Number Seventy News

On enter­ing the Volun­teer we were struck imme­di­ately by the won­der­ful array of hand pumps at the back of the bar counter — so much to choose from — and a pint of Wharfedale Brewery’s York­shire Gold went down very well.  Early even­ing, so the pub felt quite spa­cious, room for darts, for some folk prop­ping up the bar, and com­fort­able seat­ing for the rest of us (not too many low stools, which don’t give the back much of a rest after a hard day at the bureaucracy).

Back across Hol­gate Bridge to the rumble of an arriv­ing train from the South and the whine of a 66 on a freight wait­ing for the road from the freight lines.  Some wag had amended the Crys­tal Palace’s A board to advert­ise a “poo” night but there was no evid­ence of that, at least in the saloon (apart from low stools) and the Sam Smiths bit­ter was well kept, and, as usual, absurdly cheap.  I sup­pose I shouldn’t be sur­prised that any­where called the Crys­tal Palace is quite brightly lit inside — but not glar­ingly so, prob­ably the poo play­ers in the other bar appre­ci­ated it.

The Bay Horse was hav­ing a quiz night, of which we missed the start, but we sup­plied one team with the answer “molyb­denum” then left before the answers were revealed, in case it was wrong.  The Black Sheep was pop­u­lar, and I tried some­thing from a Cornish Brew­ery, which was OK but broke my res­ol­u­tion of drink­ing only York­shire beer.

Hav­ing drunk as far as Corn­wall, order­ing the Paulaner Weiss­bier at the Brig­antes felt less sin­ful than it might, and it was deli­cious.  Unfor­tu­nately the Taylor’s Land­lord appeared to be “off”  which dampened the enjoy­ment of some of us.  Encour­agingly, the pub was very full, which it deserves to be con­sid­er­ing the range of beers, the good lay­out, and the food menu earlier on.  Let’s hope the Land­lord was an aberration.

Some weeks ago now, but little will have changed, I believe.  The Slip, on Clem­enthorpe, is a most pleas­ant and wel­com­ing place to visit these days — the Ilkley Bit­ter is much to be recom­men­ded.    The snicket through the flats devel­op­ment beside Skeld­er­gate Bridge, and thence across the water, bring one fairly quickly to The Phoenix, whose vir­tues I have sung here before, and which remain undimmed.  The Spreadeagle has gone through many vicis­situdes since it used to be York’s most pop­u­lar pub.  Its latest incarn­a­tion has at least restored it to the sort of place one might bear to drink in, and the gui­tar class in the back room was enter­tain­ing — one of our num­ber insisted on join­ing them to sing.  Pity the beer is all Mar­stons, though with about 5 dif­fer­ent beers to choose from most of us found some­thing to our lik­ing.  The pub will need to do some­thing spe­cial, though, to pull it back into the mainstream.

Start at the Shoulder of Mut­ton on Heworth Green.  A fine pint of   York­shire Heart bit­ter  from Nun Monk­ton. They seemed to do a good saus­age and mash too. At the Tap and Spile, the unseason­able weather allowed us to sit out­side until after 9pm, enjoy­ing Roost­ers Yan­kee, and Tether Blond from Whar­fe­bank Brew­ery at Pool in Wharfedale.

Neither of the pre­ced­ing pubs was full to burst­ing, but we had to hunt for a seat at the Golden Slip­per, where vari­ous rooms held folk play­ing dom­in­oes, darts and draughts.  Good to see a city centre pub seem­ingly thriv­ing with tra­di­tional cus­tom­ers play­ing tra­di­tional games.  No-one seemed to be watch­ing the footy — though per­haps you wouldn’t find much interest in Spurs or an Irish team within the city walls of York.  The Deuchars was OK, but I’ve had it kept bet­ter.  And the Old White Swan was a rev­el­a­tion.  It used to be very much a lads pub, but it had a bril­liant if geri­at­ric jazz band, an appre­ci­at­ive, if geri­at­ric audi­ence, and both Jen­nings and Jaipur beers, inter alia.