Skip to main content

How Great Beer Ruined Everything (A Manchester pub crawl summary)


I have a problem with Manchester at the moment. Over the past year my beer standards have increased dramatically. I no longer seem content with a “decent pint of ale” anywhere. I expect brilliance.

I’ve noticed it now when I go to Leeds. Where I used to have a list of around fifteen places I enjoyed, now I’m only interested in visiting two of them. I’ve noticed it in Huddersfield. Where I used to roam around seven or eight different establishments, now I feel any drink that’s not in The Grove a little inferior. But I am a Manchester lad mainly…

Last weekend I went for a pub/bar crawl around Manchester. These have been infrequent of late thanks to one bar – Port Street Beer House. “Where shall we go for beers?” one of us would say. “Port Street of course,” would say another. And nobody could come up with any reason why we shouldn’t. And to be honest, why WOULD you go elsewhere in Manchester at the minute?

But, through gritted teeth, last week I said no to Port Street as we would be down the Oxford Road and Deansgate area and I suggested we toured the zone, with it housing some great bars and pubs at one time.

And it still does, in that department, not a lot has changed. The Lass O’Gowrie, Sand Bar, Odder, The Temple, Rain Bar, Peveril of the Peak, Briton’s Protection, Cask, The Deansgate and Knott Bar were all visited on our tour. Great places with decent beer and some of them were once personal favourites.

And they HAVEN’T changed, which is precisely the problem. Now they are a little dated. There is more for them to discover. Sure, I’ve always enjoyed Sand Bar’s choices of Helles or Weissbiers on draft. And yes, The Temple’s examples of foreign pilsners have often proved a good break-up to a night out. I’m sure there will still be occasion when this is just what I fancy. But now I want more. And now they could provide so much more.

Why are we suffering from tame, European beer that was last interesting in 2003? Why haven’t these bars updated their selection and moved with the times? Even the cask range in the pubs in this area all seems selected from a 1998 list of decent beer. Isn’t there any opportunity to branch out?

I had some decent beers the other night – most notably was perhaps the Augustiner Dunkel in Cask Bar – but it says a lot that my favourite pint of the night was the classic Coach House Brewery Blueberry Bitter in The Deansgate – which, incidentally, was on terrific form. A lot of beer was distinctly average, but maybe four years ago I would have raved about it. The bar has been raised, as it were. Sand Bar, Odder and The Temple especially have a lot to learn.

Of course I exclude Knott Bar through all this. When we finally reached here I enjoyed a great Hardcore I.P.A. from BrewDog. It seems they have seamlessly embraced the current beer environment. Why can’t the rest of Manchester? So I blame Port Street Beer House solely for spoiling me and making my standards far too high. How dare you encroach on our city with your terrific selection of currently popular beer!

Unfortunately Oxford Road/Deansgate area, you have failed to entice me away from Port Street. Next time, it won’t even be up for discussion…

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"They Had Their Issues, So..."

      There’s a set of garages to rent as storage units near my workplace. One of them is taken by a local florist that uses it to store flower arrangements for various events, that are more often than not funerals.   As such, at least once a week at 8am I will pass a car being loaded up with flowers arranged into heart shaped patterns or the letters M U M. It is a grounding reminder that, as I mentally grumble my way through the upcoming arbitrary grievances of my ordinary working day, a group of family and friends locally is going through the hardest time. It provides much needed perspective on days when I could do with being reminded of all that I have to be thankful for.   These little moments explain to me why it is possible for us to share a communal loss when a celebrity passes away. Grief is often a personal and lonely experience, shared between a minority of people in your life. When a co-worker loses a relative or friend, it has little affect on me, bar signing of
Post a Comment
Read more

LIVERPOOL - the City that Craft Beer Forgot Part II (and found...)

After visiting Liverpool, one of my favourite cities, in February this year, and not impressing people with my rather hasty but honest verdict on the city’s lack of craft beer, I jumped at the chance to return last week and hoped to come out with a more attractive judgement. A couple of friends and I visited on a day out, with neither of them having been drinking in the city before. It was left to me – or rather, I volunteered – to plan the day’s itinerary and places to visit. I had a couple of new or unvisited places in mind myself, but knew it would be unfair to miss out on some of the city’s famous gems. With around 10-12 hours in which to fit in an entire city, I opted to concentrate on the famous Georgian Quarter and see if we had time for the Dale Street end later on.    We planned to arrive in the city for around 11a.m. just in time to walk up Mount Pleasant to the new-on-me, though I believe it has been opened three years, Clove Hitch on Hope Street for breakfast.
Post a Comment
Read more

Ten Reasons Why I Hate Brewdog

There was a time when I thought beer was subjective, when I believed it was there to be interpreted and commented on from a personal perspective. I used to form my own opinions about beer, pubs and breweries and sometimes I’d even write them in this little blog. Brewdog were no exception; I was happy to praise them when they did right and criticise when I felt they were wrong. Of course I now have seen that I was wrong to do this. You see, it’s not about opinions or personal preferences; it’s about following the crowd, doing what’s cool and avoiding controversy. At present it’s not cool to like Brewdog. Despite the fact that I still really enjoy their beers and bars, people keep telling me why I should hate them. You probably already do, as you are well “in” on what’s hot and what’s not. I wasn’t aware of this, the e-mail never landed in my inbox, but not wanting to fall out of the loop I’ve presented a list of reasons why we should all hate Brewdog so I can fit in with this g
4 comments
Read more