I made a trip up to Yorkshire in January, so my first 3 Yorkshire ales of the year were imbibed in dear old Yorkshire, which I do miss a tad...
Anyway, 6 of us traveled up, specifically to attend a football match in Burnley (which is very close to the Yorkshire border), first destination Leeds, where we had a couple of drinks at the Wetherspoons in the station, and it is just called "Wetherspoons", not very imaginative... We were also awaiting Tom, who had missed our train at Kings Cross, but was coming up on the next one!
Whilst in the 'spoons, we started with pints of Leeds Pale, a 3.8% very easy drinking pale session bitter, brewed with Slovenian Bobek hops. It was a nice refreshing way to start our drinking (if you ignore what was consumed on the train up), but our second pint was much better... That is, the Saltaire Cascade Pale Ale, a 4.8% ale, more body and bitterness, with a dry grapefruit finish produced by the Cascade and Centenniel hops used, this was getting better and more flavoursome.
We got to Haworth thanks to another train, and wine provided by Kieran, and by taxi from Keighley, where we stayed at the Apothecary Tearooms and Guesthouse, run by our mate Teapot Dave and his brother Nick, ta muchly. I'll not mention the trip over the border, we came second, but after we'd eaten, we did a few pubs in Haworth, the only one worth mentioning ale-wise being The Fleece. Although it is a Timothy Taylor house, they had a Saltaire guest ale on, which I noted as "3 Cs", so I'm guessing it was the 4.4% Trio Pale, which uses 3 American hops, and I remember it being very good!
Back to the Dolphin and Hastings, and this month I have savoured 4 more Yorkshire ales here. First, a completely different style of ale, the Rudgate Ruby Mild, a deep red 4.4% richer beer, almost a meal in itself, and not too easy to drink much more than one pint at a time, but very nice and tasty, and in a RNLI glass, respect.
They have also had 3 pale hoppy ales, much more to my taste, of course. The first 2 of which were from one of my old favourite brewers, that is, the Roosters Cogburn, a 4.3% pale golden bitter brewed with American hops, very thirst quenching and their ever dependable Yankee, another 4.3% pale bitter, that uses Cascade hops also from the USA. Both very nice, indeed, but my favourite so far this year has to be from my old employer, Kelham Island Brewery, which is awaiting a new website, so cannot provide, sorry! Oh yes, their 4.9% Blondie Beer, pale, hoppy, with a nice dry bitter finish, very good, indeed, cheers!
