Bad news for the drinkers of Keighley. The Albert, leased from Timothy Taylor by the Ossett Brewery for the last eight or so months, is back with the original owners. I say bad news, but it's all relative - nobody will mind having Taylor's ales back at the Albert (although Ossett did have a couple of TT pumps as 'guests'), but it was nice to have the full range of another brewery in the town. I only managed to get into the Ossettised Albert once, but I was very impressed. The Albert had been refit from a tired old rocker's pub - complete with motorbike bolted to the wall - in about 1995 when Taylor's refurbished their entire estate, and ended up being done in a sort of chintzy Victorian-lite. Ossett improved the interior a lot with a their retro-contemporary touches, open fire and knocked about Windsor chairs. The beer was spot on, too - especially the Silver King which is still a favourite of mine. It's not clear why Ossett's bridgehead in Keighley failed - some say it was caused by contractual wranglings with Taylor's. It might simply be that footfall wasn't enough to justify the battalion of seven or eight (ten?) handpumps and a large pub which must have cost a small fortune to run. I don't have any pictures of the Albert's interior, but there are some here on the fine Huddersfield-based beer 'n' pubs blog A Swift One.
Friday, July 3, 2009
The Keighley News
Bad news for the drinkers of Keighley. The Albert, leased from Timothy Taylor by the Ossett Brewery for the last eight or so months, is back with the original owners. I say bad news, but it's all relative - nobody will mind having Taylor's ales back at the Albert (although Ossett did have a couple of TT pumps as 'guests'), but it was nice to have the full range of another brewery in the town. I only managed to get into the Ossettised Albert once, but I was very impressed. The Albert had been refit from a tired old rocker's pub - complete with motorbike bolted to the wall - in about 1995 when Taylor's refurbished their entire estate, and ended up being done in a sort of chintzy Victorian-lite. Ossett improved the interior a lot with a their retro-contemporary touches, open fire and knocked about Windsor chairs. The beer was spot on, too - especially the Silver King which is still a favourite of mine. It's not clear why Ossett's bridgehead in Keighley failed - some say it was caused by contractual wranglings with Taylor's. It might simply be that footfall wasn't enough to justify the battalion of seven or eight (ten?) handpumps and a large pub which must have cost a small fortune to run. I don't have any pictures of the Albert's interior, but there are some here on the fine Huddersfield-based beer 'n' pubs blog A Swift One.
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4 comments:
Sad! I love TT - miss it out here - but it doesn't have to become ubiquitous.....slurping Ossett ales makes a nice change. Meanwhile, the hot news (unsubstantiated) is that Copper Dragon has gone bust, which, if true, is a bit of a shame but a good opportunity for someone. Like Ossett.
Just wasn't doing enough business apparently which is a real shame. Always a gamble this one though and Ossett really need to concentrate on fighting their own battles right now.
Surprised at the Copper Dragon bit. Is this really true? Nothing on the web about it - aprt from this?
It's intriguing isn't it? Get sleuthing, Affer!
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