“I mean, if you’re there, you can’t NOT go in the Harrogate Tap, can you ?”

November 2023. Harrogate.

Thursday night, back in Sheff from my parents, and straight out after doing the laundry to Leeds for the Julie Byrne gig,

Except, having got to Leeds I thought I’d head straight on up to Harrogate and get the Oatlands Club ticked.

A couple of cheap advance tickets would see me in Harrogate at 18:31 and catching the 19:17 from Hornbeam Park virtually next door to my target pub. I spent the trundling rail journey through Leeds northern suburbs computing my options,

and reckoned I’d have at least 20 minutes to do one (1) bonus Harrogate pub.

Let’s ask Twitter;

Several folk suggested Hales Bar and Blues Bar, both top ideas, but LNER had different ideas and I arrived at Harrogate 15 minutes late. And then spent 5 minutes cursing the youthful North Yorkshire sloths who seem unable to bound up station steps as gracefully as this 58 year old.

Well, Eddie was right.

A quick half pint in the station’s bar wouldn’t de-rail (pun, pun !) my journey, and (rather like its Sheffield cousin) I always want to check whether the Tap can reclaim the glory of my early visits.

It could. I though I’d made the wrong choice, picking Brew York over an actual SMOD cask collaboration,

but Fairytale of Brew York was one of those beers you want to thrust into someone’s face and say “THIS ! This is what cask ale is all about !”. Cool, rich, wonderful (4.5). Yorkshire’s Plum Porter if you like.

A good, mixed crowd in, as always. Definitely not just a pub for a quick pre-train pint.

That fire burns ever brighter.

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Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

2 thoughts on ““I mean, if you’re there, you can’t NOT go in the Harrogate Tap, can you ?””

  2. I was in there five months ago, the 6% Siren Broken Dream Breakfast Stout drinking very nicely late breakfasttime after a very poor Old Peculiar in Tim’s Winter Gardens. The reunion wasn’t well organised and after that we only got in the Alexandra, another poor pint, and the Blues Bar. The evening went well though with getting round several York pubs with Will before a final OBB in the Sea Horse where I was staying.

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