I’ve just discovered a cache of photos from our Easter trip to Lancaster. I might make a post of them, particularly if I can find my notes of Mrs RM’s cutting comments on the town. “It’s no Preston, is it ?” sums it up.
Actually, I’d put Lancaster on hold as I was in a huff at Easter, having dragged the family up the hill from the station past Golgotha to the eponymous Brewery Tap for nothing (apart from ice cream and a view of the adjacent abattoir).
It did give us a first visit to Williamson Park, about the only area where the town does match Preston.
The North certainly has the best civic parks.
But it also has it’s share of frustrating opening hours, On Good Friday, with a busy “leisure centre” packed with shoppers, the Brewery Visitor Centre remained resolutely closed.
The GBG, What Pub and brewery website promise “10-6 opening“, which doesn’t sound like a pub to me, but don’t get me started. On that day, it was apparently closed due to a private function, which I only found out about by phoning later. So they missed out on the bonanza of my £3 for a half and a packet of sweet chilli Pipers.
Inevitably, Lancaster Brewery became my last county tick.
So on the train up to Kendal I made a third call to confirm they would actually be opening that day, to avoid any confusion about “coffee times/only with a meal/only with a wedding party” etc. etc.
At 10.45, there was no sign of life, and the staff looked a little shocked as I opened a succession of doors with two pound coins in hand.
Let’s be frank, it’s no Hook Norton or Harvey’s, but a pleasant little modern operation focused on tours for over-jolly, well-heeled Lancastrians.
I had the vast hall to myself. It wasn’t as much fun as the Wetherspoons would have been at 10.51am, and the Red was good but lacking in something (NBSS 3). I took it from hall to garden, garden to hall, toying with taking up the little hill to the rear to improve its condition by giving it a view of the abattoir.
I rarely find the Brewery Taps in the Guide the best place to sample beer, my own Milton apart, but I guess we need something in the GBG to complain about.
I resisted the lure of the dungarees in the Factory Outlet and Giggles Play barn, but not the fudge and vanilla combo at Hallings ice cream shack. Nor should you.
Very interesting to me. From reading and street viewing I would have expected much better from Lancaster.
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I was rather playing to my Preston audience ! The town is great, report on some proper pubs there coming up if I can be bothered 5 months late.
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Be bothered! Your non-Preston audience is interested.
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I’m not a huge fan of these places either..but the Kirkby Lonsdale ‘barn’ next to the brewery was excellent when I visited in June. The nearby Orange Tree pub is billed as the brewery tap in some publications. Thought the beers were better at the barn.
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I guess Tap can mean the pub closest to a brewery rather than necessarily adjunct to the brewery ?
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Yes, in the old days, the “brewery tap” was the pub closest to the brewery, not a bar that was actually part of it. Hence the Derby Brewery Arms in Cheetham Hill was Holts’ brewery tap.
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I never think Lancaster lives up to its promise – a bit grim and grey in general.
And IME Lancaster beers are dull too.
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Is it the color of the stone that is used on the buildings that gives it the feel you describe?
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It’s a very plain, town centre. The park I stopped at, and the castle are the highlights
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Spoken as a true man of Cheshire !
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Lancaster Blonde was of course the favourite beer of the notorious “Johnny Whitepebble” 😉
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I took my wife to Lancaster for five days back in 1985,we stayed in a pub in the middle of the town.
We both thought it was a really nice place,just a shame that Yates & Jackson brewery had been closed down by Thwaites a week before we got there,so we had to settle for Mitchells along with all other pubs we did there.
We also did Morcambe when it was 90 degrees hot and did Preston twice,we both got sunburnt and i never normally get sun burnt as i am more dark skinned than my wife and it rained all week up in the lakes.
I still think Lancaster is a really nice place to visit.
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‘Lancashire never lives up to it’s promise’ a phrase so true. Okay, the poor people that are born there have no other option, and I bear them no grudge for that. But, why, why, why do people, yourself included, keep going to the dark side when the broad acres of God’s own County not only promises but delivers!
You’d have been much better off in Yorkshire’s County City for some quality beer mate! And it would have been open!
Joking apart, nice part of the world, very underrated – surprised there’s no mention of Lancaster Castle. Although I do get the ‘Wet Wednesday half day closing’ feeling that you and other commentators allude to. Possibly, in this day and age, it’s no bad thing?
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The castle is coming, fear not. And the heavy metal pub.
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Thank you for sharing!
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