West Riding Licensed Refreshment Rooms, Dewsbury

I give the West Riding 7 due to the great choice of real ale. The had TT's Landlord and Black Sheep as regular ales with a great other selection of guest IPA's milds porters and stouts; which were all excellent. If you are a lager drinker then I'd stick to the bottled offerings as my friends only seemed to get flat pints, although the staff were willing to change without any fuss. On a secondary note the ladies in the group were not impressed with the bathroom facilities and the lack of wine choice. Hope next time we can give it a ten!

Excellent station pub located in the former waiting rooms, with a three room layout, each connected by a small archway. You can access the pub either from the platform or the car park, the latter giving you the chance to admire the fine, ivy covered Grade I listed building and the smart, compact garden. Entry from the platform takes you into the smallest of the three rooms, which has a limited amount of seating, a nice fireplace and a jukebox. The middle room struck me as the nicest, not least because this is where the attractive dark wood servery is situated, with the old Dewsbury station sign suspended above it. Smart banquettes line the walls and there is an impressive bottled beer collection lined up along a high shelf. The third room looked to be set up more for diners, with standard tables and chairs set up in formal arrangements, with flowers on each. The room has numerous old Guinness and Martini adverts on the walls and there are various bits of train related memorabilia throughout the pub, although perhaps not as much as I'd expected to find. A fine row of handpulls offered Timothy Taylor Landlord and Dark Mild, Bridestones Winter Warmer, Dark Star Hophead, Roosters Advent (£2.50), Black Sheep Bitter, Durham Evensong and Abbeydale Holy Water. I tried the Roosters and found it to be in excellent condition. The keg range was also worth a look, with the likes of Sierra Nevada, Oyster Stout and Leffe available. Blackboards detailed a good bottled beer range and a long list of forthcoming ales. Thatchers Gold cider was also on tap and I think I spotted a box of cider as well. An excellent pub that lives up to its reputation. Anyone thinking of visiting Dewsbury may well find that they don't make it any further than the station - why can't we have pubs like this in the stations in and around London?