Another year, another train to Leyland, another chance to be surprised at how big this town is. 35,000 people and I’m certain only 4 people in Cambridgeshire (3 of them farmers) could place it on the map.
We took our children to the commercial vehicle museum once, back in the days when children could be fobbed off with places without Wi-Fi. It’s a little gem, a companion piece for Coventry’s Transport Museum. Apart from that, and I cannot tell a lie, there’s not a lot here to distract you from the tourist honeypots of Preston and Chorley, or even Ormskirk.
Plenty of Victoriana though, and an imposing parish church, but this is the best I could do photo-wise (and I nearly got run over taking it). A valiant attempt to copy the Sandbach crosses and provide a drinking fountain in the middle of the B5254.
You can see the Withy Arms in the centre, but the plain exterior hides a curiously modernised interior with a little too much blackboard action. You can’t criticise transparency of pricing, anyway. In a pub with too much choice, it was inevitable the bargain Wainwright was off-par (NBSS 2). Disappointing, as Leyland feels like the place to drink Thwaites.
QUIZ TIME – I’ve just entered the pub. What beer should I have had ?
Much better awaited in the Market Ale House, the inevitable micropub. More high tables I’m afraid, but I can forgive them anything for the stellar customer service (making sure the beer was OK before serving it) and views of diggers. A really lively mix of customers too, something not always seen in micros.
A proper choice of beer styles, pints below £3 and pub chat (club cricket). One of the best micros, and a companion to Chorley’s Shepherds’ Hall. Martland Mill‘s Arctic Convoy another winner that I doubt I’ll see again all year though.
Leyland doesn’t look over-pubbed, and the new micro and Spoons are doing good business on the town’s quaint pedestrianised shopping street. Wetherspoons has done a good job of incorporating the town’s heritage into the design of the Leyland Lion (see top), a bright and cheerful place with cool beer. One of Spoon’s stars.
Apart from decent beer, Leyland’s other plus point is it’s proximity to the hills. Ten minutes away you’re on the edge of Bowland, where you’ll find proper pubs;
Luckily for me in a Prosecco Pub, The Boar’s Head scored highly for happily telling me which beers they’d actually served that day (none of the Copper Dragon), meaning I got a decent Cross Bay Blonde (NBSS 3) at least.
Appropriately for a Prosecco Pub, entertaining chat about boutique hotels in Bristol (grief, whatever next) and stealing someone’s metal arm. I missed the context for that last one.
retiredmartin 
The EPA since it least expensive and being served.
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Excellent. I struggle to ring myself to order it as it seems like a cheap version of Pedigree, but it’s quite good served well.
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Who brews EPA? Not familiar with it and no GBG handy.
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Not familiar with EPA. Who brews that? GBG not with me…
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It’s a Marstons’s beer, Extra Pale Ale. Relatively new, and sold for well under £3 in their budget pubs and free trade.
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I was going to say “whatever beer the barmaid is pulling”. Pub looks awful – very pastel 😦
EPA is brewed by Marston’s, btw. I always avoid it – a pint of Burton Bitter surely far preferable.
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Other than Pedigree what Marstons beers do you enjoy? I do enjoy a Snecklifter.
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Definitely the Snecklifter ! Actuallly I like all the standard bitters from the Marston’s stable of breweries – Brakspear, Banks, Ringwood, Jennings, though they’re probably a little underwhelming in bottle.
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Yes, I miss Burton Bitter, a good beer in it’s own right, last seen in Hinckley “workingmen’s pubs” as I believe the GBG would call them !
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Agree with Martin’s comments about the standard bitters. Brakspear’s, although not what it was when brewed in Henley, is still something a bit special. And don’t forget Bonks’s Moild!
I also like Cumberland Ale, although it seems to have lost a lot of distribution to the similar Wainwright. Although a pale beer, like all other Jennings beers it also has a solid malt backbone. It was a foolish decision to cut the ABV of the bottled version from 4.7% to 4.0% to bring it down to “cask strength”. Surprise, surprise, it’s now gone from the PBA shelves.
I’ve had some surprisingly good examples of Hobgoblin Gold. On one CAMRA pub crawl, in one of the less heralded pubs, it was beer of the evening.
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Love the phrase solid malt backbone. Not something we hear a lot over in USA where hops run wild.
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