Hull – Head of Steam

After my delight at the Head of Steam in Liverpool a couple of weeks ago, it seemed proper and fitting to visit their location in Hull (and hopefully I’ll visit the one in Sheffield next week). The decor is very different here, but there were still some excellent beers to choose from. The pub was busy, mainly with diners, and there was a nice relaxed atmosphere.

The pub had Turning Point’s Lucid Dream Cookie Cream Stout, so that was me sold. There’s also a CAMRA discount which brought the price down to something like £4.20, which isn’t unreasonable for such a marvellous beer. Depth of flavour, creamy taste and at the appropriate temperature, a glorious beer.

Actually, on the food, I did like one review on TripAdvisor:

“I wanted a healthy option and, as stated on the menu, I asked one of the team. For health reasons I cannot eat some salad ingredients so told them what I couldn’t have. Their imaginative minds came up with lettuce and cucumber. If you read your reviews can I suggest grated carrot, sweat corn, red cabbage(I noticed that on my husband’s plate!) Grapes seeds quinoa dried fruit nuts beetroot to name but a few.”

The pub’s response:

“Unfortunately, our house salad is lettuce, cucumber, tomato, onions and pepper. As you are unable to eat tomato, onions or pepper, it didn’t leave our kitchen with a lot of options.”

Beautiful. I’m not quite sure where the pub is going to magic up quinoa, beetroot and dried fruit from, unless they somehow pick the bits out of their vegetarian burgers which do have some of those ingredients in them. It must be disappointing when a customer leaves such a negative review when they’re doing so well in getting themselves as one of the highest rated pubs in the city.

The staff member was friendly, the pub was relaxed and the selection of beers entirely met my expectations. And, it’s in the Good Beer Guide, yet another deserved entry in my humble, and irrelevant, view.