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    Friday 1 February 2008

    Northampton - The Fourth Best Place To Drink Good Beer In The UK


    According to a Cask Marque Press Release, Huddersfield is the best town in Britain to get a decent pint of real ale.

    The criteria used to determine if a beer passed their quality standards was temperature, appearance, aroma and taste, although of course all of these are in the eye of the beholder and I have no evidence that the inspectors are any more skilled at beer tasting than you or me. Huddersfield 's beer scored higher on average than anywhere else.

    Sheffield and Derby are recognised as meccas for the real ale afficianado, but both fail to make the top ten. I can of course hear cries from the back saying that tickers who drink in these two places don't care what their beer tastes like so long as it's new, and that is an argument I have made before. I must say though that I have very rarely had a bad beer in a ticker's pub. Of course inspectors visited far more than just recognised real ale haunts anyway.

    What is pleasing is that the two places I do most of my drinking: Northampton and Leicester are both in the top ten so based on that fact there's a really good chance I'm drinking better beer than you!!

    6 comments:

    Tandleman said...

    Well since Plymouth is in there at number eight, I'd doubt the whole thing!

    Anonymous said...

    I don't rate Cask Marque very highly. I've had mediocre ale in a number of Cask Marque pubs. They also don't seem keen on dealing with complaints. I know I've complained.

    Ale Louse said...

    Sour grapes anyone?!

    Unknown said...

    Absolute sloblocks. Have avoided Huddersfield unless forced to the Galpharm for 'rugby' league. Back in the eighties the pubs there were only ever any good for picking up loose-knickered students and weighty earthenware ashtrays.

    Cask Marque is usually the sign of a beer chilled to within a gill of its life.

    Unknown said...

    I should have said, there's an excellent exchange of correspondence between a CM assessor and the 'Irritable Cellarman' in the latest edition of Nottingham Drinker, downloadable at http://www.nottinghamcamra.org/ND/Feb%2008.pdf

    Mark Edwards said...

    It's nice that people stick up for their home town. So a swift one and I like the survey and others don't.

    But there's no hidden agenda in the results that we know of, and taken at face value, you have a greater chance of wandering in a random pub and getting a palatable pint in Huddersfield or Northampton than elsewhere.

    Simon - Any time you fancy a Saturday around shoetown give me a nod and we'll get an all day bus ticket and do all the decent pubs we can manage.