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Beer of the Week (w/e 23 January 2011)
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Having attended the National Winter Ales Festival in Manchester yesterday and been shown round several city-centre hostelries by ROBCamra, there were some strong contenders. However, two beers really stood out for me. Marble '3.9' and Dark Star 'Hophead'. I can't see anything else coming close this week . The hard part's going to be choosing between them.
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Originally Posted by
aleandhearty
Having attended the National Winter Ales Festival in Manchester yesterday and been shown round several city-centre hostelries by ROBCamra, two beers really stood out for me. Marble '3.9' and Dark Star 'Hophead'.
Presume these were found at pub, rather than 'fest? Which hostelries did you stumble into?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
trainman
Presume these were found at pub, rather than 'fest? Which hostelries did you stumble into?
I decided to show the guys some alternative real ale venues rather than the usual Marble Arch, Angel, City Arms etc so we visited.......
Bulls Head, Mother Macs & Kro Piccadilly before the fest and Fringe, 57 Thomas Street & Odd afterwards. :cheers:
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
ROBCamra
I decided to show the guys some alternative real ale venues rather than the usual Marble Arch, Angel, City Arms etc so we visited.......
Bulls Head, Mother Macs & Kro Piccadilly before the fest and Fringe, 57 Thomas Street & Odd afterwards. :cheers:
Odd. "There is only 1 handpump on the bar..." RC
Kro. "This place isn't really a pub, it's not really a wine bar either. It's like being in a cafe in Ikea." RC
MM's. "Only one handpump which was serving Hydes Original. The pint I had was OK but not top class, almost everyone else was drinking lager." RC
A geographical choice, or had someone upset you?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
trainman
Presume these were found at pub, rather than 'fest? Which hostelries did you stumble into?
These were both festival ales, we had Ringwood Porter at Bulls Head, Hydes at Mother Macs and a variety of Old Toms at KRO. The full list of festival ales is on the web site it includes some not very winter ales.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
trainman
Odd. "There is only 1 handpump on the bar..." RC
Kro. "This place isn't really a pub, it's not really a wine bar either. It's like being in a cafe in Ikea." RC
MM's. "Only one handpump which was serving Hydes Original. The pint I had was OK but not top class, almost everyone else was drinking lager." RC
A geographical choice, or had someone upset you?
Partially geographical. Offer any better bars between Piccadilly Station and Piccadilly Gardens if you can.
Just because a place only has one handpump it doesn't mean that the beer isn't good. In fact the Northern Two Tone Special at Odd was excellent (although OB had a bottle of Trashy Blonde, well he looked at it for about 40 minutes then left most of it ;))
KRO sells good beer it's just not my sort of place, but it is almost facing the bus stop we needed.
Mother Macs is a Manchester institution (In fact go in at the wrong time and quite a lot of the clientele could be on day release from one :D)
57 Thomas Street only had 2 beers on rather than the usual 4, so you can never guarantee a massive choice even in a Marble pub.
Fringe was, well Fringe. Same old slightly weirdness that it's always been.:cheers:
You can't keep doing the same old places, even great beer houses get a bit samey if you always go in the same ones. :eek:
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Originally Posted by
ROBCamra
You can't keep doing the same old places,
Agreed, don't take umbrage. I just didn't know whether the Yorkshire contingent had yet been to those old places...
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
trainman
don't take umbrage. I just didn't know whether the Yorkshire contingent had yet been to those old places...
None taken.;) OB has done some A&H hasn't.
But the NWAF week is not the right time to be sampling the well known beer houses of Manchester. They're all rammed.
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I'm just enjoying my first beer this week. It is a pretty special one though in that I have finally got myself a Jaipur and better still it was a free one. :cheers:
I'm pleased to report that the Three Tuns is absolutely packed and will hopefully do alright from giving away a barrel of beer.