Our designated driver for the night!
Stalybridge station Pub.
If you are familiar with the television series 'Oz & James, Drink to Britain'. You may remember in the first episode where they do a pub crawl in Yorkshire ending up in Lancashire.
The Pub crawl is more of a train ride on the Trans-Pennine Express to three Stations that have a Pub on the Platform and serve good real ale.
They Start off in Dewsbury then to Huddersfield (there are two pubs in this station. They went to the Kings Head rather than the Head of Steam) and ending up over the border in Lancashire at the Stalybridge Station Pub.
I fortunately live in Huddersfield, so a few pals and I decided to give this a crack.
However, Huddersfield is in the middle of the journey so we decided to opt out on Dewsbury, on our miniature Oz & James adventure.
So, we started in the Kings Head, on the platform of Huddersfield station. Meaning, when our train arrived, we could literally step out of the pub and onto the train.
There was a pretty big selection of good beer at very good prices.
I got the first round in; £8.80 for four ‘Magus’ from the Durham Brewery.
This is a great golden session ale, really easy to drink. You could taste a hint of lemon in the mouth. The name means magician. I’m not sure why they call it this. Maybe because the beer has magic inside it, making you want more? Who knows! Well, the magic did work, and a few more of these were had.
Our second beer of choice was ‘Hophead’ from the Dark Star brewery in Sussex. Again, pretty cheap: £2.10 a pint!
Another golden session ale. It smelled pretty sweet, with a touch of elderflower. Never the less, a full bodied drink despite its strength and dryness. A very drinkable and clean beer that we all enjoyed.
Half way through our second helping of ‘Hophead’, it was announced over the Tannoy that our train had arrived. Down they went, off we went to Stalybridge.
The journey over the border takes about half an hour. Not too long when your with your mates.
Stalybridge station pub is on the opposite side of the platform when arriving from Huddersfield, so a short march under that tracks gets us into our final destination for the night.
The pub itself has a warm and friendly atmosphere despite the Yorkshire/Lancashire divide! It is a nice place to be, with all sorts of railway related memorabilia plastered all over the walls (a train spotter’s dream).
Again, as promised; a large selection of good British beer. I even spotted some pretty decent Belgian beer lurking in the fridge.
First up was ‘Rainbow Chaser’ by the Wem brewery in Shrewsbury. There is some confusion in the name here. I have seen the brewery listed as Hanby Ales, but it said Wem on the tap, so Wem it is.
By this time I had had my fair share of ale, so I can’t really recall the price. Having inspected my wallet the next day, I was reassured that it was pretty cheap!
Anyway, back to the beer:
‘Rainbow Chaser’, a very pale bitter, full of flavour. A very hoppy and sweet aroma followed by tangy refreshing mouth. Another classic British ale. Probably my favourite of the evening.
My second and final choice at Stalybridge was ‘Longbow’ by the Empire brewery. I was a bit disappointed with this beer. It was very watery and smelled like soggy cardboard! It may have been that the barrel needed changing, after all it was nearing closing time.
By this time it was 23.14. One minute to wait for the train back to Huddersfield. Down the rest of the soggy cardboard went and a couple of steps back onto the trans-Pennine express.
However, all of that rushing to catch the last train home had forfeited a toilet stop! And there were no toilets on the train! With half an hour to bare and a full bladder, desperate measures had to be taken……
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