Visiting Dublin was a revelation to me. The city breaks I normally take are in places where the sun shines and impromptu fiestas block roads and rouse plaza drinkers to take their tiny saucers of cubed snacks into the streets. To visit somewhere less than 200 miles away midwinter seems counter-productive – what for? Why […]
Fear Beers
For avid travellers, both Tom and I are massive scaredy cats. You’d think an aeroplane engineer would be fine in the sky, but he’s not a fan of aviation once it leaves the ground. I’m much worse – arriving at Manchester Airport train station fills me with dread and things don’t get much better until […]
Purity, Truth and Love – Mr. Fitzpatrick’s lasting reminder of Lancashire’s dry heritage
As far as I know, there’s no person more virtuous than the designated driver. A selfless individual who puts others’ pleasures ahead of their own, they and they alone ensure the safe homeward journey of their inebriated friends and colleagues. They take drunken conversations in their stride and never roll their eyes at the suggestion […]
A refuge
What’s in a pub that makes it a pub? There are hundreds of odes to the warm, inviting local, a shelter from the tumultuous skies of life, a welcoming place to anchor yourself to in the aftermath of a bad day. There are pubs as worn as your oldest pair of docs and there are […]
Kirkby Lonsdale’s got a tap room!
Kirkby Lonsdale Brewery has a tap room. Did you know that? I didn’t. I go to Kirkby Lonsdale pretty often – maybe twice or three times a year, maybe more if it’s a good summer and we want to look at the bikes – and I had no idea. Kirkby Lonsdale is a place I […]
Unlikely Pubs I have Known and Loved: The Sunset Lounge, Blackpool
The Irish Sea spreads out into a vanishing horizon, no ships, no land, no pointed fins breaking the surface in an exciting moment of man-meets-beast. Just endless waves rolling quietly to a stop against the flat sand and sloping concrete of Blackpool’s promenade. On a clear day, ridges of wind turbines line the glistening grey […]
Another Excellent Edinburgh
We’ve been visiting Edinburgh surprisingly often over the past few years. Without warning its sooty bricks and cobbled streets spooling down into the valley of its great craggy hills got into us, like a second home. I get cravings to see the castle lit at night from Grassmarket and sandstone shining with rain underfoot. I […]
When an afternoon turns into a weekend
One sunny Friday both Tom and I took the afternoon off work and rattled our way to Manchester on the straight-through train. Tom’s my fella, if you didn’t know. The straight-through train to Manchester is one of the reasons we decided to live in Clitheroe, but we hardly ever use it. This was our chance […]
Beer Talk with Steve from Beer Nouveau
In our small corner of Lancashire we don’t often get to see the faces behind some of our favourite brews. Manchester isn’t far away, neither is Leeds, but you have to get the train if you want to drink, and a train journey is sometimes all it takes to convince your group that you might […]
Beer Nemesis
Boak & Bailey wrote a piece on their beer nemesis last week and I wanted them to do a series on the types of nemesis you meet in pubs, beer festivals, bottle shops and online. They graciously declined. I kept thinking about it though, wondering who mine might be, and the answer came to me […]