A Leeds Pub, Bar, and Brewery Tap Excursion

Day three of the Road Trip took us from our Halifax base to the metropolitan thrills of Leeds.

Forty minutes on a Northern rail service which was busy but still had just enough seats at Halifax for us all to sit down.
Available seats would be essential if (just theoretically) any of the group, maybe Tanya for example, had been in the Victorian Beer Cafe until after midnight quaffing craft ale and was feeling a little worse for wear.

Our first challenge on arrival was to navigate the never-ending 'improvement' works in front of Leeds station and find a way to get to the lower level.  We trekked under the bridge and into the southern part of the city in search of a Beer Guide regular Heritage pub.

Grove Inn (Back Row, Holbeck, Leeds, LS11 5PL)
Being as we arrived early and it's located a little way out of the centre we initially had the place to ourselves.
Not a bad traditional pub to find yourself able to poke your head into all of the rooms without disturbing anyone.

The Grove dates back to 1832 but the layout we see today was the responsibility of John Smith's of Tadcaster, who updated the place to create a central corridor with four rooms leading off it.  There's a comfy snug to the right of the entrance, benches and red carpet spoilt a bit by the phone charging machine in the corner.  To the left is a tap room with bar counter, or you can order from the counter on the corridor which has a second bank of hand pumps.

There was a difficult beer choice to start the day: eight cask ales available from Abbeydale, Wensleydale, Small World, Daleside, Timothy Taylor, Acorn and Rudgate.  I finally plumped for the sweet and fruity Acorn 'Plum Porter', taken through to the central snug with its rounded plain wooden benches hugging the walls.

The largest space, the rear concert room with small stage in one corner, is a slightly more recent addition, being an inter-war construction.
It's still historic enough for me and offers up some excellent pub bench seating...

A 10-minute amble took us westbound, past the spectacular-looking Temple Works building, to the Northern Monk Refectory.

The Northern Monk Refectory (The Old Flax Store, Marshalls Mill, Holbeck, Leeds, LS11 9YJ)
The taproom is located upstairs with glimpses through big windows to shiny brewing equipment en-route.  It's a bright modern room with small merch stall to one side, high and low solid bench seating, sofas under one window.  Birthday party in the middle, brewery tour folk loitering by the bar, Franz Ferdinand 'Do You Wanna' playing through the speakers.

The more adventurous stuff, and a couple of those Patron Project collaboration concoctions were on draft, whilst there were three beers on cask ('Eternal' session IPA, 'Sup' golden ale and one just being pulled through went we arrived).

I went for the keg 'Chocolate Caramel and Biscuit Porter', a rich dark 5.2% brew priced at £3.35 for the sensible half pint measure.  A pleasant visit, although I'd rather be sitting on a rickety bench next to a conditioning tank in a brewery rather than in such a smart bar, given a choice.

Next up, the Midnight Bell...

Midnight Bell (101 Water Lane, Holbeck, Leeds, LS11 5QN)
Bonus points for having John Farnham 'You're the Voice' playing on arrival.
Sadly I could find little else in the Midnight Bell which warranted my imaginary bonus points - a dining dominated affair which wasn't as a good as I'd hoped.  I don't really approve of anywhere which has every table set up for food and requires you to park your pint of beer between knives and forks.

Still, I was here to ensure I drank some Leeds Brewery beer whilst in Leeds. And that was a success, with four of their ales as well as Cameron's 'Strongarm' and Keighley 'Three Swords' on offer.

A swift Leeds 'Best' was my pick.

We crossed back over the River Aire into the recently redeveloped area betwixt railway lines and waterways.  I suspect this area was probably run-down and grim not so long ago, but now it's a hotbed of hotels, eateries and bars along a pedestrianised walkway.
We were aiming for an Ossett bar in the arches.

The Hop (Granary Wharf, Dark Neville St, City Centre, Leeds, LS1 4BR)
The Hop is bigger than your average railway arch venue due to the fact that these arches stretch back a long way underneath the multiple lines serving the platforms of Leeds station.  Plus the Hop occupies two of 'em.
This proved not to be the usual quiet lunchtime visit due to a festival event running across several of the Granary Wharf venues.  We entered to a sizeable crowd of folk and a lively one-man band set up on the first floor above the bar.

There were eight hand pumps, serving all your favourite Ossett ales from the paleness of 'Excelsius' to the darkness of 'Barghest Stout'.
Plus a new one of the 'Rat' series for me, from Huddersfield's Rat Brewery, part of the Ossett empire since 2004.

This was a tasty, biscuity, tropical pale ale, similar to 'White Rat', but not quite scaling the same heights.  We perched on a ledge to one side where a window in the brickwork provides a view through to the ground level 'cellar'.  Yep, they've gone to the trouble to put on live entertainment and myself and John were glued to a window studying barrels and pipes. 

Moving on from The Hop, we back-tracked on ourselves a little way, because there's a bar somewhere in that there tower...

SALT Granary Wharf (Candle House, Granary Wharf, City Centre, Leeds, LS1 4GJ)
SALT are another Yorkshire brewery with Ossett links - this time as a sister brewery with both under the ownership of a chap called Jamie Lawson.  This bar is one of three SALT venues in Leeds, this one pairing your craft brews with falafel.

I skipped the cask options (more Ossett) and opted for one of the SALT beers on draft - 'Vermont XPA' a 4.7% pale brewed with Topaz hops.  Just a half, which is just as well because I didn't enjoy it very much.  Far too fizzy for my liking.
Participating in the same weekend festival as Hop, Granary Wharf was between musical acts and packed with punters in the modern circular surroundings.  Good for SALT, pulling in such a decent crowd and pouring the drinks at a rate of knots.

We'd burnt off the calories from the Wetherspoon's breakfast by this point and were in need of some mid-afternoon sustenance.
For that we called into the Adelphi (3 - 5 Hunslet Road, Leeds, LS10 1JQ)
This glorious pub was included in my 2023 heritage pubs of Leeds post, so I'll skip over it this time.

Except to include this picture of my Kirkstall 'Three Swords' beer, being as I'm rather pleased with it.

The old Tetley brewery, a short walk from the Adelphi, was serving as an art gallery and cafe when I visited a couple of years ago, allowing me to take a moments break from the pubs to frown at some modern art on the first floor.
The gallery has gone for the time being, the ground floor now converted into a pub by Kirkstall Brewery.

The Tetley (The Tetley, Hunslet Rd, Leeds LS10 1JQ)
Joshua Tetley brought the land for his brewery for £400 and founded the company in 1822.  In the 1960's Tetley's merged with Ind Coope of Burton and Ansell's of Birmingham, becoming Allied Breweries - the country's biggest producers of cask ale by the 1980's, at which time they employed around 1,000 people at the Leeds brewery.  Brewing continued after a 1998 amalgamation with Carlsberg, but eventually came to an end in June 2011.

Most of the huge site has been redeveloped.  The central admin offices and reception building that we were heading to was once dwarfed by a larger block and chimney behind it, goods vehicle entrance to the side.
The bar is now to the left of the entrance, staff scurrying around to set up a function on the other side of the building when we arrived.
It's a spacious place, gloriously decorated with ample beery pictures and display cases of breweriana.

There were several cask ales on offer, but...we're in the Tetley brewery building.   We had to drink the rejuvenated Tetley Best, even if it's now brewed 80+ miles away.

Time for something a little bit different...

Northern Guitars (41 Call Lane, City Centre, Leeds, LS1 7BT)
On a very lively street, this opened as a guitar shop in 1991, then morphed into a bar and music venue in 2015.  You can still buy your six-stringed instruments upstairs which remains as a shop.  They haven't butchered all their stock to make the door handles...

It's a cracking little place.
There were a handful of tables at the front of the ground floor, one-step up to a stage area in the corner by the window, bar counter to the back of the room

Five hand pumps offered us a choice of Ilkley 'Lotus', Saltaire 'Blonde', Timothy Taylor 'Landlord', plus 'Three Swords' or 'BYB' from the local Kirkstall Brewery. 
The 5.9% 'Lotus' for me - a proper IPA, in good condition.

There is plenty of musical decoration, especially as you head upstairs where walls are covered in gig posters and displays of old concert tickets (remember those?).
A hairy & youthful Prop Up the Bar was at Donnington Park in a heavily-patched denim jacket for that Monsters of Rock show.  You couldn't pick a much less 'monstrous' line-up of rock bands if you tried. 

 

I left the other members of the group finishing drinks in Northern Guitars, planning to catch up with them in Whitelocks.
I'd spied a recently opened brewery tap in a railway arch and couldn't resist poking my head in.

Crown Street Tap (5 Cherry Tree Walk, City Centre, Leeds, LS2 7EB)
This is fledgling railway arch pub ticking, the tap only having opened in November 2025.
It's run by Talking Tides Brew Co., a relatively new operation that started brewing in 2022 on the North Yorkshire coast.
It's brightly lit with the arch-size glass frontage, furniture a mix of high and low light wood tables within, a big crowd attracted by somewhere relatively new.
Two hand pumps served Talking Tides 'Headland' and 'Yorkshire Best' whilst there was a wider choice on keg.

Just a half of 'Yorkshire Best' for me - not my favourite beer today - an "is it past best or do I just not like it" conundrum.

Draining my beer, I made a short walk through side-streets to reach a bar which has been a Good Beer Guide regular for the past few years, yet eluded me when I was last in Leeds.

Wapentake (92 Kirkgate, Leeds, LS2 7DJ)
On a busy city centre street, Wappentake is a characterful bar with wooden floorboards and mismatched furniture.  A bit of Erykah Badu on the stereo when I arrived, a hubbub of conversation from a crowd of gentlefolk.
Cask on the bar was Five Points 'Best' or Theakston's 'Old Peculiar'.  I didn't fancy the best and it had been too long a day to indulge in Old Peculiar, so I went rogue with a cask Celtic Marches cider.  Which was actually refreshing and a bit of sweetness that the palate was calling out for.

And what's a wapentake?
It's "an archaic administrative and judicial subdivision of certain English counties (primarily in the North and Midlands, such as Yorkshire and Lincolnshire)."
So now you know.

My companions had been forced to skip Whitelocks, declaring it ridiculously busy, so were instead just a few strides down the road from me in the Duck & Drake.

Another revisit for me, having spent an evening here watching live bands when I was last in Leeds.  On that occasion my bed was a 5-minute stumble down the road - no repeat late evening in the Duck & Drake this time with my bed being 15-miles away.
Just time to admire the ceramics in the gents WC again and enjoy a half of Yorkshire Heart 'Blonde'.

We finished in somewhere completely different - not on your average Leeds pub crawl...

We were here to enable one of our number to say hello to a Leeds-based family member, who in turn was checking out one of the live bands playing that evening.
I bowled in to find a crowd of folk enjoying the last couple of songs by Northwich rockers Airtight - they sounded great, but I've no idea what they looked like from my vantage point at the back of the room.
Don't they make people tall these days?

Unsurprisingly, not on a stronghold for cask ale from Yorkshire micro brewers.  Northern Monk's 'Faith' was the most tempting offer.

I would have quite liked to have stuck around and seen all the bands on the bill - live entertainment free of charge is not to be sneezed at.  But we needed to make a move and aim for a Halifax-bound train.
Hells bells - the walk through the centre past Leeds Saturday night revellers was a sight to behold!

Hebden Bridge Pub Explorations

Day two of the 2026 Road Trip to Halifax and we were heading westwards on a train for all of 8 miles and 10-minutes to Hebden Bridge.
The Calderdale town is now home to around 4,500 folks and went from being soot-stained and on the brink of economic collapse to being trendy and having words like 'bohemian' used in assocaition with it.
It also has an impressive list of pubs and bars - more than we could get around in one day.  But we made a valient effort and here's how far we got..,

The Old Gate (1-5 Old Gate, Hebden Bridge, HX7 8JP)
Our first port of call in the centre of town was maybe a little too smart for my liking.
'OG' logo on the glass front door; cake stands on the bar; remote-controlled awnings; £16 sandwiches.
But at least it's open early doors, primarily for the cappuccino and eggs benedict brigade, I suspect, rather than us uncouth real ale drinkers.

There was a hefty cask chice from Leeds Brewery, Amity, Marble, Thornbridge, Vocation, Kirkstall, and Timothy Taylor.  Phew.

I slipped up and opted for the Amity 'Pippali' without reading the 'Ginger and Peppercorn amber ale' description on the pump clip.  Interesting, but probably not the best beer to start with.
Drinks were taken outside to the front patio, where the sun was trying its best to shine and we were well out the way of breakfasting gentlefolk.
 
Beers finished, we took a leisurely stroll through town and climbed a gentle hill to reach pub number 2: the fantastic-looking Fox and Goose...

Fox and Goose (7 Heptonstall Road, Hebden Bridge, HX7 6AZ)
I knew this was going to be a corker from the first glimpse - looking a little battered around the edges in a hillside setting with a fox mural on an unused door.
Stepping through the front door took us to a room with a splendid fireplace, flagstone floor and unusually-shaped ceiling.

Six handpumps offered a range of beers from Pictish, Mobberley Brewhouse, Big Trip and Wishbone.  I could have quite happily worked through them all, but that would have foiled the pub crawl.  I selected better this time, veering to the dark side with a Pictish 'Black Diamond': a top-notch 3.5% mild in excellend condition.

Two small rooms lead off from the central bar, plus a vertiginous staircase which take you to a wonderful terraced garden on the slopes to the side of the pub.
We sat in the small right-side snug surrounded by some excellent breweriana and a handy guide to wine pronunciation.

 
Pub dog of the day too.  "In the way? Me? Surely not."
 

It was downhill on the way back towards the centre of town.
Progress was slowed by the Totally Screwed hardware store which members of our group inexplicably needed to make purchases in.  Personally I thought the shop name was upstaged by next door neighbours Ruby Shoesday.

In fact, vintage clothing, charity shops, and shiny things in craft store windows were our biggest threat to thwarting progress around the planned pubs on this day.
Leaving Gareth and Tanya in Spirals gift shop, myself and John bowled into the craft beer bar...we've got our priorities right!

Drink (15 Market Street, Hebden Bridge, HX7 6EU)
This is a bottle shop with enticing shelves and fridges of cans and bottles in the front room and a rather ramshackle bar counter in the back.
The  lovely lady in charge of the bar certainly had the best sunflower-orientated clothing that we saw all day and was enthusiastic about the beers, as well as providing a comprehensive answer to John's "when did Hebden Bridge become cool?" question.

There were three cask ales available: a very brown and twiggy Blackjack best bitter subtitled 'Pub Ale', a Weekend Project dry hopped pale ale, or a Brew York porter.
I settled on the Weekend Project 'Buttermere'.  It's liberally hopped with tropical and stone fruit aromas.and it sure is murky...

If "lacings never lie" is true, I was onto a winner.
With no space to sit downstairs, we took our drinks to the first floor room which includes a couple of repurposed bus seats.

Back across Hebden Beck, then up Bridge Gate, our fourth venue was tucked away between two restaurants.

Hidden Hebden (3 The Courtyard, Bridge Gate, Hebden Bridge, HX7 8EX)
This site opened as a micropub named Calan's in 2015 and has had several identities since. Post-pandemic it was The Pub (despite it being nothing like a proper pub), then The Hebden, before the current owners took over and altered the name to reflect it's discreet location.

We appeared to be the first to find it on this day.
Here's the quandary of a micro - too many people and you've nowhere to sit; too few people in with no music playing and it's uncomfortably quiet.  That's what drove us out to the bench in the courtyard where we didn't feel we were disturbing the staff member tinkering with her phone.

My beer was just a half of Bini Brew Co. 'Cat's Eyes' - a brewery from Ilkley that I'd not heard of before. 

A little further up the street was a picturesque triangle surrounded by eateries and shops with the Hebden Bridge Mill as a backdrop.
The pub facing this was the Shoulder of Mutton, a crowd of folk on the outdoor tables now that the sunshine had materialised.

Shoulder of Mutton (Bridge Gate, Hebden Bridge, HX7 8EX)
This was formerly a row of three cottages.  By the mid 17th century one of them was serving as a butchers shop, which would be inspiration for the pub name after it was granted a license in 1769.  For years it was known as the 'Bottom Shoulder' being as there was another pub of the same name up the hill at Blackshaw Head.
A few walls have been knocked down since then to open it up a bit and it has those modern touches of grey paint, patterned floor tiling, sofas, and a sign reading 'Gin Palace'.
Once you've been to a gin palace or two in Liverpool and London, you'll appreciate that this is definitely not one...

There was a sturdy Yorkshire quartet on the hand pumps: local Vocation 'Bread & Butter', Timothy Taylor 'Landlord', Acorn 'Yorkshire Pride' and a Theakston rugby special.

Vocation - we'll be in their bar later; 'Landlord' - is everywhere in 2025/26; 'Yorkshire Haka' -always avoid the rugby-themed beers.  Which left me with the Acorn, a straw coloured citrussy easy-going 3.7% beer.  Perfectly enjoyable and well kept.

A short stroll up the road took us to another traditional-looking inn.

White Lion (Bridge Gate, Hebden Bridge, HX7 8EX)
This is possibly the oldest building in Hebden Bridge with a 1657 date stone above the door.  It was originally the home of the King family, served as a gatehouse when a toll was put on the road, and has operated as a hotel and posting house.
It's pleasant enough within, open-plan, bright and airy, with a few glimpses of an historic past.

And it boasted another strong Yorkshire beer line-up, with a Lancastrian interloper, although it's a fair while since Wainwright was brewed in Lancaster.
I picked the local Vocation 'Heart and Soul'...a session IPA which I've maybe not actually had on cask before.  Another perfectly enjoyable, well-served beer on a day where cask quality was never called into question.

We moved on to a pub that found a bit of TV fame playing the 'Duke of Wellington' in BBC's Riot Women in 2025.

The Albert (Albert Street, Hebden Bridge, HX7 8AH)
The Albert dates back to the 19th century and was built as an hotel with coach house and stables.  It originally didn't have a license to sell spirits which ensured it gained a reputation as a 'respectable' house.  Prop Up the Bar always sticks to respectable houses.

They've got the merchandise to prove that they've been on the telly...

...and a pleasing selection of Timothy Taylor ales...

I ordered the lesser-seen 'Knowl Spring' - a very enjoyable pint on good form.
The Albert has undergone an unplanned refurb after being badly damaged in the Boxing Day 2015 floods which caused a great deal of devastation throughout the town.
I reckon they've done a good job, making a couple of comfortable, homely rooms with leather cushioned banquettes and stools, stone floor and rugs, piano and Victorian fire place.

Crikey, that's three proper pubs in a row.
Sadly, we were about to abandon trad and return to craft bars.

Nightjar (New Road, Hebden Bridge, HX7 8AD)
This small venue is tucked into the right-hand corner of the 1920's Picture House cinema and serves as the tap for the Mytholmroyd based Nightjar Brew Co.
It has been open since 2017, delivering a selection of cask, keg, bottles and cans from Nightjar and other small breweries.
I thought it had a fair bit of character, with moody lighting, bare bricks, the Beatles and Supertramp on the playlist, and a decent crowd of customers.  Everything which I thought Hidden Hebden was missing.

There were two options on cask from Nightjar or a Kent 'Iron Pier' had made the 236 mile trip from Northfleet.  I figured I should try one of their own brews, so ended up with the prophetically-named 'A.I. Will Kill Us All'.   

Our afternoon ended at Vocation & Co - the local brewery's Hebden tap room, having visited the Halifax version the previous day.
It looks like this...

Just as at Halifax: 24 beer lines, this time 4 of them cask, the rest draft, pouring familiar and more unusual Vocation brews.  Such as the decadent 'White Chocolate Easter Egg' which I ended up with.
I only seem to have taken one unuseable blurry picture inside Vocation which suggests my concentration was lapsing by this point.  Time to catch the train.

Hebden Bridge had been great.
I came here in 1994 and brought some clogs.  No idea why.  Probably New Model Army's fault.  I even wore them once.
I suspect it's changed a fair bit since then and the more I look at the Calderdale Valley the more I want to go back already.