In an effort to make up for the lost holiday to Wales we decided to have a tour of some of York's pubs. York is a short train journey from home, and pub crawl around the ancient city is something we have been meaning to do for a long time.
Having arrived in York early, in torrential rain, we decided a touristy walk around the streets wasn't an option, and we both felt it was a bit too early for the pub. So in a effort to stay dry and not wanting to stray too far from the
York Tap, which is on the station, we headed for the National Railway Museum. After a short but dry visit there, we head back in the rain to the York Tap, our first pub of the day.
Anyone who has visited the
Sheffield Tap will feel at home here, it's much the same, but bigger, with a larger range of both cask and craft keg beers. It's no surprise really,
Pivovar Ltd own the Sheffield Tap, York Tap,
Euston Tap and
Pivni (another pub in York on our list). The quality of the surroundings here are top notch, and two roaring open fires give the place a homely feel. The bar is a large circular affair, which takes some time to walk around. It was reasonably quiet as it was still quite early so we staked a table near one of the open fires, and surveyed the range of beers. Given a choice of so many beers, this took us a short while, talk about spoilt for choice! But a we eventually chose
Magic Rock Cannonball (keg) and
Thornbridge Puja (cask), both were excellent, I don't however want to go into the beers in too much detail here, I want this post to be mainly about the pubs.
After the Tap, we set off further into York city, we ended up in Pivni, but we did call in a couple of places on our way there, we didn't stay in either as the beer on offer didn't inspire us. Pivni is a small pub, on three floors with a long bar downstairs. Casks are racked on the wall behind the bar, a space saving measure, but does also look great. Beers on offer were either cask or keg, offering 4 cask lines, and a few more keg lines. A wide range of bottles were also available. The sole barman was very friendly, knowledgeable and passionate about the products he was offering, and we had an enjoyable time chatting about the beer industry, York pubs, the weather, and coffee. Here we had a
Dupont Saison,
Hawkshead Cumbrian 5 Hop and Thornbridge Bracia. All three were great beers, but the Bracia, brewed in the smaller Thornbridge Hall brewery, really bowled us over, definitely one to look out for in the future.
Now onto
The House of Trembling Madness, last time I visited York, this was a shop specialising in bottled beers, whiskeys and cigars. It was always on my list of places to visit when in York. Now they have shoe-horned a pub into the top floor, taking it even higher up my list.
With a name like The Trembling Madness, I already knew I would like the place before I stepped through the door. We more than liked it, we loved it.
The way the pub is fitted around the original shop makes the bar really quirky and fun. In the bottle shop, if you look below the wide range of bottled world beers, under the shelves, you will find the kegs and chillers for the bar upstairs. Downstairs in the whiskey display room you will find the toilets, I cannot think of anywhere else where you are washing your hands whilst stood next to whiskey display cabinets. On the top floor is the bar, quite a small bar, the tables are quite close together, and the bar itself is only a couple of meters or so long. The décor has a strong taxidermy theme, but that fits the architecture and feel of the pub perfectly.
We had decided that we would eat here, the menu is "interesting" featuring Squirrel pate amongst other dishes. We decided on the 1lb pie and mash and a Mad burger. The menu states that they don't have a kitchen, and it's not till they start preparing the food, you realise that it means meals are all prepared behind the already very small bar!
This is no mean feat as the food is excellent! The meat in Carolyn's pie was tender in a tasty gravy, and the relish finished off the peppered burger lovely on my meal.
The beers we had with our meal? A
Brooklyn Brewery Sorachi Ace Saison and a
Summer Wine Brewery Galico, both were served from a keg and both were faultless.
Before our next pub, we decided on a coffee, and after having it recommended in Pivni we headed back there, and yes it was a great coffee.
Then on to the Blue Bell on Fossgate. Boy, I wish this was our local, we were instantly made welcome, and joined in the the chat as if we had been going everyday for years. The décor is very traditional, the walls covered with notices, sponsorship forms and the general tat that you can only find in a genuine local pub, the type of stuff that pub chains try to emulate, but fail. The bar in which we camped, would be considered small if it was a room in a house, in a public house it's tiny. But that does make everyone interact, and I think if it was larger, the atmosphere would be worse for it. As you would expect, the choice of beers was more limited than the other establishments we had visited, but still better than the average pub you may visit in a city centre.
Here we had a Blue Bell ale, and a Roosters Leghorn (both cask), may be we were unlucky, maybe we were spoilt, but neither of us thought the beer was particularly good. Did it spoil the visit? Nope. Would we go again? Yes, definitely. It's not always about the choice or the quality of the beers, sometimes a good atmosphere can be worth a thousand craft beers.
Returning to the train station, we were fortunate enough to have just missed a train, and were "forced" to go back into the York Tap, for a couple more beers. This time it was much busier than the morning session, in fact it was shoulder to shoulder, the feel of the place was changed, and felt more like a city night spot. But it wasn't bad for it, just different. My second Magic Rock, this time a Magic 8 Ball (Keg) and a Thornbridge Jaipur (cask). Again both were served perfectly.
We had a thoroughly good day, and we are already looking forward to our next visit to York. It would be hard to choose a best pub, they all had their individual strengths.
Best beer of the day, the Thornbridge Bracia, a lovely rich stout, we even bought a bottle to carry home from The House of Tembling Madness.
What did stand out was the quality of the kegged beers, none disappointed, however some of the cask ones did. Something I think Camra need to really start taking note of.
