Manchester Mission

 

I took a little trip up North to Manchester on Friday to meet up with some mates and to tour the breweries and craft beer bars around Piccadilly Station and the Northern Quarter. I was a bit worried travelling up there as the weather reports were a little alarmist and once we got onto the Cheshire plain (see picture above) it was quite evident that they'd had a lot more snow than we have down South! Anyway, Manchester itself was fine and the day was bright and sunny (mostly) but freezing cold.

We kicked off preceedings at the Track Brewing Company tap room in the industrial estate round the back of the station and what a wonderful place it was, large and airey with a fabulous selection of beers. I opted for an old faithful, Sonoma on cask, it was great and hardly touched the sides after my 3 hour train ride! I snapped the picture below of their beer board, in fact this is exactly half their beer board, if you can find something you like here then the problem is most definitely you!

After track we struggled through the ice and snow a massive 50 yards across the road to the Cloudwater taproom (it's on the same street as Track!) where the vibe was less industrial and a little more "Jazz Funk", a great little space and another wonderful selection. I opted for a half of their Piccadilly porter which was lovely, malty, dark and rich (see below)

After Cloudwater we walked back towards the station to the arches under the main platforms where the Sureshot taproom resides. I had a nice Westy and the other chaps stuck with the dark beers, a slightly smaller selection that the others and I'd never tried Sureshot before but I can recommend them, it was good tasty brewing!

The afternoon progressed and we sampled beers in the Piccadilly Tap, the Port Street Beer House and then the Marble Arch (which I've previously visited) We ended up at Bundobust, an Indian street food and craft beer joint for a nice curry and a couple more beers, we finished the evening off at around 8pm and I headed off to my hotel for the night with a full belly and happy heart, suffice to say I slept like a log!