I did hear that they are re-opening the Falcon in York, which used to be a favourite.
out of boredom I decided to look at the position for Sheff as a whole - 537 points. I’m not gonna go into the split again, but whereas aggregating e.g. London would clearly be silly, the Sheffield top 6 are all within about a mile of each other despite being in 3 different areas, in fact there’s only 1 in the Top 10 that’s further out, except that’s now closed (Hillsborough Hotel). The remaining 9 are easily doable as in a day’s crawl, well so long as you’re disciplined enough to actually leave some of them!
TL/DR, Sheffield is great, I’ll put together a potential RB day out on a separate thread
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Have been to Newcastle and York lots of times, both being around 1/2hr on the train from Darlington, always good visiting for CAMRA fests and for new cider rates on offer - Newcastle also has Free Trade Inn, Mean Eyed Cat, and of course CentrAle at the station - most recently caught up with @Grumbo in Newcastle for a mini-pub tour after work - personally I’d put Newcastle above York.
Have only been to Aberdeen once, which was well before rate beer & brewdog days - remember it was surprisingly good, we had a drink in afew lively bars and ended up in a chippy in the early hours with white pudding & chips
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white puddang and chips … OOF !!!
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Getting to the nitty gritty now. Some great places in this release, with a slight surprise -
9th - Liverpool, Merseyside with 515 Points. HR = Ship & Mitre, Dead Crafty Beer Co., Brewdog Liverpool, Black Lodge Brewing Taproom, Roscoe Head, Grapes.
8th - Huddersfield, West Yorkshire with 518 Points. HR = Grove, Magic Rock Tap, Sportsman, Rat & Ratchet, Star Inn, King’s Head.
7th - Leeds, West Yorkshire with 522 Points. HR = North Bar, Friends of Ham, Bundobust, Assembly Vocation, Turk’s Head, North Brewing Co. Tap.
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We have been fortunate to have been to Liverpool several times and always enjoyed it. It’s maybe not up to the levels from a few years back when there was a proliferation of traditional pubs with the Ship & Mitre being one of the best in the country. Not so now possibly.
I have to admit that I have only been to Huddersfield for football. It’s probably the one place I really need to get to. It’s done well to get this high in the chart. The Grove is the highest rated place in our chart.
Leeds is so much better these day than before. There is always a full day out there now. A place on the rise.
Liverpool - been many times in cask ticking days (loved that ship and mitre did thirds, very rare back then!), was always a good crawl. Only been a couple of times in last decade, my impression and backed up by what I’ve hears from mates and online, is that it’s still a damn good cask city but not kept up craftwise
Huddersfield - fantastic place, used to go regularly, not so much lately but for a small place it’s got a lot, it’s still great for cask ticking and there’s some places doing a good craft lineup. Grove is of course legendary (and kudos to them for their Ukrainian fundraising including a line where all sales go to Ukrainian relief fund)
L##ds. Grrrr. Didn’t expect sheff to win but if there’s one place I didn’t want to be below… I’ll console myself with the knowledge the ‘true’ sheff score is 537 and that pisses on L##ds 
local rivalry aside, I find Leeds hit and miss - as I alluded a few days ago, Leeds generally has a clear distinction between trad pubs and craft bars, not many places do both, not well at least. Leeds on a good day is (grinds teeth) excellent, Leeds on an average day is ok. Maybe I’m spoilt living in Sheffield but Leeds usually seems to have fewer interesting beers than sheff. Good thing is a lot of the top places are verified on Untappd so I can check taplist on train up or on my sofa. Craft in Leeds definitely brings out the Yorkshire warcry though - ow bloody much?!
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Used to go to Huddersfield regularly, many years ago Loz lived nearby in Slaithwaite and prior to that Meltham and despite moving away it’s been a place we’ve always revisited regularly. It punches well above it’s weight and for me has in the Grove one of the finest establiments not just in the UK but anywhere, added to that a fabulous supporting cast of places it really is quite wonderful. It has a few very good food places and in Vinyl Tap a great record shop but unfortunately after that, for me it’s a town crying out for investment, it really hasn’t moved on since the 80’s.
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I did all 3 of these places within the year prior to lockdown.
More akin to 3 or 4 hour visits as opposed to full days.
All decent and slightly different but the Sportsman (cracking VFM pies) and the Grove certainly lived up to their highly rated reputations and stood out the most … Ship and Mitre and Friends of Ham the stand outs from the other two for me.
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That’s the highest Leeds have been in a table for a while! Done both Leeds & Liverpool quite recently, obviously very biased about the former and it didn’t dissapoint, but neither did Liverpool - both have a pretty good mix of trad pubs and craft bars, and it’s easy to sort an enjoyable crawl. Only visit to Huddersfield was on a transpennine rail trail thing pre-COVID, did the pub on the station, nice beer and lovely pies, looks like I need a revisit to check all the other places
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Actually finished our Huddersfield crawl at the Head Of Steam (is it?) on the station.
Was so disappointed by the selection … zero new rates … we skipped it and drank a can or two on the platform instead!
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Liverpool, what an great city. And Leeds. Yum yum yum yum yum.
Surprised to see Huddersfield so high.
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That HoS went downhill years ago, it was the flagship when Tony still ran the chain but declined since, I rarely find owt I want. The King’s at other end of platform is better for cask but last I went hadn’t embraced the keg at all
The penultimate release of places and what Christmas stars they are -
6th - Glasgow (Centre), Glasgow with 522 Points. HR = Drygate Brewing Co. Tap, Brewdog Merchant City, Brewdog Glasgow, Bon Accord, Koelschip Yard, Three Judges.
5th - Norwich, Norfolk with 526 Points. HR = Fat Cat, Plasterers Arms, Brewery Tap, Kings Head, Brewdog Norwich, Duke of Wellington.
4th - Birmingham (Centre), West Midlands with 535 Points. HR = Wellington, Post Office Vaults, Brewdog Birmingham, Craven Arms, Cherry Reds, Tilt.
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I haven’t done Glasgow for some time, well before Ratebeer. I remember having to do quite a bit of walking when I was last there.
Norwich is a lovely city to walk around and take in a few beers in some great beers. The Plasterers is a particular favourite for me along with the Kings Head.
Birmingham is like home territory to me, I know that the Wellington has its detractors but I love it. The Craven isn’t what it was, looks like old ratings keeping it high in our list. Cherry Reds is a lovely relaxed place. I have to save up to go into Tilt but you always get a great selection, loads of other places to visit too.
All very good cities, but Norwich is a little bit of a shock at 5th. Mind you I haven’t been in at least 6 years.
Norwich is excellent, I think it may have come top of the Camra list a couple of times. We get over there every other year, it is a bit of a treck. I think it does justify its high position.
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Norwich is a great place to visit (says the boy from Ipswich) for a large traditional beer scene, it’s not really embraced keg so much but perhaps hasn’t felt the need to due the quality of what’s already there. For me, the best tour is the area north of the river, rather than the city centre, which would include many of the top listed places plus the Artichoke which blends cask and keg well and the Malt & Mardle micropub. Murderers is the best place in the city centre. The annual City of Ale month is a particularly good time to visit. I just try not to visit when there’s a home game on, the colours are quite nauseating!
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Blue and White are definitely the best football colours 
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something we all agree on !!!
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