed. Many pints and half pints were drunk and there wasn't a single beer in any pub that was less than exemplary in its presentation.  From the first pint in the Leeds Brewery Tap to the last in Tapped (which we visited twice it was so good) cask conditioned beer was presented as the brewer would have loved it to be and, more importantly - because it is the customer that really counts - it was presented in a way to delight the drinker.

The pubs were a delight too - busy and cheerful, reasonably priced, with a positive attitude to customer service which really stood out.  The area around the station is a cask beer drinker's paradise with probably around fifty different beers in total in the pubs we visited and we didn't have time for them all. It is no exaggeration to say that within two hundred yards of the station, if you wanted tip top real ale, you just couldn't go wrong. Even in Bundobust, a keg only cafe bar place, my enquiry as to whether they sold cask was dealt with in a lovely manner, with a "Sorry, No" and then a quick run through the beers on offer to find me something I liked.  The icing on the cake was that the manager then approached our table to explain that they just don't have the facilities for cask in such a small outlet.  A really nice, friendly touch which was very much appreciated.

When I worked in Leeds, I thought beer quality was great. Thankfully it still is. Go there. You won't regret it.

I was very impressed with the Head of Steam too. Well done to Cameron's Brewery, the owners. And well done to Oakham for Inferno, the best pint of the day (Tapped) in what was a very closely contested competition - in my head that is.

The photo shows my tipple in Bundobust. Rather decent it was too.  British lager is improving in leaps and bounds

Not Pubs - Bars

I don't think Manchester is unique in having a fairly large number of trendy bars that aren't, in the traditional sense at least, pubs, but it is surely unusual on having large concentrations of them in two distinct and compact areas, Chorlton and in town, the Northern Quarter.  What I'd venture is even more unusual, is that almost all of them sell cask ale and good cask ale at that. So, on Saturday, with my oldest friend Mike, we tried a few and didn't go to a single pub as such.  And did we get good beer?  You bet we did.  Admittedly, none of it was cheap, but hey, that's Manchester for you.  It is rapidly becoming in some places at least, as expensive as London, but at least the beer is well conditioned, at the correct temperature and (usually) sparkled. 

We started off in Odd, which is part of  a well thought of chain, though this branch seemed determined to buck the trend.  Two beers from Privateer - yet another new Manchester brewery - a blonde and a brown one.  Pints of the blonde were procured and found to be vinegar.  Not good.  The brown one was okay, but warm.  Neither were sparkled with an explanation (by the manager I assume) that the barstaff couldn't get the hang of them and kept losing them, so they gave up.  Really?  Get better bar staff then, or someone who knows how to train them.

Things looked up after that in the fairly new Pie and Ale, with perfect but pricey (£3.60) Wilson Potter Tandle Hill.  So impressed was Mike that we had to have another.  It's one of my favourite beers, so no hardship there.  This is a very modern (and a bit soulless) bar concentrating on good beers and pie and mash. They keep the beer very well, so no complaints at all and the barman was a friendly enough sort.  It's a short walk thence to Port St Beer House and again excellent service abounded with advice (decent) and tasters offered.  We picked Caveman Palaeolithic and while it had some interesting and unidentifiable flavours, it wasn't bad at all.

Another skip round the corner took us to the excellent Soup Kitchen, a semi basement den, with the highest bar stools I've ever come across.  Men should be particularly careful in both ascending and descending, lest they ruin future chances. It was pleasantly busy with studenty types scoffing vegetable forward options.  Stout was the order of the day, from Liverpool Organic and damn fine it was too.   Heading back to Victoria Station to be handy for Mike's train, we popped into Common, a sister to PSBH and in an incredibly busy and vibrant bar, I was rewarded by Weird Beard Black Perle, a Milk Coffee Stout.  Now coffee stouts aren't my favourite thing, but this was well balanced and not over coffeed and went down a treat.  Cask conditioned and sparkled since you ask.

One last call.  Across the road from Common is Terrace, a long, bare brick bar with a youngish crowd.  There we finished off with Overtime from Six O'Clock Beer Company and finally, as us old men staggered off for a night snoring on the settee, Magic Rock Carnival.

The striking thing was that apart from our first place, we didn't get a bad beer, they were all thrivingly busy and it was good to see most bars supporting new local breweries.  Pubs are great, but good bars aren't bad either.

There was of course craft keg, but having laid out the route, someone else can have a pricey bash at that.

All Bar One

South Manchester, the domain of Clarkey* and his pals, is a bit of an unknown quantity to me. I don't often go there and don't really know it that well, but visit I did on Saturday afternoon. My destination? Chorlton - or Chorlton-Cum-Hardy to give it its full moniker, is the Notting Hill of South Manchester and an area I lived in very briefly, for about three months, more than twenty years ago. Then it was leafy, posh and had one or two decent pubs. Now it is leafy, posher and has loads of new bars, yes, bars to have a go at. None were there when I padded these streets and nor were the Worker's Hand Knitted Yoghurt Co-operatives, Organic Delis and such like which the "yummy mummies" need to make their existence complete. Still they all added colour and variety. Chorlton had changed and to my mind, had changed for the better.

I went with my oldest mate Mike, who was armed with the splendid crawl which appeared in the summer edition of "Beer". Now Mike is of the ilk that when he has a pub crawl in his sticky mitt, deems it essential to follow it to the letter. Thus we started at the only bit of Chorlton I recognised and that's only because the supermarket and railway are still in the same spot. The supermarket then was Safeway, but now is Morrisons. I know we lived near there, but buggered if I know where.

There is much talk about whether bars can replace pubs, or complement them, or just be there for those that want something a bit more modern, trendy, cosmopolitan and different. Chorlton provides at least a circumstantial case, that done well, bars are a great alternative to pubs - sometimes at least. Now it has to be said that on a lovely sunny Saturday afternoon, with a decent pint in your hand, a place outside on the pavement and the prospect of one of the finest and most compact pub crawls around, it would have taken a dedicated curmudgeon not to enjoy it. This is of course the limiting factor. Outside, pavement drinking and watching the world go by makes these place. Inside they all tended towards the gloomy, constructed as they they all were out of former shops. While gloom may have suited the butcher, baker and candlestick maker of yore and may well suit the trendy young things at night, it would have been a bit of a melancholy experience to be inside in the peeing rain. Still, it wasn't raining and they shone brightly like the sun.

Two things struck me. The cheerfulness and friendliness of the staff, who all seemed genuinely happy to be there and the very high standards of the "offer" generally. Posh food was available in all it seemed. There was a plethora of interesting imported beers in both bottle and on draught and all offered cask ale. Most in fact offered very good cask ale, carefully chosen and in top form. All were amazingly clumped together, as if the bar fairy had carelessly dropped them all from his sack. A lot were next door to each other, which gave an opportunity to compare and contrast and to try and divine why one was chosen by customers over another.

Now here's the thing. While all were enjoyable (bar one) they were all pretty samey and herein lies a possible catch. Pubs, apart from JDW that is, are all different. Bars are superficially at least, much the same. I think then that the "offer" is the distinguishing feature and they fight for custom on that basis. That is a good thing. I have severe doubts if I'd have found them quite so attractive and enjoyable at night with packed, dark interiors and their outside drinking areas dominated by smokers rather than people watchers, but for a different and very pleasant afternoon crawl, it was enjoyable and refreshing.

So what were the highlights? I have to say all were good. The standouts for me were the first stop which was Oddest (there is an Odd and an Odder in Manchester) with stumblingly charming service and superb Mallinson's beer and the two Marble outlets, which frankly, on this showing, served better quality beer than the main brewpub itself. We had one pint that perhaps wasn't at its best, (in Pi I think) though Mike was mollified by a delicious (so he said) asparagus and mushroom pie - yes Pi sells pies! Oh and the title of this piece? One bar, again I can't remember which, had no customers at all. We checked it out. Only Pedigree and Hobgoblin and run of the mill lagers here. Maybe that's why? All the other bars had carefully chosen local ales and a selection of imports. The difference showed. To paraphrase Mr Clinton, "It's the offer stoopid".

I think my conclusion is that when bars are done well, when the circumstances are right and when you can drink outside, bars can be every bit as attractive as pubs. But pub or bar, it is all about the offer.

Despite Mike's best efforts, we missed out quite a few on the crawl, but we'll be back to finish them off. On a sunny Saturday of course.

* No it isn't. See comments!

North Yorkshire

I spent the weekend there with my CAMRA chums and of course, Eileen.  A quick run down of impressions will suffice I think.  The pub scene is relatively thriving. The usual rule applies in that good pubs were really busy and crap ones weren't - not that we spent any time in crap ones - but we did look see a few times.  The cafe bar scene is big there, with modern IKEA furnished places abounding, but as well as food and foreign beers (a must), well chosen cask ales completed the picture. Ripon was big on these, as was Knaresbourgh.  Cask beer was uniformly in good condition, though with a few surprises. John Smith's cask was widely available, as was Theakstons and Black Sheep.

The JDW in Thirsk, where we stayed, was excellent with brisk and friendly service and good beers from the JDW festival list. My usual luck with North Yorkshire weather held. That is, it pissed down, so much so that we just stayed in JDW all night, until we drank them out of the excellent Grumpy, brewed by Port Brewery's Tomme Arthur at Shepherd Neame.  This was resinous, bitter and hoppy with the amarillo hops shining through. No caramel malts to ruin it either. Delicious.

Best pubs were old favourites, Blind Jack's in Knaresborough - heaving on a Saturday lunchtime and The One Eyed Rat in Ripon which had a German beer festival on.  Both are old favourites and "don't miss" destinations.  Best beers? The aforementioned Grumpy, closely followed by Saltaire Bavarian Gold.

The One Eyed Rat was full of us CAMRA types, a visiting (posh) rugby team from Darlington and locals. It was an eclectic mix and the friendliest scene imaginable.  All mixed easily. That's one sign of a good pub. The quality of the offering is another.