retiredmartin

February 2024. Leeds Pub Crawl.

11:47 – Brew Society

12:43 – Cardigan Arms

13:35 – Time to catch the bus into Leeds for the Templar.

Good progress, and as long as we stuck to Will’s elaborate plans (mainly Heritage pubs), we’d be fine.

And then someone said “What about Dave’s Pies ? It’s virtually next door”

Well, what are plans if not things you divert from, and that diversion gave Andy and I chance to nip in Poco’s Sicilian deli where I bought the same hot and mucky arancini as I’d bought in 2018.

Which was a bit daft, as it was then left warming my inner thigh for 25 minutes in Dave’s.

You remember Dave’s Pies ? The one with the pies (obvs),

and the lovely window seats,

and all the old adverts,

and the hazardously steep steps down to the Gents.

It must be wearing shouting out “Watch out for the stairs !” every 5 minutes.

Yes, it was only September when I ticked Dave, and now we got to actually meet the great man.

He’s from Hartlepool, you know. But more importantly than that, he runs a great little pub, and while in the heat of late Summer the beer had been “Good”, today the Horsforth Black Rye IPA was sensational; cool, rich and chewy (4.5*).

And I was in no way influenced by the complimentary tray of pork pies Dave brought out, presumably awestruck by meeting Caroline the Queen of Kendal.

Remarkably, 3 of our number don’t eat murdered animal, so I only took a couple of of those pieces before handing them back, but Dave then brought out some vegan pie !

“Dave” people are good people.

Finally, after a second half, we left, mainly so I could eat my arancini.

*Will insisted I take off half a point because Dave was playing the Rolling Stones but the sanctity of these beer scores is something I respect deeply.