Nipping out on a frosty January night, to my freeing cold garage to draw off an equally cold pint of home-brewed beer, reminded me of a splendid pub I used to visit as a student. The pub in question is the Ram’s Head, at Denshaw, Greater Manchester, high up on the moors above Oldham.

What reminded me of the pub, more than anything, was the freezing cold beer, or rather the way in which the landlord of the Ram’s Head dealt with the problem. Before elaborating further, it is worth spending a bit of time describing the pub and generally setting the scene.

The Ram’s Head (or “Owd Tupps” as it is also known), nestles high up in the Pennines, some 1,200 feet above sea level, several miles from the village of Delph. It is a substantial building, built into the side of the hill, and fashioned from local gritstone. It is constructed to defy the worst of the Pennine weather, and is the sort of pub which has provided a warm welcome to travellers in this bleak and often inhospitable region for centuries.

I first visited the pub on an equally cold November night back in 1974, following a chance meeting with a couple of lads one night in the Student’s Union bar. I had been introduced to the pair by the girl I was dating at the time. They were on the same course as her, and over a few pints I discovered that my two new acquaintances shared my affinity for good ale and unspoilt pubs. They described this wonderfully unspoilt pub they knew, high up in the Pennines, miles from anywhere, which served Youngers beers on gravity!

Real Youngers beers were extremely rare in the Manchester region (as they were in the rest of the country during the mid-1970’s). Even rarer was gravity dispense, in an area where electric and to a lesser extent hand pumps reigned supreme.

The Ram’s Head sounded the sort of pub I just had to visit, so having discovered that one of the pair had a car, we made arrangements to visit the pub the following week. I must confess I do not remember the names of either of these two characters, although I do recall that one of them walked with a pronounced limp, and only possessed the partial use of one arm. This resulted from him having been badly injured in a road accident, some years previously. Despite this I learned that he was to be our driver for the expedition! However, I did not allow this small matter to get in the way of my desire to visit this pub.