Foley's Tap House, Leeds

Mr. Foley’s Cask Ale House consists of a ground floor bar area with standing room only at the front and a surprisingly large amount of seating that is accessed up a small flight of stairs towards the rear. The seating is split into a balcony area that overlooks the bar, seating to the right and a sunken sofa seating area to the right rear. There are a couple of plasma screens that were showing muted Sky Sports News during my recent Friday afternoon visit. I didn’t see any live sport advertised, but I’m pretty sure that the Sky Sports News channel is only available with the full Sky Sports package. The toilets are located down a flight of stairs to the rear. I wasn’t surprised that there were no generic lagers available due to the pub’s name and the German bunting that adorns the walls. Premium draught products are aplenty and I counted around ten hand pumps, a couple of which were unused. I had a very enjoyable pint and this is certainly a must visit for any beer aficionados out there, but even with a large group of PuG crawlers I thought that the place was a bit sterile.

This York Brewery pub is located inside the former Pearl Assurance building - a fine granite edifice opposite Leeds Town Hall. The rather clunky name refers to James Foley who was not only the president and founder of the Pearl Life Assurance Company, but also laid the foundation stone of this building back in 1910. A large statue of Mr Foley can be seen looking down on the Headrow from high up at the front of the building. The interior regrettably fails to match up to the splendour hinted at from outside. You enter into the main bar area with the servery on the left hand wall in a brick floored room with a few high tables and stools and plenty of room for vertical drinking during busy periods. The rest of the pub is set out over a variety of different levels including a raised seating area on the opposite side to the bar with standard tables and chairs under the large arched windows and a sparsely decorated rear room with comfier lounge style furnishings such as button backed sofas. A small gallery on an even higher level looks down over the main bar and has room for three tables and one more sofa. The servery has a very high dark wood bar back and was decorated with large beer steins and German flag bunting which was in aid of their German Beer Festival, although we could only see one German brew available on draught. A couple of TV screens were showing Sky Sports News throughout our stay whilst music played quietly in the background. Two York Brewery beers - Guzzler and Terrier were available alongside Anarchy Grin and Bare It and Crime Scene and Wharfebank Aztec Orange. Not a bad selection, but there were a significant number of unclipped hand pumps which suggested that we might not have seen the ale range at its strongest. The keg range was eclectic and included several foreign beers that I'd not seen on draught in the UK previously. I thought this was the sort of bar that would be good to drag workmates along to as it has a broader appeal than some of the city's more traditional pubs. Whilst the interior left me a bit cold, I thought the interesting beer range and the prospect of a wider ale selection were reason enough to consider making a return visit.

Missed this one on previous visits to Leeds and glad we managed to take it in this time. Housed in a fine looking Grade II-listed building, opposite Leeds' impressive Town Hall, fortunately it had quietened down a bit for our late afternoon visit and no problems getting served. As mentioned, more of a vertical drinking venue on the ground level , but then some comfy seating on offer on the floors above. Most of the ten handpumps were on the go and tried a couple of the available York Brewery Ales and they were in good nick.

This is an impressive building with a variety of seating styles on various levels inside. We stayed in the front bar which had a few York brewery beers, and guests, and we chose 2 beers from Anarchy brewery, Grin and Bare It, and Crime Scene. They were unfiltered beers so not clear, but they tasted fine. The disabled toilet is on the ground floor, but it is used as a store room and my husband said walking disabled were fine but a wheelchair would not have got in. It was clean but very cramped.