I'm glad that the Manchester Tram option seems to be winning the poll as Chorley & Leyland includes a lot of micropubs with the problems of a crowd of drunks turning up mob handed, opening times, the owner being on holiday etc etc. In hindsight it may not have been a great suggestion but it's still well worth a visit.
I checked a few of the Macclesfield opening hours and it looks like any problems can be worked around on a Friday.
Right I'm back and I'm afraid it's time to rain on the parade a bit.
If you want to do a Manchester tram crawl you will have to choose areas fairly close together.
It might look like no distance on a map, but for example from Rochdale it's 20 - 25 minutes to Oldham,
40 - 50 minutes to Manchester and 1hr 20 minutes to Chorlton.
Rochdale & Bury are on non connecting lines and you would have to go almost into Manchester to change to a tram to Bury from Rochdale.
Rochdale has 4 good pubs and another one that used to be. Oldham has 1, plus maybe a half for The JDW.
Chorlton has loads of good/very good bars, but they are bars rather than pubs.
Altrincham is easier by ordinary railway rather than tram.
Bury has a few good pubs but once again is quite a trip out of Manchester.
My hybrid suggestion would be to do some of the pubs in Manchester and then get a tram out to one other area.
If not there's going to be a lot of time on trams and not much time in pubs.
Last edited by ROBCamra; 27-06-2018 at 14:42.
A pub is for life not just for Christmas
Glad you're back!
My much more limited knowledge of the Manchester tram network, combined with my experience of doing public transport crawls using Sheffield's much less extensive tram system led me to have doubts about this idea. (But I was a bit wary of raining on anyone's parade.)
My solution in Sheffield has been to use a combined bus and tram ticket, which works pretty well - especially as the good pubs are not necessarily anywhere near to tram stops!
As an example, I've been looking at Eccles recently, as there are some heritage pubs there that I want to do, plus the last game of the Super League schedule has the Rhinos away at Salford. The tram terminus at Eccles is a seriously long way from Piccadilly, and if you don't much fancy Sam Smiths or Holts, there's not a lot in the way of beer - too many former Greenall Whitley pubs! Similar objections would apply, as you have pointed out, to Rochdale, Oldham and Bury. Central Manchester, on the other hand, has some cracking good traditional pubs (Britons Protection, Peveril of the Peak, Hare & Hounds, Marble Arch) mixed in with some modern bars for those who like that sort of thing.
If the Greater Manchester Tram System wins the poll and becomes the "will of the people", there might have to be some fudging of the negotiations so that we don't spend too much time on trams!
Come On You Hatters!
a little out of date but https://thcamra.org.uk/index.php/pubs/pubs-by-tram
"Do I know where hell is? hell is in hello"
One of the options I'd envisaged was getting a tram out and then coming back and including some of the Central Manchester ones. At the moment Bury looks the best option to me. The only one I've been to of the four mentioned is the Marble Arch and I intended to revisit until I saw the ridiculous prices they are charging.
When I mentioned Britons Protection, Peveril of the Peak, Hare & Hounds, Marble Arch that was just off the top of my head - it wasn't meant to be a definitive list! I'm not a huge fan of the Marble Arch pub and I don't like the vast majority of the Marble Arch brewery's beers [gasp!] but it would be an odd crawl of Manchester pubs that didn't at least put its head round the door.
The tram to Bury takes more than half an hour. And a similar time returning to Manchester. If I was visiting Manchester for the first time myself, and someone had recommended three or four pubs in Bury, I would be onto that tram like a shot. But when it comes to recommending a pub route to a bunch of experienced piss artists like you find on Pubs Galore, a more inclusive approach is required, I would suggest.
In my view it's desirable on a lengthy crawl to split the drinking up a bit with a ten minute walk or a short bus, tram or train ride. Please shoot me down if you disagree, but half an hour or more is stretching it a bit. And then half an hour back as well?
I think we're in danger of being seduced by the romance (or novelty) of the tram. By comparison, if I were to propose a pub crawl in Sheffield with a side trip by train to Barnsley - would there be any takers? Or even when the tram extension from Sheffield to Rotherham finally opens later this year?
Thought not.
(Apologies to both Barnsley and Bury. Nothing personal. But no apologies to Rotherham - I was there today: a couple of nice pubs with local Chantry beers. But worth the extra trip out there for people who've already travelled two hours or more to get here? I don't think so.)
Come On You Hatters!