The Hop, Leeds

One of the three Ossett/Salt bars in the Granary Wharf development. This is the Ossett Brewery attempt at an atmospheric railway arch pub and certainly feels more traditional than the other two. It is mostly brick and woodwork, with some historic touches including old street names, but they couldn't resist a few arty touches. The beer range is by far the best of the three, with a wide selection of cask from Ossett and guests, plus a few craft IPAs on keg. Even the music seemed better!

With the nearby Salt Granary Wharf having already closed before 11pm on our weekday visit, we did manage to find the Hop still open. So, we chose to finish our evening here. Whilst situated in the railway arches for the nearby Leeds station, you soon forget that your in an arch when inside, apart from the occasional rumble of a train overhead. The pub has two floors and feels quite spacious too, where many of the warehouse/brewery type bars often feel cramped. The bar itself for this pub can be found deep in the arch and around a corner. Being owned by Ossett, there is a good selection of their cask ales. Regulars are Silver King, Butterley, Yorkshire Blonde, Voodoo & Excelsius. The White Rat clip was turned round. Guests were Ossett Strawberry Fields, Rat Rata Nui & Brass Castle Bad Kitty. There was also a good selection of ciders - Lilley's Tropical Cider & Weston's Family Reserve & Old Rosie. Voodoo is normally a very palatable orange stout, but we could instantly tell that this was way past its best. The barman said that it must be near the end of barrel and offered to replace it. We chose the Bad Kitty instead, which was far better. I have to say that the Strawberry Fields was also very nice indeed and all 3 ciders were in good condition, having been fetched directly from the cellar. A friend had the Rata Nui, which was as bad as the Voodoo. That was replaced by Excelsius, which was worse still. He ended up with one of their keg beers instead, which was fine. But it is beyond me how so many of the cask ales could be in such poor condition. It is also really bad practice to leave all 3 dodgy beers on. Whilst the White Rat clip was already turned when we arrived, none of the others were turned despite us returning a total of 3½ pints to the bar. This pub is useful to know about, as it seems to be one of the few to stay open until 11pm around here. It did in fact stay open until almost midnight. But the beer quality and shoddy cellarmanship would deter me from heading back here.

I've been to this Hop before, but probably before I started reviewing pubs, and the Hop that used to be in Sheffield (a couple of times) and the one in Wakefield (several times), and I can't say I've been impressed with any of them. Partly this is because I find Ossett beers a bit samey and mostly not to my taste, but my recent visit here brought it home to me that it's just not my type of pub. It occupies an interesting space near where the River Aire plunges down through a channel beneath Leeds City station and out into the Aire & Calder Navigation. But there's little sense of this once in the pub, which is impersonal and noisy, but not with the invigorating rush of white water. OK, I seem to have been here at a quiet time, but you've got to ask yourself, why is North Brewery Tap busy, why are people going in to Whitelocks and the Duck & Drake, why was I almost the only customer here at 8:30 of a Wednesday evening in high summer. It may seem a bit harsh, but to me this pub is a waste of what should be an interesting space.

Official site of The Hop - thehopleeds.co.uk

Official site of The Hop - thehopleeds.co.uk