The start of the canal is only a short walk from Leeds City station, one of the biggest stations in the UK and the third busiest outside London. It will be even nearer when the new Southern entrance is completed. One alternative starting point is the Wetherspoon’s on the North concourse of the station. It’s probably as good as Wetherspoon’s gets, opens at six in the morning and does a good cheap fry up.
If you walk from the station you go under the dark arches into Granary Wharf where the canal starts/ends (depends how you look at it really). This eery part of the city is one of my favourite places, underneath the station, the river rattling through Victorian brickwork passages, then suddenly you are out into the canal basin and the Holbeck urban village, as it’s now being called. It’s worthwhile having a venture down there and having a wander around the canal basin, houseboats and the confluence of the canal with the Aire. Ossett brewery have two places down there, The Hop and Candlebar (see my review of 25-06-15). There’s also quite a few restaurants, including Fazenda one of my favourites and a meat lovers paradise.
I’ve just done a tour of the excellent pubs in this area. You can put a nice little pub walk together revolving around six decent places, all with their own individual character and style, all within 800yds of the station. More of that in a later post.
As you set off along the tow path, the first thing that hits you, considering you are in the city centre, is the diversity of wildlife. Most of it in or on the canal which is like a massive aquarium full of aquatic plant life, think Cabomba, Elodea and water lilies. So long as a barge hasn’t just passed you can see hundreds of fish darting about, mostly small Perch and a few Roach. There’s dozens of Dragonflies, an odd emerald green one, but mostly of the electric blue variety. Surprisingly there were more Dragonflies down here than there were further out of town. There’s quite a few ducks and ducklings, a lot of boats, locks and winders, even the occasional fishermen.
There’s lots to see as you walk along. I’m not going to do a travelogue but The Tower works impressive chimneys which are replicas of Italian church towers are the first thing you see. You just need to be careful as you look around, the tow path is quite busy. Most cyclists were very considerate and courteous and I’m all for alternative transport, but there were a few (nob heads), all men, trying to do a near 30mph impression of an overweight Bradley Wiggins as they hurtled towards us on the narrow path. Categorising the cyclists; ones with shopping baskets and panniers are most considerate, the Armley smack head was the most polite and the lycra clad ones the worse. FFS you’re only going to work
Some of the artwork is really cool. I can’t condone illicit graffiti on Victorian Yorkshire stone. I can appreciate well done art work on derelict, soon to be demolished structures or on ugly concrete. When I say art work, I mean artwork and not juvenile squiggles, the human equivalent of a dog marking it’s territory.
We made the Kirkstall Bridge Inn our first port of call and up to this point there’s not much point detouring from the canal side to other boozers. The Armley Mills industrial museum is worth calling into and the Hollybush Conservation centre has a café, both would be interesting for children.
After the Kirkstall Bridge Inn the landscape changes, the canal and the valley broaden out. Although you are still very much in urban Leeds there’s a feeling of being in a more pastoral setting. You can imagine the monks of Kirkstall Abbey working in the fields of corn or herding the grazing cattle. I mentioned the scarcity of dragon flies on this stretch and strangely there is much less apparent wildlife in the now murky canal. The only thing we saw were three post coital dinner plate sized bream basking on the surface, they must have been nearly three pounders. I think the boat traffic here was the problem with the aquatic visibility.
As you near Rodley, there’s a choice of pubs, on or very near to the canal from now on. We went to the Rodley Barge but we could have called in at;
The Abbey Inn, Pollard Lane, LS13 1EQ. Leave canal at Newlay Bridge No 22. This one nests in an almost rural setting on a sort of island between the canal and the river, they have a decent, regular changing range of real ales on.
The Owl Hotel, Town Street, Rodley, LS13 1LB. Leave canal at Bridge N0 217. The Urban City Pub Co. run this pub, directly opposite the Rodley Barge (with whom they collaborate on the August beer fest). Eight cask ales and cider and full menu.
The Railway Inn, Calverley Bridge, LS13 1NR. Leave canal at Calverley Bridge N0 216A. This is another pleasant canal side location, traditional pub with (limited) choice of real ales and food.
Leeds CAMRA often have socials comprising of a canal walk. I’m not sure which pubs they do, but if you started at Kirkstall Bridge Inn all these pubs could easily be visited in one afternoon or evening, depending how long you stay in each one! You could even walk up into Farsley, Town Street which isn’t far and sample the two traditional boozers in the village centre.
I finished the day off by catching the bus back into the city centre, there are regular buses on Rodley lane (A657). Just be careful, worth paying the extra for a Metro day rider rather than a First day ticket, quite a few of the buses are operated by other companies. In total, including three refreshment stops, it took me and my son just under six hours from setting off to returning to the city centre. Six pleasant hours well spent. Try it.
The last pub I visited on my walk down the Leeds Liverpool canal was the renowned 
Rodley Barge
It was mid afternoon when I dropped in and there were still a fair few folk finishing off their lunch, mainly couples of at least fifty plus. I had a quick skeg at the menu, traditional homely pub fare and very reasonably priced. Notices on the wall tell you that this is a real community pub with strong local ties. They have an amazing three different quiz nights every week and even a beer and music festival at August Bank Holiday. I was impressed when an old couple (eighties at least) waked in for a meal. The nice lady behind the bar called the chef as they had already finished lunchtime service. They looked at each other, then at the old couple, sat them down and rustled up a meal for them. Well done.
This is the second part of my Leeds Liverpool canal walk and features 
As you near Kirkstall Bridge, a sort of convoluted, over engineered, Victorian intersection of road, rail, canal and river, you walk past the current 
Previously The Old Bridge inn and The Bridge Hotel before that, it was the fist pub bought by 
This isn’t craft beer, not the west coast IPA, bearded brew hop bomb style anyway. It is however, beer brewed with craft, with a lot of care and heart. 
I’m not going into any great detail about the wines, this is a beer blog. They are however, the only Yorkshire vineyard to produce a traditionally made sparkling wine, secondary fermented in the bottle. Rosé, crisp and acidic, think pink apples, the S. African ones but dry and refreshing, excellent. They were knocking bottles out at twenty quid, so we bought one. The rest of the wines were first rate and proprietor Chris Spakouskis told me that as the vines, first planted in 2006, get older they are producing better quality wines. So, what about the beers. Like I said this isn’t your hop hammer ‘craft beer’ style. This is, with one exception, proper beer, brewed with craft. There’s a range of seven core beers and a few seasonal ales brewed by Tim Spakouskas, the owners son, I tried five of them from the bottle. There’s no shop at the farm but they will sell from the farm gate, or you can shop on line for bottles and casks (or polypins). Chris told me they were doing well getting their ales onto bars across the York area but were experiencing less success in the W.Yorkshire metropolis.
First off was Hearty Bitter (3.7%) which was their first ever brew back in 2011. It’s a traditional brown bitter with a white head. Chris explained all their beers were easy drinking, the sort their family would like to drink. He was right, there was nothing to dislike about Hearty Bitter, it was exactly what it said on the label.
I wasn’t keen on Get Pithed, an orange fruit beer. Very … well orange. Almost like Orange Tango; fizzy and refreshing but more like pop than beer. I probably shouldn’t say it but Chris admitted he wasn’t a fan, describing it as a Marmite experience. We finished off with Lightheart (3.3%), a light pale ale, golden in colour. Despite the low strength there was a good bit of bite and a nice balance. This is one that you really could enjoy drinking all day in the sun.
I hadn’t been to the 
Black Sheep
me wrong, it’s not chock full of hops but it’s different to their normal fare, very drinkable but not worth the four pound per pint they were charging for everything. So the next one was 
Strangely the tent housing the sixteenth largest brewer in the UK was much smaller than the Black sheep of the Theakston family. They didn’t have much beer left by three o’clock neither. The pump clips on the Best Bitter and Old Peculiar were turned round as they’d sold out. I enquired of the very friendly staff, apparently the main franchise for the beer tent was held by Black Sheep so 
I tried a bottle of XB at £2.50 and was pleasantly surprised. As well as a bar there was a coopering display and while I was looking about I noticed they had two ‘modern style’ ales on keg lines. Both cold filtered and unpasteurised; Peculiar IPA and Barista stout, suggested donation £1.50 for half. I tried the Peculiar IPA, quite pleasant, It’s copper in colour and the tasting notes say it’s made with Cluster bullion, Simcoe and 
I visited 
The most disappointing thing for me was the lack of local producers. Okay, a lot were from within a 25 mile radius, but what I was looking for amongst the one hundred or so trade stands was a hard-line local theme. I’d probably got a farmers market, local produce thing in my own mind, coupled with a profusion of street food vendors. In reality it was neither, there were twenty-nine food vendors and seventy-four other stalls, including a couple of motor dealers? Anyway, rant over, it was a good day out and I had a couple of nice ‘gluten free’ samosas (Really Indian Ltd) and a decent chicken tikka /kebab wrap (Indian Delights). Best company name had to be the 
Okay, if you’re thinking what has this got to do with a beer blog? Well, I like food too, and there was some beer, and other drinks besides. Top marks to 
The highlight for me? 
Enjoying the summer weather last week I stepped out along the Leeds Liverpool canal. Journeying from Leeds city centre through urban sprawl, past breweries old and new and a spectacular ruined monastery, then out into the leafy suburbs along the canal tow path. In beer terms I travelled from the cutting edge of craft beer in a modern setting, wandered through a classy compromise before ending up in the best that a traditional Yorkshire boozer can offer.
behind the bar but there are four hand pumps up front that usually have guests on. Great Heck was on last time I took any notice. There’s around twenty draft beers on altogether and a decent range of bottles to drink in or take out. My favourite is the draught New World IPA (6.2%). The range of beers continually varies which is good because it sort of forces you to try new ones.There’s little beer menus on deceptively heavy clip boards (seriously go down there and try picking one up) to help you choose. We didn’t have any beer on this occasion and I’d already had my daily caffeine dose, but without asking the barman served up glasses of iced water, which was a nice touch.
The breakfasts, from the in house purveyors of food 
