Mild Magic – the last post

So, farewell then, Mild Magic 2012. Since the 14th of April I’ve drunk – or at least asked for – mild in 49 different pubs, almost all of which had someone behind the bar who knew all about MM. The final tally looks like this: The big three Robinson’s: 6 (5 1892, 1 1892 Dark) [...]

Mild Magic – the last crawl

With this post my travels in pursuit of Mild Magic 2012, Stockport and Manchester CAMRA’s annual effort to promote mild (map here), come to an end. This was a trip involving walking; lots of walking. It started with a bus route minutely planned out and perhaps a mile of unavoidable walking in total; it didn’t [...]

Cold sweat breaks out

LADIES! Do you like LAGER? Do you like LOOKING GOOD? Do you like FEELING UNCOMFORTABLY CHILLY? …no, that’s not going to work. LADIES! Do you like LAGER? Do you like GLAMOUR? Do you like MEN STARING AT YOUR CHEST? …OK, maybe that’s a bit too direct. LADIES! Do you like LAGER? Do you like BEING [...]

Mild Magic – day 6

This is the penultimate instalment of my travels in pursuit of Mild Magic 2012, Stockport and Manchester CAMRA’s annual effort to promote mild, concentrating this time on the Stockport end of things. (And here’s the map again.) This was a trip involving unprepossessing pubs, pubs in odd locations and, mostly, rather average beer. I started [...]

Mild Magic – missing marvels?

Quick bleg for Manc and Stopfordian readers, and anyone else doing MM in particular: where am I missing? I’ve only got a few spaces left to fill in – are there any absolutely stunning pubs I’ve missed out? I’ve been to… All Saints, Alti, Broadheath, Chorlton, Chorlton Green, Didsbury, Didsbury West, Fallowfield, Heaton Norris E, [...]

Mild Magic – day 5

Yet more ticks from Mild Magic 2012, Stockport and Manchester CAMRA’s annual effort to promote mild, concentrating this time on the Stockport end of things. (Here’s the map.) The first thing that struck me about Stockport was how close together the pubs are; I got round the Swan with Two Necks, the Tiviot, the Baker’s [...]

Sinking in the waters green

When I lived in the south-east Adnam’s was one of the names you’d regularly see on bars, along with Tolly Cobbold and Greene King. Before too long one of them was no more, while one had morphed into a weird kind of junior Whitbread, destroyer of breweries. And Adnam’s? I hadn’t paid them any mind [...]

Mild Magic – day 4 and a bit

More ticks from Mild Magic 2012, Stockport and Manchester CAMRA’s annual effort to promote mild. (Is there a map? Yes, there is a map.) In this post I’m going to wazz through the town centre and Salford, running together one decent-sized crawl and two shorter ambles. I hadn’t been in the Rain Bar before, & [...]

Mild magic – day 3

Greetings to any passing craft beer fans attracted to this blog by me saying nasty things about BrewDog. (And may I just say, that was an excellent half of Zeitgeist – at least, once it had warmed up a bit and lost some of the excess carbonation. Not quite as good as it was on [...]

Ever get the feeling

I’ve just been to a new bar in the town centre. Things I like in a pub/bar A wide variety of beer on tap Things I don’t like in a pub/bar High prices for ordinary beers: say 25% higher than I’d expect to pay anywhere else in Manchester for the entry-level draught beer, and 100% [...]