What would turn out to be the last Curry-Heute of 2012 was consumed at the Sheesh Mahal, Bradford. Eight of Nine checked into the Huddersfield Travelodge, Dr. Stan as ever did his own thing. It was chucking it down as it did on this very day last year. The walk to The Grove in the wind and rain was not so pleasant, that it took some thirty minutes did not do down well with some who resorted to a taxi.
The Grove has been a stand-out venue in the last couple of years. With a large range of Draught Ales and an extensive range of Bottled Foreign Bier to complement the Draught, everything we could hope for Bier-wise. The Grove was selected back in February as our Hogmanay venue, the deal we secured at the Travelodge set us up perfectly.
Magic Rock’s (Huddersfield, Yorkshire) Highwire at 5.5% has been a great attraction this year. Cheek-suckingly Dry with Citrus, the perfect pint. Then in recent months it went Hazy. In The Grove it was better than has been served in Scotland in recent times but after a couple it was time for a change. Gads at 6% (De Molen, Nederland) was as Howard described, full of Apples, weird. One was enough, time to return to the tried and tested, Schlenkerla Marzen (Schlenkerla, Bamberg, Bayern) was the tipple for the remainder. The Smoked-Bier is good, had the Urbock been available it would have been even better.
Nine becomes Thirteen
John and Judith joined us just after 19.00, the Locals we now consider Friends were discovered on our first Grove visit. John was able to identify Mein Host as he emerged from his private door. He did not engage us. The Staff were new to us and struggled at times to keep up with the demand. It was a pity that none of the previous Staff were still employed, here we were in a Pub we hold in the highest regard, visit as often as we can, and we felt like strangers.
Throughout the evening we were updated by the progress of Lord Clive and Lady Maggie speeding up the M1. Leicester, Derby, Chesterfield, Sheffield and eventually Huddersfield. Rather tan waste VDT, they too took a taxi up from the Tavelodge.
This was a night made by The Company.
The Pub visited today:
The Grove – 2 Spring Grove Street, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, HD1 4BP
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