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  • Hebden Bridge – Vocation & Co.

    Hebden Bridge – Vocation & Co.

    With my daily rail pass for West Yorkshire, I had a fair few places that I could visit, and Nathan suggested that one of the possible locations was the home of Vocation Brewery, which is Hebden Bridge. I had visited their bar in Leeds a few weeks ago so this seemed a marvellous idea.

    The bar, all clean and modern. I faffed about a little at the bar ordering, so I think the barman thought I was an idiot, but he was helpful and friendly. I did tell him that I was checking Untappd so I could remember what drinks I had before, which is a ridiculous way of ordering really. But I didn’t want to come to a brewery’s taproom and then had something I’d already had, thereby missing out on something that I might not get to see anywhere else. It makes sense to me anyway, I think.

    The beer options and I of course went for Vocation’s two dark options. The barman mentioned that the Honeycomb Chocolate Stout was a recent product and so I was unlikely to have had it before.

    The one on the right is Naughty & Nice, which was lovely. But, I want to focus more on the one on the left, the Honeycomb Chocolate Stout, which was effectively like drinking a Crunchie Bar. A bloody lovely beer with a strong flavour, but it was smooth, luscious and really quite velvety, all with a 7% ABV. This was a delight to drink, although I’d note that the aftertaste wasn’t quite as decadent as I’d have liked, but this was something really quite different and enjoyable.

    It’s all a bit keg based to be listed in the Good Beer Guide, although there are a few cask options to choose from. I was slightly tempted by food (they do what look to be a decent line in burgers), but I might have been trying to be on a Zoom call at the same time, so I thought I was already pushing that situation…… A very good suggestion though to come here.

  • United States – How Exciting

    United States – How Exciting

    I took this photo in Boston (the ones in the United States, not in Lincolnshire) in 2014, a reminder that it’s a country that spends a lot on flags….

    Anyway, as pretty much every friend of mine knows as I’ve excitedly been telling everyone all evening, I’ve booked a month’s trip to the United States in 2022, flying with my favourite airline, British Airways. An unusual routing for me of Gatwick North to Tampa, but I probably won’t spend much time in Florida. I’ve got to get to Oregon, there are craft beer bars aplenty for me to explore there…..

    Perhaps this won’t go ahead given the health situation, but I can dream. Came to just over £250 return, excellent value, especially as I paid a chunk of that with my remaining BA flight vouchers from previous flights I’d had to cancel. Very excited to be back in the land of dreams, God willing. Only a few weeks until my trip to Poland, so lots to look forwards to…..

    And yes, I know very few people will be at all interested in this, but I’m very excited anyway, I’ve missed the United States.

  • Halifax – Victorian Craft Beer Cafe

    Halifax – Victorian Craft Beer Cafe

    On the way back to Bradford, I visited this Good Beer Guide listed pub in Halifax and it’s a relatively short walk from the railway station (which is handy as that’s where I was coming from). The pub opened in 2014 with the aim of bringing continental style drinking to the residents of Halifax.

    The lighting in the pub was quite dim, but that suited its character and decor, although it made it difficult to capture in a photo. I think these capture the charm of the pub though, somewhere very cosy and comfortable.

    The beer board and that’s a well put together set of options, I was suitably impressed. There are usually 10 or so ales, 18 beers on tap and 100 bottled beers, I’d suggest it’d be hard for a beer drinker not to find something appropriate. Although not the man who reviewed the pub saying “pretentious, overpriced and dire beer”, although nearly every other review is quite rightly positive.

    Some news which I saw on the pub’s web-site is that they’re starting brewing themselves, under the Second Sight Brew Co banner and it looks an intriguing little set-up, with more at http://www.secondsightbrew.co/.

    I had debated going to get something to eat elsewhere, but the chorizo pork pie met my needs instead of bothering with anything else. The beer was refreshing and had the pineapple and apricot flavours that it promised, although not to the same depth as some of the other ones I’ve had from Brew by Numbers. Still a very pleasant way to end the night. Oh, and the pork pie was delicious, with not too much jelly for me to scrape off (it’s too decadent for me).

    As an aside, one thing that slightly confused me is that the Brew by Numbers brewery (one of my favourite) have several 55 Double IPAs, but I was able to check the pump clip to see that it was the El Dorado & Idaho 7 beer. Precision is needed for Untappd, a reminder really that I need to get out more….

    The service at the bar was friendly and engaging, this feels like a pub that the community is supporting. The decor is something else by any definition, a far cry from when it was an Italian restaurant, and I think they’ve done a great job with that. This really is one of those pubs that you could bring a book along to and spend a few hours here, or equally, find someone to talk to. I’m delighted that the Good Beer Guide directed me here, as although it’s a little bit trite to say that a pub can help you escape normality, I’d say this one can pretty much achieve that in the nicest of ways.

  • Sowerby Bridge – Hogs Head Brew House

    Sowerby Bridge – Hogs Head Brew House

    Fortunately it’s not too hot today as I explore the delights of West Yorkshire, with this visit being to the well-reviewed Good Beer Guide listed Hogs Head Brew House in Sowerby Bridge.

    I had already seen what drinks were available as the pub has listed them on their app, so that saved some time when at the bar. Well, saved a few seconds anyway. A range of beer styles there and a decent cask and keg selection of options.

    The bar, which feels bright and modern, and although it’s a little hidden by the lights in the photo, there’s a hog’s head above the counter (there are some other dead animals attached to other walls in the pub as well). The service was warm and welcoming, with the pub having quite a relaxed vibe.

    The cellar is visible through this glass panel in the floor and there’s a well that goes down even further.

    All very on-trend, a mix of the old and the new. The surroundings are comfortable and there’s certainly a lot of decoration and stuff around the place. There was one customer’s dog that spent about five minutes barking and he seemed oblivious to that it was annoying at least one other table. The pub didn’t feel very busy internally, but there were a fair few customers sitting outside in the garden area opposite.

    I went for the Paper Planes from Salopian Brewery, quite a quirky hazy beer, but with a depth of flavour that I liked. Of little relevance to anyone else, that’s the second beer I’ve had from Salopian Brewery in the last couple of weeks (and I’ve never had any from this brewery in Shrewsbury before that), both of which have been really quite acceptable.

    I’m not sure that I have much more to add about this pub, but I liked it and I’m glad that it’s in the Good Beer Guide. I’m not entirely sure how places of this size make money when they don’t offer meals (although they had pork pies), but there are two canals that meet in this town and perhaps they get some revenue from the tourist trade linked to that.

  • Northern Trains : Shipley to Bradford Forster Square

    Northern Trains : Shipley to Bradford Forster Square

    A short rail journey today, from Shipley back into Bradford Forster Square. It’s not possible to go to Shipley to Bradford Interchange without taking a circuitous route via Leeds or something, as the two Bradford railway stations aren’t connected.

    The delights of Shipley railway station’s underground tunnels.

    They’re not very decadent, but at least everything is clearly signed.

    Shipley’s railway station, this is in a different part of the complex to where I left from last week.

    Clicking on this image makes it larger and it’s the Network Rail map of the railway station. Platform 5 is on the left, platforms 3 and 4 at the base and platforms 1 and 2 at the top. Dead simple….

    Here’s the Northern Trains Thunderbolt speeding into the station.

    The seating and it was busier than this, but I took the photos when disembarking. There were no ticket checks, although there was a passenger watching TikTok videos loudly, but I can manage to ignore those when the rail journey only lasts for a few minutes.

    Into Bradford Forster railway station, which has ticket barriers and staff members available to help customers (or at least check they’ve got tickets which I think is the priority here). The journey took all of seven minutes, arriving on time when it should have done.

    Walking to the road, that building to the left is where the old railway station used to stand until the early 1990s, when it was known as Bradford Midland.

    The current railway station is located where School Street is now located, with Bradford Midland having been entirely demolished. That was a mistake as far as I can see, the facilities at Forster Square are inadequate and there needs to be a bigger railway station here. It will though mean demolishing the HMRC building that’s in the way.

  • Bradford – McDonalds Kirkgate

    Bradford – McDonalds Kirkgate

    I very rarely go into McDonald’s in the UK, they’re usually a little superfluous for me given that there are those wonderful things called pubs. However, it’s the McDonald’s monopoly season and I thought I’d see what I could get.

    Anyway, food, drink and stickers aside, I do feel sorry for the staff here. The upstairs of the restaurant was closed off, which really wasn’t ideal for customers, although they had a few seats free downstairs. In came a yell of children (or whatever the collective noun is) who were showing off which was the rudest, all aged around 10 or 11. Fortunately they were nowhere near me, but two of them were vaping in the corner and one of the crew members asked a manager to deal with the situation, which he begrudgingly did. One kid had also managed to pinch an entire cup of ketchup, which ended up being thrown on the floor outside. The crew member battled on though trying to clean the mess up the group had left, but he remained endlessly polite as if this was just another repeat occurrence of annoying customers.

    Then a group of younger women, probably aged around 16, came in and were abusive to the crew members. The same manager went over and threw them out as well, telling them he didn’t want customers like that in the restaurant. He certainly wasn’t in the mood for debate and I quite liked that confidence and authority. It certainly made for a tense atmosphere though, especially as then another customer was rude to a crew member, just what you want at 15:00 on a Sunday afternoon.

    There’s no real point to this post and I’m not going to go down the line about how there are problems with this younger generation, as it’s a small minority and it’s been the same for every other generation. It is though a reminder about just how hard so many staff in hospitality work, often in trying and difficult circumstances and provocation from customers.

    On a more important matter, I got a free coffee from the Monopoly stickers, so that was handy, although I’ll collect that when kids are at school, it’ll be more sedate. That’s the key message, be kind to hospitality workers and there are prizes galore with McDonald’s Monopoly….

  • Barnsley – Sod the Pedestrians

    Barnsley – Sod the Pedestrians

    I haven’t complained about anything for a few hours, so this seems like a good moment. This is an example of how pedestrians are really not well cared for sometimes and they wonder why accidents take place. On the left of this road junction is the Ibis Styles Barnsley and Toby Carvery, on the right is the road into Barnsley town centre. On both sides are residential areas and plenty of people need to walk between them, as I noticed when doing this walk myself, this is a busy crossing area for pedestrians. In the middle of all this is the M1 motorway.

    And this is what pedestrians have to cross, the entrance to the bloody M1. Just as cars really want to start speeding up to join the M1, there are pedestrians trying to cross here. No warnings for car drivers, nothing to help pedestrians. The appropriate flooring is there to help disabled people get across and know there’s a crossing, but they’d be very brave to try and cross here. I hated this crossing, and there’s one on the other side which is no better. The path does carry on and is protected after this point with a crash barrier, but then pedestrians have to cross the other side as well, where cars are coming off the M1. That’s slightly easier though, as there are traffic lights controlling that, although nothing for pedestrians, they just have to notice when they’re red for the cars.

    There’s the M1 and the slip road (or whatever they’re called) onto it is to the left behind the trees. I don’t know who is responsible for sorting out this crossing, but I think the lack of care here is irresponsible and I hope that no-one is ever injured on this crossing.

    Anyway, moan over….

  • Barnsley – New Central Library

    Barnsley – New Central Library

    The council demolished the town’s central library a few years ago and they promised they would replace it, which they’ve now done and the new building opened in 2019 in the heart of Barnsley’s Light Box regeneration area. I normally cringe when I see that a new library has been constructed, as too often they’re worse than what they replaced, but the arrangement here wasn’t as bad as I feared.

    As is partly visible here, I was impressed at how much seating there was, with power sockets readily available.

    Everything felt modern, although it’s not the most inspiring of buildings given that it looks like an office block.

    The maps collection, probably not used that much, but it’s a very useful resource for a library to have, especially when it’s presented neatly like this.

    I don’t know how true this is, but a member of library staff told a visitor that this chair made out of cardboard cost the council £750 and they’ve put it in the corner so that no-one sits in it. I have no further comment to add about this.

    Clever, use an environmental reason to justify just leaving the exposed concrete on the stairways. The signage in the building is appalling though, I’m not sure why they need to keep it a secret of where things are located. However, the fiction section is on the first floor and the reference section is on the second floor, that’s the main divide.

    I was suitably impressed by the entire set-up, with the staff being friendly, although there seemed to be a lot of them and they frequently looked bored. There’s plenty of space, lots of seats, a decent selection of local history books and a clean environment which was quiet. I say quiet, the public were quiet, the staff seemed to want to create an atmosphere more akin to a busy pub, but it’s easy to be critical…… Having written that, I went to look at the reviews of the library and this seems to be a common problem, so I think someone’s suggestion of a quiet area for the staff to sit in might be a useful benefit.

    I can’t imagine that this library came cheap, but these things should perhaps always be a little expensive to do properly (although I’d rather they spent more money on books rather than decadent furniture).

  • Shipley / Saltaire – SALT Bar and Kitchen

    Shipley / Saltaire – SALT Bar and Kitchen

    I visited the SALT Bar & Kitchen last week, although I’m now back in the area and it’s a reminder to myself I never wrote about my little excursion to this venue which is now owned by Ossett Brewery. It’s a short walk from the Saltaire UNESCO World Heritage site, so anyone going there might be interested in walking here as well to enjoy the history of this building. And the beer obviously.

    The bar is located in a former tramshed, it’s an impressive set-up and it was popular when I was there, with plenty of customers sitting outside with the wasps, seagulls and other dangerous animals that exist in this country.

    The whole set-up is modern and on-trend, with a central bar area.

    I wasn’t sure what food they did, but it transpired to be pretty much just pizzas. This is an entirely agreeable set-up to me and although this wasn’t the cheapest, it had some of the best toppings that I’ve had a pizza in terms of the quality of the ingredients. I was suitably impressed with this and it went well with my Hessian coffee stout from their own brewery.

    I went through a few third pints of beer, all of which were decent options, although I particularly liked this one, the Risk & Reward imperial stout from their own brewery. Also available at the bar were the Rat beers, which I saw at the Rat and Ratchet pub in Huddersfield this week, and they also sold all of the SALT beers.

    At the rear of the bar is the SALT Beer Factory that they said I could have a little look at. That wasn’t a special gesture, it’s open to everyone on weekends, but I did enjoy having a meander around their brewery set-up.

    I was impressed at this entire arrangement, the service was friendly, the staff were knowledgeable, the location was clean and modern, it’s definitely a destination venue. It’s also a marvellous advertisement for the brewery, quite different from the perhaps slightly less exciting set-up that Magic Rock have in Huddersfield. I’d also say that this should be listed in the Good Beer Guide, as they have cask and keg options, and this is a magnificent example of how to run a venue professionally.

  • Bingley – Mercure Bradford Bankfield

    Bingley – Mercure Bradford Bankfield

    Hotel prices at weekends are at the highest levels I’ve seen them in the UK at the moment, which has required me to be quite creative. There’s near 100% occupancy in chain hotels across the north of the country, a result of people wanting to have some weekends away. For my Saturday night stay the Mercure at Bradford Bankfield was showing at £45 for a double room, which was very cheap compared to everywhere else and seems to be a quirk, perhaps someone just cancelling. I also have a heap of Accor rewards points, so paid for most of it with that.

    I walked for twenty minutes from Bingley to get here and it’s an impressive building and I tried to ensure that I didn’t include the wedding party in my photo who were having photos taken outside the front of the main entrance. Unfortunately, Mercures in country locations in the UK generally have a poor reputation, and I had low expectations of this one, usually the grand frontages hide some dated rooms in cheap extensions.

    “Set in a Gothic style mansion house surrounded by landscaped gardens, the Mecure Bradford, Bankfield Hotel is a peaceful retreat and a short stroll from the banks of the River Aire.”

    The above is what the hotel has written, and ignoring the issue they can’t spell the hotel name, they’ve probably set up expectations here of a grand country house that they clearly can’t deliver on. Most of the hotel isn’t in a Gothic style mansion house, it’s in more modern extensions that are quite rickety. That means guests expecting they’ll be in lovely historic rooms won’t get what they hoped for.

    I also only realised after leaving that the hotel has been dumping inventory on Groupon, which in nearly all circumstances I’ve ever encountered is a sign that there are huge problems in getting customers and it’s almost always a last resort. They’d perhaps be better just reducing their prices on Accor’s web-site rather than handing over a big cut to Groupon, but there we go….. It could be claimed that it’s great marketing, but it doesn’t look like that, they’ve got some devastating reviews because they’ve over-promised a country house luxury stay and haven’t delivered on that to Groupon customers.

    Anyway, I digress.

    The main hall. The welcome at reception was helpful and the staff member apologised that he couldn’t offer me a free upgrade as they were full. To be fair to them, I was aware of that as the hotel filled soon after I booked the room that I did, so they were being entirely honest there. They didn’t bother with the welcome gift though, which they should have done, although the drinks voucher was pro-actively offered. I was nearly charged the wrong amount for the room, but it was soon fixed.

    I was aware that the bedroom was small when I booked, probably too small for two people, but fine for me.

    I think that the bathroom was about the same size as the bedroom….. There were some basic maintenance issues that needed addressing here that the hotel probably should have already fixed, such as the state of that window ledge.

    I took my welcome drink back to the room as I didn’t want to get in the way of the wedding that was taking place. As a drinks option, this Goose Island bottle is perfectly acceptable to me.

    The room wasn’t really clean enough, although it sufficed for me as I have relatively low standards here, otherwise I’d permanently be at receptions complaining. The bedding was clean, but the floor wasn’t and they had left half-used shower gels in the little bottles in the bathroom rather than replace them. That was shoddy and cost-cutting they shouldn’t be engaged with. Those mini bottles are a slight environmental disaster as it is, but they should be thrown away if they’re part-used.

    There’s no air conditioning in the room, although it’s an old building and so that’s not surprising. But, they haven’t bothered with putting fans in the room, and even Travelodge and Premier Inn do that. This to me is an omission, they should be doing this. I was also staying only for one night so this doesn’t affect me, but the hotel is saying it isn’t cleaning rooms for Covid cleanliness reasons. This is a little disingenuous, every other hotel I’ve stayed at recently is now moving back towards the usual housekeeping schedule. If they are short staffed then that’s fair enough, but they shouldn’t be claiming they’re doing it for cleanliness reasons, especially when they’re not properly cleaning the rooms anyway.

    The reviews for the hotel aren’t great and they should perhaps be most alarmed about how they’re doing badly on service looking at Google Reviews, that should usually be around 4.2 to 4.6 out of 5, but it’s down at 3.5 here. It’s easy to assume reviews aren’t reliable, but trends like that usually tell a story. There are a lot of negative reviews, although this one was quite blunt:

    “Worst hotel ever, no staff on reception. No food despite being pre booked my room has no lock and the door can be pushed open easily. The bedding was dirty. The curtains were falling down. The walls are like paper thin. I could go on for days. So instead of staying here give yourself a free upgrade and just sleep in a cardboard box outside the conditions will be much better”

    No lock? That’s not ideal. The walls were quite thin, although this was only evident to me in the morning as I could hear the television next door. The doors probably also need door closers on them as well to try and reduce noise, rather than them slamming shut.

    “Getting my bill right was clearly a major problem for the lady and she didn’t manage it (a subsequent charge to my credit card) as, in her words, she was emotional over the death of a disabled pigeon that morning. Clearly the cycle of nature passed her by. Food was adequate (no pigeon on the menu) but expensive as were the drinks. Bedroom was comfortable but the shower was unadjustable – fiercely hot all the time and unusable. A totally unsatisfactory stay and despite its convenience we shall not return.”

    I don’t want to make light of the disabled pigeon, but that review did amuse me.

    I can’t complain too much because the room rate was one of the cheapest in the area, but they often charge higher rates and I’m not confident they’re offering the standard of service that they should be. For my stay, it was entirely acceptable, but I wouldn’t stay here again.