July 2026. Sandbeds. Keighley.
Two hours into Day 6 of the Cask Camino; time for a posh pub break on the very edge of Riddlesden,
technically in Sandbeds though I can’t see that on the canal walk map. In fact, ChatGPT told me it was the best pub in Keighley, and you’ll know that ChatGPT is infallible.
I’d been to the Airedale Heifer just after COVID but obviously couldn’t be bothered to write about, which makes it almost unique among pubs visited since I started blogging.
Just as well we have Kentish Paul to elegantly write about it, and that wire sculpture of the UK’s heaviest ever cow out front.
Perhaps my phone had died (in my arms tonight), and I couldn’t then capture what still feels like a Brunning & Price with performative shiny brewery.
You’re greeted with a flight of Mini Mout ciders, and a quick peer over the bar reveals not one of the cask taps dripping.
Until the gent before me orders the strong Holy Cow,
and when I follow his lead he bellows “Good choice !“, which it is, though not for the reason he thinks.
Mrs RM just wants a soda, rather than the tonic water I often order her by accident, but her first sip of my 5.6% pint reveals she’s picked the wrong day to go sober.
I thought there homebrew was a bit “meh” (CAMRA approved beer sommelier term) on my visit, but this was cool and rich and gorgeous (VERY GOOD).
And then I heard the cow MOO, probably to signify a plate emerging from the kitchen, and I remembered with horror what the Heifer had done to offend me back then.
retiredmartin 
Nooooo surely not 🙂
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When DID you start blogging about pubs Martin?
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Martin was a Founding Father of commenting on Beer In The Evening, Lana. It was the defining site for beer and pub aficionados until its owner found that he could make more by messing around in cryptocurrency and forgot all about it.
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The worldwide beer updates live on, and that is the main thing.
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Etu, I had forgotten about “Beer In The Evening”. It looks to have gone very quiet.
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It seems to still exist, possibly in the same sense that Peter’s Curmudgeon blog exists. No-one will delete it. I doubt anyone is monitoring it.
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I started in 2015, Lana, just as a dairy of my travels, though often with a pub underpinning it. I originally thought it would look more like yours, with accommodation tips for unsung places like Halesowen!
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Martin, That’d be when the Somers Club put the “ale” into Halesowen !
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Is that still going, Paul ? Had about half a dozen too many pumps but was decent as a Club.
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Ah, you found your specialised groove once you started writing and I am certainly here for it.
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There seem to be a lot of pubs in Northern England called the **Something** Heifer. Anyone know why? Not something seen in the South, AFAIK.
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Bill, because it was up North at Gargrave in Craven that during 1807 a heifer that grew to over a ton was bred. Elsewhere, Shropshire has Craven Arms, a small town sensibly named after a pub.
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Aye, makes a change from churches or natural features, Paul. Everything has to be officially named now, instead of just getting known by locals as whatever. I suppose we can look forward to one of these new towns being voted Towny McTownface…
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I was looking at a potential walk to Brierley Hill from Cradley Heath today and saw the locals had marked a “famous square” and a “famous tree” on the map, both completely plain features. I shall be visiting both, if Lana doesn’t beat me to it.
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Aye Etu, and that Craven Heifer was shown on notes issued in 1817 by the Craven Bank. When replaced by Bank of England notes local farmers understandably asked for the return of those “”wi’ a coo on ’em'”.
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Thanks Paul. There’s a Durham Heifer in Cheshire, presumably named after another outsized farm animal.
Nice place, Craven Arms.
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Yes Bill, at Broxton. But as a heifer is a young cow that has not borne a calf they were all over the country, hence an Airedale Heifer at Battyeford, closed Scotch Heifer in Manchester, Wellington Heifer at Ainderby Steeple, Wensleydale Heifer at West Witton and White Heifer at Scorton. My bus pass got me through Gargrave-in-Craven on the 211 from Skipton to Malham two years ago.
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All those “heifers” are up north though. Is there an equivalent for the south, I wonder?
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Er, maybe there’s millions of vegans south of Watford Gap.
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Thanks for the link back to my post, from three years ago, Martin. Eileen hasn’t heard from her Yorkshire relatives for some time – that was our original reason for visiting Cross-Flats/Shipley, so we’re probably due a trip up there, before long.
I thought I saw Shipley’s Noble Comb get mentioned on another post, although without trawling back, I can’t remember which one. We enjoyed a meal, plus a few drinks at the “Comb”, on another “visit the relatives” trip, an occasion that was probably the funeral of Eileen’s 99 year old, aunt!
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Paul, My advice from fifteen months ago is that you’d be better working your way through Timmy’s beers in Skipton’s Woolly Sheep than Keighley’s Taylors on the Green.
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Mrs RM’s soles permitting, we should make it to Skipton this decade. Whether we can afford a night’s accommodation there that would allow me some revisits to the Woolly Sheep etc is another matter. I was keen to get to a couple of Beer Guide pubs in the Dales (Malham and Litton).
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Nearly 5 years since my visit to the Hungry Horse, Paul, and quite a good pint though I’d always skip the Hungry Horse menu in favour of a curry !
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