retiredmartin

11th March 2023.

When you’re setting out on your Good Beer Guide ticking career, you can confidently expect to find half a dozen new Guide entries in an afternoon. But, as BRAPA well knows, the deeper the you go the harder to extract are those ticks.

And so I approach the penultimate West Yorkshire entry in Mytholmroyd (pronounced Mytholmroyd, apparently),

You remember Mytholmroyd ?

It’s in the Calder Valley, that lovely part of the world best seen doing 69mph heading along the M62, though not on a day like last Saturday.

To be honest, the rail journey seemed hard work for a half,

so I promised Mrs RM a bonus pre-emptive tick in somewhere nice like Dewsbury on the way home. OK, then, Halifax.

The ‘Fax game was postponed, so I let Chris Dyson of these parts know we were headed to his manor. 25 minutes notice, I reckon.

And then the train taking us the 2 minutes from Hebden to Myth didn’t turn up, the departures information board moving inexorably from “on-time” to “3 minutes late” to “11 minutes late” to the terminal “DELAYED”.

We walked alongside the Calder. Well done, Mrs RM, you kept up with Google’s estimated ETA,

and we arrived at Barbary’s only 3 hours after Chris.

Quite a solid looking crafty micro, but very much a crafty micro.

The words “Tap Takeover” are up there with “Ask for a taster” and “Meet the beardy brewer” in striking fear into the heart of a #PubMan, but I loved Barbary’s. And not just because of the company.

Read Chris (here) and (here) if you want a better picture, but what really struck me was the vast mix of local life, including a table of (non-tousle haired) children so impeccably behaved I didn’t notice them till I went to the bar.

We started on the Track cask (NBSS 3+/3.5) and ended on the DIPAs and silly stuff and before we knew it 90 minutes had flown by talking life and Boy Genius with Chris. I NEVER spend 19 minutes in one place, let alone 90.

“Mytholmroyd has four breweries: The Nightjar Brewing Co, Little Valley Brewery, Equinox Kombucha and Vocation” says Wiki, highlighting the town’s craft credentials but its station celebrate Ted Hughes, whose “Iron Man” was the book I remember reading as a 9 year old more interested in Spiderman comics.

“A giant “metal man” of unknown origin who rains destruction on the countryside by eating industrial farm equipment, before befriending a small boy and defending the world from a dragon from outer space” says Wiki of the Iron Man, though to be honest that description sounds more like BRAPA’s adventures in rural Norfolk.

Chris headed to the ‘Fax, possibly to attend the opening of another new craft bar. We decided that with cancellations all around (lack of drivers, not snow) we ought to start to head home.

But not before curry (even though we’d shared TWO (2) artisan pork pies in Barbary’s).

Jinnah’s is close to where the Cock & Bottle used to be, and has the distinction of having NOT been visited by Curry Heute.

As much an events venue as curry house, and with decor aimed at the bench seating enthusiast,

it looked too posh for us, but most of the custom was Asian families and the staff were unfussy and cheery.

We had the Jinnah’s Special Charsi Tawa, lamb on the bone with roti, and won’t eat better this month (except from Chung Hwa, obvs).

Only one pub, and a curry, and some great company and scenery. That’ll do, to be honest. Two successive trains home from Leeds were then cancelled, but we didn’t fuss.

Oh, doesn’t Bradford look gorgeous ? Must do a Proper Night Out there again soon, Dick and Dave.