Up The Junction

En route to a rugby league match in Wakefield last night, I popped into Woodfest, a beer festival organised by the Society for the Preservation of Beers from the Wood at the Junction Inn, Castleford, which champions beer from wooden rather than metal casks to the extent that they supply them to breweries to put their products into as well as serving Old Brewery Bitter from the best-known suppliers of cask beer in wood, Yorkshire's most traditionalist family brewers Samuel Smith.

Formed in 1963, the SPBW pre-dates Britain's leading beer drinkers' organisation CAMRA by almost a decade and has always been more of a social rather than a campaigning group, although CAMRA itself is I suppose moving in that direction too now. The event was held in a marquee behind the pub and the premises of a refurbished, but from I could see still closed, and certainly unsigned, pub next door to it, the Horse and Jockey. CAMRA stalwart, and former Trotskyist, Roger Protz was also there, making notes for the speech he was to give later, although I had to leave before he spoke.

I hadn't drunk any of the beers I had last night before so it's hard to say what they're like in metal rather than wooden casks, but the latter did seem to have added a bit of Victorian-style funkiness to them, especially Beer Nouveau's Barclay Perkins X Ale, a recreation of a 1852 8.9% mild served from a small barrel on the bar, and Castleford Special, a similarly historic London porter supplied by Buckinghamshire's Baby Animal brewery.

St George's Square

Returning from West Yorkshire to Manchester last Sunday evening, I changed trains at Huddersfield.

Huddersfield railway station stands on St George's Square which while it might not be quite up there with St Mark's or St Peter's Square is still a pretty impressive space. As well as the neoclassical station with its two pubs, it also has a statue of Huddersfield-born Prime Minister Harold Wilson facing the George Hotel, the birthplace of rugby league.

It's also where I made my screen debut while working for Granada TV as an extra in the early 90's (briefly, at 49.33).

Classic Cas

My rugby league odyssey around West Yorkshire continued last Sunday with a trip to Castleford.

Castleford's home Wheldon Road is one of the last of the archetypal Northern rugby league grounds.  Built in 1926, it hasn't changed much since with standing terraces on all sides and industrial chimneys looming over one end.

Before the match, I popped in the pub opposite and as it was keg only had a pint of Guinness. It was the first time I've seen the Guinness surger system where you pour a can into a pint glass and put it on a metal plate that sends sound waves through it to create a thick head. I can't really say it improved the taste but at least it wasn't cold or fizzy. I remember the shock of the coffee-bitterness when I first drank a pint of Draught Guinness in a pub as a teenager in the late 80's. Either my taste buds are going or Guinness is toning down the bitterness. I think I know which it is.

I had about forty minutes to wait for a train at Castleford station after the match. Luckily the British Legion across the road was holding an afternoon disco and being a warm day had opened the fire exits so not only could you enjoy the sound of the 60's soul being played but also the sight of middle-aged Yorkshire folk dancing drunkenly while necking cheap keg bitter.

A weekend in the West Riding

I started a weekend watching rugby league in West Yorkshire last Saturday in Wakefield.

Wakefield's home ground Belle Vue is the backdrop for the 1963 film This Sporting Life starring Richard Harris as a coal miner who becomes a professional rugby league player. I can't say I really recognised it much as one end is now taken up by a block of executive boxes but the high terrace at the opposite end of the ground where I stood does have a big, low roof that means noise generated by the fans is trapped and amplified, something missing from more modern stadiums with standing areas.

After the match, I went to a couple of pubs in the Good Beer Guide. The Black Rock, a darkish Victorian boozer that serves a pretty decent pint of cask Tetley's, was full of older guys watching the World Snooker Championship on TV. At the other end of the pub spectrum, The Hop  is a light, modern building with a bare brick interior. Owned by Ossett Brewery, it had most of their cask beers on and was filling up with young people who'd come to see the band that was setting up.

Walking back to the hotel, I noticed a brewery I've not heard of before: Clark's, established in 1906 from what the sign on the brewery wall says. According to the GBG, they stopped brewing in the 60's before starting again in the early 80's. The brewery stands in the shadow of HMP Wakefield, a set-up familiar to Mancunians like myself who remember the Boddingtons and Strangeways towers facing each other.

The next train to Batley

I've just watched the second episode of the BBC series The Railway: Keeping Britain on Track.

This week's programme looked at the Transpennine Real Ale Trail, the pub crawl by train from Manchester to Batley, stopping off at Huddersfield, Mirfield, Slaithwaite ("Slawit" to locals), Dewsbury, the unofficial pub at Mossley and my own favourite, the Railway at Greenfield where the excellence of the beer is matched by that of the pork pies.

The BBC made the trail look like a hazardous, vomit spattered stagger across Lancashire and Yorkshire with people falling onto the track and abusing other rail passengers and train staff. I've done it a few times for birthdays and stag nights and while some people drink a bit more than they should, the number who cause trouble is tiny compared to the thousands who enjoy a beery day out.

If I lived in one of the small towns on the route, I might think differently about the weekly invasion of inebriated travellers but surely a bit of litter and public urination is a small price to pay for keeping your pubs open and regular train services running?