The Drunken Duck has an ace up its’ sleeve. Out the back, they’ve got their own micro-brewery. Barngates Brewery was founded in 1997, as an experiment to supply the Duck’s bar with some of it’s own beer. In 1999, the operation was expanded to a five-barrel plant, and in 2008, with the help of some [...]
We thought we might be staying longer at The Drunken Duck, by default. The night had been cold, and the previous day’s showers had frozen over the lying snow. We checked out and set off down the country lane to the side of the Inn, the car wheels skidding on black ice. I was beginning [...]
Another classic Lakeland beer, from the recently flood-hit and therefore underwater Jenning’s Brewery in Cockermouth, Cumbria, Sneck Lifter is a deep, dark and rich beer with a coffee flavour and a malty finish. It’s a warming winter beer, with a potent dark red colour. Jenning’s make much of the name. A “sneck lifter” is a [...]
We’d planned to eat at The Boathouse, a newly renovated pub/restaurant on the river at the bottom of Saltaire village. It’s a slick and modern looking place which inexplicably stops serving food at 8pm despite having a large dining room, doesn’t run a reservations system and was packed by the time we arrived. It soon [...]
The Copper Dragon Brewery resurrected the local brewing industry in Skipton in 2002, with the aim of re-establishing the long defunct Skipton Brewery. Their aim, after much research which basically indicated that the more artisan end of the beer market was being squeezed to near death by the big multinational breweries, was to brew traditional, [...]