Firstly I
would like to thank everyone who has sent cards and asked about my health etc following my recent hip replacement. I am pleased
to say, I am out and about once again looking for the perfect pint, which is nearly as rare as a no sale day at D.F.S furniture.
The Old Ship
Inn at Bethel Street in Brighouse is fast becoming a haven for real ale drinkers. As well as an excellent choice of beers,
there is a superb menu and now a dining room is open, one can enjoy a meal far from the madding crowd.
Mark and Kate
are the friendly resident licensees assisted by Kate’s bubbly niece Emma. (If you mention my name, Emma will show you
her jugs.) The pub is clean, with a warm and inviting atmosphere and plays a good selection of background music. Well worth
a visit.
Last Friday
The Old Gits started off at The Richard Ostler in Brighouse, then travelled by bus to Bradford interchange. A short walk took
us along Market Street, then to Hustlergate behind the wool exchange and to the city vaults.
The Vaults
is a fantastic pub with a good choice of real ales, friendly bar staff and a great atmosphere. We settled for Golden Pippin
from Copper Dragon which went down really well and deserved a second and third consideration.
Another short
walk towards Forster Square and we arrived at The Midland Hotel and went into the Pennington Bar where a jazz band was playing.
The hand-pulled beers available were Taylor’s Landlord and Tetley Bitter, both of them on form.
A great feature
of this bar is the coloured, full wall sized mural painting of Bardford city centre, complete with lights, which I thought
represented an era about 1950, as it shows a tram, various trolley buses and dray wagons, one carrying Hammond’s Ales.
Saturday night
is spent at the local, where a number of us meet each week and usually solve the world’s problems over several pints
of beer, and this brings out some of the best anecdotes and statements ever heard.
For instance,
one fellow who hails from Ireland couldn’t understand why he had one brother and his sister had two. Or the chap who
declared in all sincerity that if your parents don’t have any children, then you are unlikely to have any too.
We recently
had a competition to find out who could tell the biggest lie, and naturally I won. The runner up said that he had swum up
Niagara Falls in a diving suit. “Beat that Harry” he says. “O.k.”, I replied, “I watched him”.
