I did the famous Trans-Pennine Real Ale crawl on Friday, travelling from Manchester to Leeds. I thought that this would be the most appropriate forum to post a review. I have added comments against each individual pub I visited on Pubs Galore but I thought I’d add some practical advice.
Old Boots has already set up a version of the crawl on PG http://www.pubsgalore.co.uk/crawl/vi....php?crawl=439
and there are similar versions described elsewhere on the internet:
Chester and South Clwyd CAMRA website message board http://csccamra.mesb.co.uk/phpBB3/vi...c.php?f=4&t=61
or
The official site http://www.realaletrail.net/
From Manchester Piccadilly we caught the train to Huddersfield stopping at:
Stalybridge – Station Buffet Bar
Greenfield – The Railway Inn
Cross the border between Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire
Marsden – The Riverhead Brewery Tap and Dining Room
Slaithwaite (pronounced Slaw-it) – The Commercial (The Swan in Slaithwaite is the GBG entry, run by the same people but The Commercial has longer opening hours and has recently been overhauled)
Huddersfield – The Head of Steam (although Huddersfield has two pubs in the station – the other one being the King’s Head – and a good choice of other real ale pubs locally such as the Sportsman, the Grove and the Rat & Ratchet)
From Huddersfield we caught the train to Leeds, stopping at:
Mirfield – The Navigation
Dewsbury – West Riding
Batley – Cellar Bar
Leeds – to the Travelodge via the Scarborough Hotel, The Brewery Tap and Whitelocks (good back alley real ale pub)
Logistics:
In order to hop on and off the train, a Greater Manchester off-peak Rail Ranger Ticket (for use after 9.30 am) costs 4 per adult (see gmpte.com).
A West Yorkshire off-peak Day Rover costs 5.30 per adult or two adults can use a family one for 8.80, without any requirement to be accompanied by any children (see wymetro.com).
Timetable details are on the National Rail Enquiries website. Our first journey used TransPennine Express trains but from then on we used the basic but functional Northern Rail Service.
We were lucky enough to be able to purchase the Day Rovers for the second part of our journey in advance of the day of travel.
My individual pub reviews became more vague and brief the further along the crawl we went, due in part to starting at a sprint in the excellent Station Buffet Bar in Stalybridge and also to my cold sapping my energy.
If you think that the whole crawl would be too much to do, I would recommend (for time and quality) visiting at least the 3 bars on station platforms at Stalybridge, Huddersfield and Dewsbury, although none of the pubs we visited were more than a few minutes walk from the station.