The Calder Vale Hotel, Wakefield

Will Larter left this review about The Calder Vale Hotel

Slightly out of town - and feeling further because it's over the railway tracks - but in fact there's only half a mile to walk from the Cricketers, for instance, and it's definitely worth it. All the beers are brewed on the site by Luddite Brewing Co, with occasional guests, and I started off with a Mosaic Pale 4% (NBSS 4.5) and one of their earliest brews, 1812 Yorkshire Bitter (NBSS 4). (The date is when a local mill was stormed by Luddites.) These were both tremendous, so I found time in my busy schedule between the pub opening at 2pm and the football kicking off at Horbury Town's nearby ground, to also try a half of the Transportation - which was what happened to the Luddites, so the hops in this 5% IPA are Australian. This wasn't so good, being a bit bland and having a very slight haze. The latter was down to the firkin having been tilted a bit too violently by the auto-tilt, but the former can only be attributed to the Ozzie character, or their hops anyway.

The 1812 bitter won a local CAMRA festival award in its first year, just before they had to shut down because of COVID, and the pub is in the current Good Beer Guide, despite none of the brewery's beers being listed on CAMRA's scoring system. They have just brewed their first German smoked ale, a beautiful 5.2% beer made with actual German malt, which is so new it doesn't have a pump clip yet; I was given a taster as I was on the point of departing. The pub is a lot better looking on the inside than its plain, square external blandness seems to promise, and the people running it are friendly and engaging. I'll definitely be back. Hope that smoked German beer is on.

On 7^th March 2026 - rating: 10
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