Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: Huddersfield

  • Huddersfield – Rat and Ratchet

    Huddersfield – Rat and Ratchet

    The Rat and Ratchet in Huddersfield has an excellent reputation locally and is listed in the Good Beer Guide and has been for the last thirty years, which is an impressive achievement by any measure. The pub is located near to the Queensgate Campus of the University of Huddersfield, a short walk from the town centre.

    Underneath the pub in the cellars is the Rat Brewery, which as this useful sign notes has been producing beers since 2011 under the new owners, the Ossett Brewery. The beers are still though separately branded for the moment.

    It’s fair to say that I liked the signage.

    The bar was nicely presented and the barman was kind enough not to comment that I nearly tripped over the little step by the bar whilst walking towards it. Fortunately, I recovered the situation promptly and professionally……

    I was slightly puzzled (not difficult, I’m nearly permanently puzzled by something) at the weekend to see the Ossett Brewery beers at the Salt Beer Factory and so I asked the barman about that given it was replicated the other way round here. He mentioned that it was all part of the same family, which is something that I didn’t know. Judging from their on-line branding, the brewery is treating Ossett Brewery as their cask product and Salt as their keg product.

    The list of cask and keg options is clearly marked up.

    I ordered half a King Rat from Ossett, as well as half of the Ratsputin which was an imperial stout which some depth of flavour to it. Both well kept pints, at the appropriate temperature and so on.

    The service was friendly and the environment had an historic feel to it, although it had a modern edge to it as well, the ‘old meets the new’ and all that. It felt a welcoming pub judging from the other customers and I can see that this would be a handy place to have as a local. There’s very much a focus on their own beer, with few guest beers, although that is perhaps not unreasonable given that they brew some of the products here. Definitely a very worthwhile addition to the Good Beer Guide.

  • Huddersfield – German Doner Kebab

    Huddersfield – German Doner Kebab

    It seems that every city that I’ve been to recently has a German Doner Kebab outlet and I’ve been slightly intrigued by the whole arrangement. It transpires that it’s operated by Hero Brands and they’re on a big franchise push, opening 50 outlets this year and they’re keeping that rate up for seven more years. After checking, it appears that this franchise opened only a few weeks ago, replacing an outlet of Pizza Hut that had closed down last year. That reminds me that I haven’t been to Pizza Hut for years and I remember when there were queues of customers outside many branches waiting to get in for lunch buffet. Anyway, I digress.

    I very rarely have doner kebabs, namely as I tried one about 15 years ago that I was given free from a kebab shop and I thought it tasted bloody awful. However, I had a kebab in Poznan in Poland a couple of years and I’ve been reminded how popular this whole thing is in Germany, with its Turkish roots.

    The menu is above (clicking on the image makes it more readable), all clearly laid out. The shop has some self-service touch screens, but they’re broken, which isn’t ideal given how new the shop is.

    Given that the brand is clearly doing something right, I thought that I’d try the food here, although I was rather sceptical. Anyway, the service at the counter was friendly and helpful, so everything felt welcoming and well managed. The shop was generally pretty clean as well, I didn’t have any concerns there. I’m not sure if it’s standard practice or just because it was quite quiet, but the staff brought the food to the table for me as well.

    I went for the mixed chicken and beef doner box with fries. Goodness knows how unhealthy that was with the fries and salt, but there we go. It comes with three dips, which are garlic, yoghurt and spicy. I can’t say any were exceptional, but they added positively to the proceedings.

    As for the taste of the kebab, it was much better than I had expected. The beef was actually full of flavour, although much of that was probably salt and additives, but it was very moreish. The chicken was also tender and had a depth of taste to it, with the sauces livening up the fries. The portion size was also more than I had expected, perhaps not really shown by the photo.

    I’d certainly come to one of these outlets again and I can see why this franchise is doing well, it’s something that isn’t that well catered for by chains at the moment. I suspect that there will be some considerable trade lost by the traditional late night kebab shops up and down the country unless they’re able to tap into a loyal following.

  • Northern Trains + TransPennine Express : Shipley to Huddersfield

    Northern Trains + TransPennine Express : Shipley to Huddersfield

    My rail journey today was from Shipley to Huddersfield, which isn’t an expensive one, coming in at £6.50 for the two services, a Northern Rail from Shipley to Leeds and a TransPennine Express from Leeds to Huddersfield.

    It takes a little bit of working out to find the appropriate platform at Shipley railway station.

    Wikipedia tells me that there are only two triangular railway stations left in the country, this one and Earlestown on Merseyside. I’m not entirely sure how interesting a fact that is, but there we go.

    That’s how the situation evolved.

    A handy little waiting room.

    The Northern train which had come from Skipton, with Shipley being the final stop before Leeds. This is a horrible train (or the interior, the actual train is fine), the seating isn’t large enough, but more about that another time when I get around to writing about when I went from Leicester to Bradford (when I took photos). It’s really not a good look for a rail company, and the Government managed Northern Trains (no longer Northern Rail, just to confuse things) would do well to just take half the seats out and dump them in a heap somewhere, as a large number of seats are unuseable with the current set-up. Anyway, I digress and it didn’t much matter as I found a seat at the end of the carriage.

    Here we are in Leeds.

    There’s the TransPennine Express service from Leeds to Manchester, which was operating at well over its seating capacity, meaning standing room only. As the journey from Leeds to Huddersfield is only 17 minutes, I decided just to stand near to the end of the carriage, but I felt sorry for those unable to be seated who were going all the way to Manchester. There was a friendly guy who was passing around sweets (which were sealed) to customers in his vicinity, which I don’t think was a mass poisoning exercise (can’t be too careful). I hope not anyway, I had a Wispa.

    And safely into Huddersfield, with hoards more people trying to get on (mostly not in the photo). This is clearly a heavily congested route, I’m not sure if there are usually this many problems with a lack of seating. Customers would have got away without paying for a ticket though on this route, there were no ticket checks and there are no barriers at Shipley and the barriers at Huddersfield weren’t in operation.

    The exterior of Huddersfield railway station, and a statue of the former Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

    As for this journey, convenient and on-time as it was, it’s not an ideal set-up from the rail companies who seem to be struggling to deal with the number of passengers wanting to use their services. Time perhaps for the Government to speed up more investment in the rail network to get more services running. Anyway, I digress….

  • Huddersfield – Magic Rock Brewery Tap

    Huddersfield – Magic Rock Brewery Tap

    This is the taproom of Magic Rock brewery, a company which was established in Huddersfield in 2011. It’s now something of a corporate affair, having been taken over by Lion Brewery, an Australian multinational. Magic Rock beer is also widely available in supermarkets and the like, as well as often being seen on restaurant menus. The taproom is listed in the Good Beer Guide, although I would have come here anyway given the good reputation that Magic Rock have.

    There’s no shortage of seating here, this is part of the external area. There are food trucks which turn up every weekend, this week’s was a Dutch company.

    The list of beers, although they’ve also got the complete menu on Untappd as well which made things easier.

    The very nice interior of the taproom, which is very well reviewed on-line. I mentioned to the member of staff that I had booked a table just in case, but it was clear that I didn’t need to. It was a little busier outside, but the venue was surprisingly quiet. Everything was clean and comfortable, with an organised feel to the whole arrangement.

    I must admit to being slightly disappointed at the entire lack of any dark beers, even as guests, with not even their Commons Grounds porter visible. I went for five different beers from Magic Rock, all served as thirds. The bar service was slightly clumsy given that the beers are all the same colour, I would have really preferred a better set-up than this, even if they had just written them down on a bit of paper. The barman told me the drinks, but he got the order muddled up, although I think I was able to correct it (that’s the handy thing about a Gose, it’s not hard to recognise). There was also a moderately surprisingly lack of engagement given that this is the brewery’s taproom, but the service remained friendly enough.

    The keg beers were all very good though, my own personal favourite was the Clown Juice a white IPA, which is a mixture of an IPA and a Witbier. Anyway, I had a perfectly pleasant couple of hours here and I liked that they were serving as thirds. The location was clean and there was an on-trend feel to the whole arrangement, with the staff members always being helpful and polite. This also means that I’m verging on completing the main range of beers from Magic Rock which is handy. This is very much worth a visit though, it’s not far to walk from the centre of Huddersfield.