Huddersfield - Beer Capital of the UK?

Well Sheffield perhaps has as good a choice of beer as long as you take the tram from the train station and get off at the Wellington.

Yes, Sheffield comes close with the Fat Cat, Wellington (Cask and Cutler) , Kelham Island Tavern, Hillsborough Hotel and New Barrack Tavern.. I still think Huddersfield has the edge.

The Champion has to be Rugby , Warwickshire.

Two micro breweries, plenty of great pubs: The Merchants Inn ( 10 Ales ) The Raglan ( eight ) The Seven Stars ( six) The Alexandra ( six ) Weatherspoons ( up to eight ), The Squirrel etc etc I could go on and on... Our local CAMRA group are confident that within walking distance of the railway station you could enjoy around fifty different beers. Give it a try ?

Cheers .Rod

In message , MPlatting@?.?.invalid writes

Sheffield, Manchester and Liverpool are probably too big to count as fair competition.

Chester has 2 or 3 superb pubs and a lot of nice ones. Derby, Norwich and Nottingham abound in pubs and microbrewieries. Reading, Salisbury, Oxford, Cambidge are all pretty good. St Albans, Bradford, Peterborough, Salisibury...

Opps..left out a personal favourite, Stockport.

Rugby has 3 pubs, Raglan Arms, Merchant, Victoria (Atomic Brewery tap), with

9 ever-changing ales each, most from micros. Also Alexandra, with it's own brewery, The Squirrel, Rupert Brooke (Spoons), Seven Stars, in all of which I've had interesting brews.

Yes perhaps I should have been more specific - but then I wasn't quite sure of the question myself! I think the 'withinin such a small area' is the key - I was thinking of someone arriving at a railway station for a day out, and being able to walk to a selection of pubs and back again to the station.

Perhaps a half mile radius from the principal railway station would be a reasonable yerdstick (which in Liverpool's case would include the Baltic Fleet - so that's ok!)

And the Northern quarter is easily accessible from from Machester Victoria.

Just returned to the US from a trip around West Yorks and up into The Dales. We stayed in Holmfirth (reasons are obvious??), but did drive up into Huddersfield.

Gotta say ... WOW!!!

Parked in the big lot at the top of the town and walked to bunches of pubs with loads of real ales. Think we liked the Rat and Ratchet best, 'cause they were doing their Mild festival. But there's two pubs just over at the station, and there's the Grove right by where we parked. Then there's the Star as well.

The day we were there, across all the pubs we looked into, betcha we counted over 60 different real ales on the pump.

Next time, you'll have to do the Sportsman as well, just a stone's throw from the station - Taylor's Landlord, Black Sheep Golden Sheep and 6 guests, mostly Huddersfield-brewed ales. Cheers!

[Snip]

Been to all of those, mostly several times, and vote for Huddersfield!

Now everyone knows that real ale can solve all the world's problems so it were all only a matter of time....

Over 20 years ago (1986 I think) it was a well known fact in Heavy Metal circles that:- "everybody knows the centre of the universe is Huddersfield"

Prophetic words methinks

Let Huddists rejoyce for the word is spreading far and wide.....

My vote goes to Halesowen/Lye

Havent seen., if so!

give some details to make me spend some of my summer hols here ....

I'm not sure it's really a "summer holiday" type of place...

Chris (who comes from 3 miles up the road!)

Obviously I'd be OT and we all (I trust) want good news; but has anyone encountered the opposite - that is a Real Ale desert? or maybe just a dull monopoly town?

I'd have mentioned Merthyr Tydfil in dishonourable dispatches, but it has a Spoon and (saving grace) a (the?) Rhymney brewery outlet.

I spent a summer holiday (a week? long time back) touring the Dudley area, sampling Holden, Batham, Sarah Hughes, Plant Holt& Deakin, (that'll date it to mid 80's) etc beers . Came back quite tanned; shocked work-colleagues by my answer to the "where did you go for your hols?"!

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