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We’re trying hard not to be unfairly London-centric with our latest Big Project*but it’s really quite difficult.

We’ve got 20th Century London pub guides coming out of our lugholes (see above) and even its commuter zone is quite well covered:

But when it comes to the North, we’re all but stumped. There’s*one bona fide classic…

…but, otherwise, it’s a matter of scrabbling for scraps, like the chapters on working men’s clubs and immigration in Graham Turner’s*The North Country, or the odd chapter in more general books about The Inns of Old England.
All this only goes to highlight one of*the Campaign for Real Ale’s many contributions to beer culture in Britain since the 1970s: truly local guidebooks.

Although even those tend to be sadly light on prose and the oldest and most interesting ones are extremely hard to get hold of.
So, that’s mostly a moan, but if you do happen to know of a Mancunian, Liverpudlian, Leodensian or Geordie equivalent of, say, Alan Reeve-Jones’s 1962 classic*London Pubs then do let us know. Otherwise, we’ll keep nosing around for crumbs.
Why No Northern Pub Guides? from Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog - Beer blogging since 2007, covering real ale, craft beer, pubs and British beer history.


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