The Midnight Bell, Leeds

The Midnight Bell is a fairly new pub that is housed in an old building,i walked past it in the morning and did'nt notice it. Once inside there is a L shaped room which has a tiled floor,the seating is mainly normal tables and chairs,there is also a decent room upstairs which also has normal tables and chairs. The pub is a Leeds brewery tied house,there was a very good choice of real ales on the bar,i had a drink of Leeds Best which went down well,the other beers i noted were Pale,Gold,Midnight Bell,Gingerbread ? and Intrepid Porter. The pub was packed on my early Saturday evening visit with Leeds bright young people,background music was playing. I quite liked it here. Pub visited 13/2/2016

We popped in here on a Sunday evening and the pub was completely empty. After a while we realised that the upstairs function room was packed out with one of their regular acoustic nights. The bar had the full range of Leeds Brewery ales, so I settled on the Leeds Best, whilst Mrs A went for the Leeds Gold. A well run pub, definitely worth a visit.

This Leeds Brewery pub occupies a small part of the regenerated Round Foundry where engineer Matthew Murray produced the world’s first commercially viable steam locomotive, the Salamanca. The pub is a smart, modern affair with a fairly strong emphasis on food. You enter into the stone floored main bar area – a roughly L shaped space with windows at the front and back allowing a lot of light in on my lunchtime visit. There are plenty of tables of various sizes with standard seating, one high table without any stools and a carpeted front corner with a sofa, all of which should cater to most people’s needs. The servery has a bare brick bar back and some interesting panelling under the bar counter with the Leeds Brewery pump clip shape incorporated into each panel. Pump clips have been displayed over the bar and the pastel shaded walls boast their fair share of brewerania, mainly in the shape of enamel beer adverts, which makes the place feel a bit like the kind of craft beer bar you might find in the capital. A smaller room can be found to the left of the entrance with a slightly cosier feel to it appeared to be very popular with diners. Further seating can be found in the nice, open plan first floor space which is bare boarded and has various art works on display which are also on sale. Some large windows look down to the courtyard below which has plenty of seating and hosts summer parties according to various posters around the pub. As you might expect, Leeds Brewery beers dominated the handpulls, with Pale, Best, Gathering Storm and the eponymous Midnight Bell all available alongside two guest ales – Roosters YPA and Farmyard Fruits Farmer Jim. Three third-pint glasses on a taster tray could be ordered for £3.40 if you wanted to try more of the ale range. A blackboard listed some bottled beers, mostly from Belgium and the US, whilst the keg fonts offered the likes of Corvus Stout, Liefmans Fruitesse, Aspalls cider and a couple of beers from the Brooklyn Brewery. I gave the Leeds Pale a try and thought it was pretty good, if not quite on top form. The popular menu listed sandwiches and chips around £6-7 and heartier main courses either side of a tenner. Considering the pub’s interesting location, there is a sense that the pub doesn’t really capitalise on its heritage and in this respect I found this to be a bit of a missed opportunity. The gastro element of this pub seemed harder to avoid than in the neighbouring Cross Keys, but the main bar remained a nice spot to relax over a pint and all told, this is another worthy Holbeck pub.

A new Leeds brewery-owned outlet aimed at the younger, upwardly mobile punter. The interior is very bistro-cum-wine bar and rather uncomfortably clinical for my tastes, I prefer a bit more charm. Four Leeds beers on over six pumps and I was happy with my Pale. Also a number of high-end foreign bottles available in the fridge. Situated over two levels with a large (if characterless) courtyard area for summer drinking; a stab at the continental, maybe. Worth popping in if you want to stock up on the local wares but there are more worthy places to see if you’re a first-time crawler of the city. Still, it’s good to see a small brewery pushing their wares in surroundings that aren’t just aimed at old farts like me I suppose.

Modern 'L'-shaped bar in a converted building, with an upstairs seating and and a large patio beer garden at the back. Good range of guest beers as well those from Leeds Brewery (e.g. the eponymous Midnight Bell, £3.10 and excellent). Overall, well worth a joint visit along with the nearby Cross Keys. (NB - Review dates from August 2011.)