Beery Times in Leeds

The beer bloggers conference is just about to start, with many of us nursing hangovers from an over-indulgent night on the town in Leeds last night.

Thursday night was the pre-conference pub crawl, leaving us non-Leodisians in the capable hands of Leigh Linley, blogger at Good Stuff. You can read a bit of background on some of the pubs we visited here.Having only been to one Twissup event in the past I was looking forward to meeting some of the nigh on 100 attendees of the conference outside of the more formal arena of the Metropole Hotel (our home for the next few days). It would be all too easy to drop a load of names of who I bumped in to; so I'll leave that to your imaginations. Chances are if you're reading this you're one of them anyway! I had intended to get pictures during the night, but the beer and conversations took over - probably how it should be.

Having heard of the food quality in Mr Foley's, we decided to partake in some pre-crawl stomach-lining and get first dibs on the beer selection. I chose a pint of Kirkstall Best Yorkshire Bitter and a cayenne bean burger, both excellent, followed by a bottle of Flying Dog in de Wildeman Mr Foleys Can be found on twitter here

I'd heard about the Tipopils being available in North Bar; so headed there next. It has a laid back atmosphere but the music was a little loud on this occasion. Bumped into some GBBF friends. The beer was okay, fresh tasting and crisp but I think i just prefer Czech pilsner in general. Can be found on twitter here

A stroll to the Midnight Bell came next, where I enjoyed a half of the eponymous mild and also the relatively new Leodis lager, one of the better efforts from a UK brewery I think. We then popped just up the road to the The Cross Keys for a few.

I finished my evening in The Grove an ancient, multi-roomed pub sandwiched between skyscrapers with a pint of something gingery I wasn't too keen on. Back to my hotel room before 11pm, a sensible precaution against what looks to be three very beery days indeed.

So now lets crack on with the conference, made possible by a number of sponsors*, not least Molson Coors UK, who through their generous bursary offer meant I was able to attend the conference for free (and probably could not have done so without this help). Many thanks to all of those who have been working behind the scene to make this conference come together, I look forward to it and will certainly be publishing more blogs over the weekend!

*I figure if I mention this now, I won't have to repeat myself later in the week!