I like to see a few sights with my pints

By Phil Mellows

You might have heard there’s a rather good book out titled Beer Breaks in Britain. Well, I would say that, wouldn’t I, having co-authored it. But it’s reassuring to know the thing actually works, by which I mean it is, indeed, useful for planning a trip.

It might seem odd, but I even use it myself. At the end of August a few mates joined me on a visit to West Yorkshire. After an afternoon in Leeds, calling in at the Northern Monk Refectory and the city’s oldest pub among others, we took a walk along the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, from the Saltaire Brewery taproom in Shipley to the Goose Eye Brewery taproom at Crossflatts.

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It’s about five miles straight along the towpath, and we took our time, taking refreshment at a couple of spots along the way, including the café at Bingley Five Rise Locks, a must-see. You can read about these things and see pictures but until you’ve stood at the bottom you can’t truly appreciate this breathtaking watery stepladder rising up in front of you.

Apart from anything else it shows the power of the industrial revolution, driving human beings to perform spectacular feats of engineering in the name of trade. It’s no good making stuff unless you can get it to the people who’ll buy it.

But enough education, we were mostly here for the beer, of course, finishing in Bingley with a curry at the Peacock desi pub and a pint at Chip ‘n’ Ern, one of the country’s quirkiest micropubs – visit the gents for the fright of your life!

The sun shone, defying the weather forecasters, and it all made for a grand day out.

Pub crawls, of which beer walks like this are one variety, have received serious attention of late. With pubs fighting harder than ever to get customers through the door, they haven’t simply become more competitive. The usual business strategies have combined with cooperation, publicans getting together to create ale trails and craft-beer walks that can attract people to the area and float everyone’s boat, so to speak.

There are too many of these to list, but I’ll be heading to the Hastings Tap Takeover in October, for instance, where pubs and bars are teaming up with independent brewers to showcase what the Sussex town can do for beer lovers.

The phenomenon has even been noted by academics. University of York’s Victoria Wells, also known as The Pub Professor, has led an investigation into the various types of pub crawl and why they’re so popular.

And though merely walking from pub to pub drinking a pint in each is a part of it, here at Beer Breaks we think we’re onto something by pointing out there’s much more you can do on a visit. Every destination has a story to tell, as we discovered on the West Yorkshire trip where we spent a morning at Salts Mill, pictured, finding out more about the 19th-Century textile industry and browsing the art gallery featuring works by local boy David Hockney.

After that, the beers went down even better.

Photo: "Salt's Mill and River Aire" by Tim Green aka atoach is licensed under CC BY 2.0.