Corn Dolly, Bradford

One of my favourite Bradford pubs so I was surprised I hadn’t reviewed it before. It’s roughly two rooms partly separated by a wall running three quarters of the way across the pub, oddly for an internal wall it has a window in it. The counter runs along the back wall and is home to eight hand pulls spread in pairs along the counter with various solos and trios of interesting and mundane beers between them, the cask choice is mostly Yorkshire beers similar in range to that found by other reviewers and in excellent condition. The walls are in a mock half timber and are covered in much Bradford City F.C. stuff, Camra awards from this year and also dating back many years, the rest is humorous signs and of course pump clips on the ceiling. Banquette seating all round and there’s carpet, music is fairly constant when busy from a juke box on the wall and there’s a games machine. The right hand side has a pool table and darts otherwise pretty similar to the left side. Very handy for Foster Square station although up a couple of flights of steps, and not it’s that far from the city centre via the newish Broadway shopping centre. It’s a classic.

A great real ale pub on the outskirts of the city centre,it used to be called The Wharf in the days before the nearby Bradford Canal was filled in .The interior is traditional with a large open plan lounge,a second section unvisited by me with the bar running along much of the rear wall.Bench seating and wooden tables and chairs with plenty of pump clips around the walls and ceiling.Bradford City ephemera ,but the star of the show here is the ale range with 8 handpumps functional serving on my trip Vocation Heart & Soul (NBSS 3.5),Osset Excelsius,Abbeydale Moonshine,TT Bolt Maker,Phoenix White Tornado,Moorhouse White Witch,Revelation Swoon Chocolate Fudge Milk Stout and something I missed.A decent selection in a pleasing setting popular with real ale types and with a very good soundtrack,a must visit on any ale tour of the city centre.

Official site of The Corn Dolly - thecorndollypub.co.uk

Official site of The Corn Dolly - thecorndollypub.co.uk

As noted below this is an old open plan pub with a pool area over to the right. A collection of GBG stickers on the door leading to the toilets confirm a lengthy stint in that book. The walls are adorned with pump clips, Bradford City Football stuff and other bric-a-brac. The long bar has four pairs of hand pumps interspersed with standard keg fonts. The beers available were Abbeydale Moonshine & Absolution, TT Boltmaker, Pictish Sorachi & Mount Hood, Moorhouse White Witch, GK Old Speckled Hen and Sonnet 43 Raven. I tried five of these with prices from £3.15 to £3.40 and all were excellent. I thought this was a very good pub and well worth a diversion from the main drag. It's quite close to the Bradford Travelodge.