I'd Tap That

The York Tap's success reflects a slowly growing interest in local breweries over multinationals. And the beer's amazing.

My first drink of beer was in my parents' house aged 14. I had a half a lager with some lemonade in it, and I remember quite enjoying it. As far as I can recall the brand was Fosters lager, an Australian lager that's brewed here in Manchester, England.

The most Australian thing about Fosters as far as I can tell are the hackneyed TV ads, which themselves aren't really reflective of Australians (I've been, FYI). And that's one of the reasons I've not really drank lager as a preference for about eight years. The other, more significant reason is less sophisticated. Basically I can't stand the taste of lots of lager. Carling, Carlsberg, Tuborg, Fosters, Budweiser, Stella Artois - I hate all of it. It makes me feel a bit ill drinking it.

Ill physically. Despite the clear inference of snobbery in that first paragraph, I'm not using the term 'ill' pejoratively here; I just don't like the taste. Don't get me wrong, I'll drink lager if the taste doesn't require a conscious effort to concentrate my thoughts elsewhere. I quite like Amstel and Heineken for example. And I've not even mentioned Budvar, the gateway pint to full-on Eurolager snobbery. It's just that there's something offensive about a drink that's so conspicuously unpleasant being so heavily marketed.

So trips to North Yorkshire are usually full of exactly the sort of experience my wary drinker persona loves. Especially places like the York Tap, possibly the nicest pub I've ever seen in a British railway station. It's got a mosaic floor and hardback chairs for God's sake; there's a certain Catholicism to these places that's never gone out of fashion with a large portion of British society. Predominantly Yorkshiremen, I'd wager.

The York Tap (right) mostly just sells what is colloquially termed as 'beer' and I'm not sufficiently enlightened nor pretentious enough to distinguish the varieties here. I will say there's a few IPAs (Indian pale ales for the uninitiated), a couple of porters (a sort of stout-y drink that commonly recalls chocolate, liquorice and coffee), some milder stuff and a good selection of mid-strength ruby coloured beer that you would happily trade a day of aspirin and water to sup your way through. The only food they sell is pork pie, which is slightly one-dimensional even to a lover of pork pie, but then no one's here for the food.

The Tap's just won the Best Cask Beer Pub in the Great British Pub Awards 2012 and its monastic style to food and décor extends to its marketing. It has a website, just about advertising the above. Want a menu? There isn't one - until you're in the place. It all infers a certain never-mind-the-bollocks-here's-your-pint (they'd probably snort at 'je ne sais quoi') and it's also riotously popular with drinkers.

Sitting in the York Tap, slowly going numb in the hind quarters, supping a half because you actually want to taste the next beer as well as get a bit more drunk, it's easy to assume this is simply part of the beauty of Yorkshire. After all, towns like Knaresborough and Otley offer so many pubs you wonder if anyone ever goes to work. But does this county offer a glimpse of a more diffuse future in British pubs? More bare floorboards, less ItBoxes, pubs that are pubs and not horribly ignorant approximations of 'continental drinking'?

As well as the nationally famous John Smith's, Black Sheep, Timothy Taylor and Theakston breweries, Yorkshire is home to dozens of microbreweries. There are 43 breweries in West Yorkshire alone. Whilst there's no point - or indeed solid evidence - in suggesting that the original English variant of beer - live, just below room temperature, un-carbonated - is claiming its rightful territory back from the invasion of lager beer in the 1970s, the undoubted increase in popularity of places like Manchester's Port Street Beer House (below) is part of a wider cultural change. Smaller is better if you like, as perfectly evidenced by Tesco's blatant grab for the market with its purchase of Giraffe last week.

It's likely an audience would always have existed for the Tap in York, as evidenced by that mass of breweries above. But the success of pubs eschewing the multinational Fosters, Carling et al would have been unthinkable only a decade ago.

As I suggested in an article about embarrassing TV shows, economic downturns prompt many people into overdue introspection which leads to questioning your lifestyle choices - what you're eating has recently come under the microscope (literally in some cases) and inevitably people who were happy spending money when there was lots of it suddenly want more for their buck.

It's an inevitable characteristic although not a little depressing in its origins. It's actually not got much to do with cost per pint - Port Street and new kid on the block Brew Dog are more expensive than their high street counterparts - but they offer a perception of sincerity, commitment to excellence and ingenuity that Yates and Wetherspoons can't - or won't - invest in.

So is beer getting more popular? Possibly not - but people are choosing more carefully. The most encouraging, and maybe ironic, element to this story however is this: the less that people have, the more adventurous they become. That's a great and positive story and bodes well for a small pub in York train station.

Pictures courtesy of Port Street Beer House and Planet Confidential