The Mayor of Stalybridge...

... and other stories

THURSDAY 21 JANUARY

A cold, Thursday morning saw Craig, Yvonne and me meet at Glasgow Central - the purpose - to catch a train to Manchester for an extended weekend away. The plans for the weekend were (1) to meet Dr Stan, Howard and Tracey at the National Winter Ales Festival in Manchester, (2) to continue our trips to railway station bars (this one in Stalybridge); (3) to then meet Hector in Sheffield and (4) to revisit The Grove in Huddersfield.

As may be expected from a national CAMRA festival, the range of beers on offer at the Winter Festival was impressive. This was somewhat wasted on some of us who concentrated on the German biers available from the Foreign stand - particularly the Schlenkerla Eiche Doppelbock - a new Christmas oak-smoked bier served from oak barrels.

FRIDAY 22 JANUARY

Friday morning saw Dr Stan go his own way, whilst the rest of us took the short train journey to Stalybridge, to visit the Station Buffet - a superb wee pub offering six or so real ales (sadly for Craig, none were even close to 5% - saving a number of people receiving wind up texts… - although he did seem to find the 3.9% Millstone rather palatable). Despite the lack of strong beers, we still managed to spend a happy afternoon there, thanks to a chance meeting with Michael Gallagher, one of the local signalmen, and a former Mayor.

After returning to Manchester (on a single carriage train that defies description), there was a quick visit to the Marble Arch before I left the others and travelled to Sheffield with Simon. The others followed on, but didn't get past the new pub at Sheffield station, the Sheffield Tap, that evening…

Those of us who were being more adventurous visited the Fat Cat and the Kelham Island Tavern (CAMRA's current national pub of the year), meeting Dr Stan and Hector on route.

SATURDAY 23 JANUARY

Having learned from previous trips, after the now-mandatory Wetherspoons breakfast, we took the train almost directly to Huddersfield, for a visit to The Grove - a pub that cannot be recommended highly enough (see the entries for September 2009) - all I can add is that you should visit it!

Eventually dragging ourselves away from the Grove, the train took us to Fernandez Brewery Tap in Wakefield. Unfortunately, engineering works meant that coaches took us from there back to Sheffield. It was kind of Northern Rail to lay on a bespoke coach for some of us (although, probably due to Hector's stint behind the wheel, it took us longer to get back than those on the full coach that left 2 minutes before!)

We were, however, back in time to end the evening at the Sheffield Tap - which serves both Thornbridge and Brewdog beers - a place that would make it far too easy to miss your train…