Rat & Ratchet, Huddersfield

Located on one of the main roads leading South out of Huddersfield town centre, the Rat and Ratchet is a pleasant looking pub with a strong emphasis on providing an excellent range of beer. The pub's interior is all dark wood and bare brick, with a large open area in front of the bar furnished with a couple of barrel tables and stools and a small booth nearer the front window. A beer bottle collection is displayed on a shelf mounted high above the room and there are a few miniature pub signs here as well. A dartboard can be found to the front of the room and this was proving popular with the locals whilst I was there. On the other side of the main room, there is a small, split level section with additional seating. This area is decorated with lots of music posters and there is also an old juke box and a pinball machine here. At the rear there is a lounge-type room with some smart banquette seating and a large central fireplace which creates quite a homely feel. As an Ossett house, their beers are most prominent and Excelsior, Silver King, Pale and Citra were all available on my visit. However, there is an excellent guest ale policy too, which saw Fullers ESB, Blue Monkey Something Blue, Pictish Simcoe (£2.75), Little Valley Ginger Pale Ale, Elgoods Pageant Ale, Mallinson's Mowbray Point, Golcar Dark Mild and Magpie Midnight Mild across the long line of handpulls. Five ciders and two Perrys were also set up and a sign explained that staff would do cellar runs for others at a slightly higher cost. Blackboards listed all the beers available and a 1-5 scoring system was used to distinguish beer colour, which I found quite helpful. There was also a note next to the Fullers ESB listing which explained that this beer would be served without a sparkler, but that one could be used upon request. A nice touch. This is a really good pub and one that is well worth the short walk out of town for. I popped in here a couple of times during my stay in Huddersfield and always found the welcome to be very friendly and the beers in great shape.

Another Huddersfield real ale mecca, this one belonging to Ossett brewery and selling their range plus beers from other small breweries and real cider through the 15 handpumps. No UK kegs except Strongbow although some classier European beers are available. Basically one room divided into a number of drinking areas with slightly odd décor, there is more than a touch of 1990s identikit-pub here with exposed brickwork, a dresser with books and bare floorboards. However the beer is of course the thing here and was in excellent order, the pub is friendly and popular although the staffing level was a bit low even for a relatively quiet afternoon session. The food is not of the same standard as the beer and probably best avoided. Retains a dartboard and has a pretty good juke box. Just to the east of the town centre fairly near the Grove, this makes a strong contrast in style to that pub but offers part of a very high class pub crawl in these two outstanding establishments.

An Ossett Brewery House.