Saturday November 15th saw the annual Steel City Beer Festival volunteer day out. After a last-minute check on Storm Claudia flood warnings, our coach travelled north taking 46 passengers to the joys of Happy Valley. Here we met several fellow workers who had journeyed from other parts of West Yorkshire before splitting into smaller groups to investigate the 15 outlets listed on our guide. The relatively small size of Hebden Bridge meant that all of us spent the afternoon meeting-up with colleagues as we moved from pub to pub. As one participant said afterwards, ‘my first Sheff CAMRA trip. Got to say how great it was.’
Ten of us commenced with the most outlying pub: Stubbing Wharf with four hand-pumps. Then it was to West Yorkshire’s first community co-operative pub: the Fox and Goose where a single bar served three flagstone floored rooms and a beer garden which seems to stretch as far as Heptonstall.
Other outlets included the Albert (the ‘Duke of Wellington’ in the recent BBC series, ‘Riot Women’), Drink! – a specialist bottle shop and sampling room with bar, Hidden Hebden, the Trades Club, Vocation & Co. and the tap for local brewery, Nightjar.
Also visited was MAMIL*, a recent addition to a small local chain of cycle-themed café-bars: this was felt to be the bar with the most garish facilities.
Beers sampled included several from local brewery, Vocation plus many others. Big Drop, Black Sheep, Deeply Vale, Harrogate, Nightjar, Ossett, Pictish, Pomona Island, Redwillow, Small World, Squark, Theakston and Timothy Taylor were among the many breweries encountered.
Thanks to our driver, Glyn, and for their local knowledge as our map was constructed, Hebden residents, Alice, Josh and their dog, Mars. Also thanks to everyone who was on the coach for their exemplary time-keeping – much appreciated. Also, it was good to see that none of you turned left after using the on-board facilities.
See you next year!
* MAMIL, Middle Aged Men In Lycra, is an acronym which was heavily used in 2014 when the Tour de France visited Hebden Bridge and also saw it’s best-ever Grand Départ.
