Val-de-ree!

It’s the time of year when Manchester CAMRA branches do their bit for the licensed trade by encouraging members to set out on a “Winter Warmer Wander”, thus bolstering pub receipts at this difficult time of year. (Note to CAMRA people reading this: hi John! Also, why is it in December? Wouldn’t January make more sense?)

Rather than separate posts for different areas, I’m going to post a quick round-up with subheadings.

The Good Ones

Last December Wine and Wallop had RedWillow Thoughtless on when I called. Alas, not this time – but they did have the chocolate stout Heartless, which is always welcome and was in very good nick. I was equally impressed with Magic Rock Punchline – a chipotle porter – at Brink. I like Brink a lot but never seem to spend any time there; I would have rectified the omission this time, but the place was packed out (I think there were as many as 30 people there).

Less stellar but decent were Gloucester Six Malt Porter at Pie and Ale and Manchester Brewing Pick Me Up in the Paramount (JDW), a coffee porter which was fine but a bit tired. The Paramount was every bit as full as Brink, which is to say that there were about 300 people in there. (On the same day, incidentally, I looked in at the Waterhouse (JDW), but thought better of it when I saw that the crowd at the bar was three deep.)

The Near Misses

Ashover Liquorice, in the Castle, was probably a really good liquorice stout. It certainly tasted strongly of liquorice – much more so than Ticketybrew‘s Invalid Stout, which was made with tons of the stuff. It’s a near miss for me because I don’t actually like liquorice, or not when it dominates the flavour as it did here.

Origami Mullered (Crown and Kettle) is the only old ale I’ve had this year – if we’re being picky, the only actual winter warmer – and it was really good. It would just have been even better if they’d had the courage of their ‘old ale’ convictions and not added ‘seasonal’ cake spices. Similarly, Ridgeside Kodiak – one of the adventurous choices on the bar at Reasons to be Cheerful – struck me as a hottish, slightly over-cranked porter, and only lost points when I learned that it was a “maple and pecan” porter. (I had it on keg later the same week; it didn’t taste so ‘hot’, oddly enough, but I still wasn’t getting the crunchy nut cornflake effect.) R2BC, like Brink, is a small, friendly bar with an excellent range of beer, and I always want to spend a bit more time there. This time was no exception. I dashed out to get my bus – after debating whether to wait fifteen minutes for the next one, and chance it on being home when I’d said I would – and ended up waiting the full fifteen minutes at the bus stop. (And I was home in time.)

Not Actually Dark

Hyde’s and their pubs aren’t really getting into the spirit of the WWW this year. I’ve had a couple of their “Beer Studio” beers: Mahogany Summit in the Fletcher Moss and oddly, the Ford Madox Brown (JDW); Yankee Pumpkin Ale in the Vic. They’re both basically darkish mid-strength bitters, although the Mahogany Summit does have an interesting ‘roasty’ finish; you could just about imagine you were drinking a stout if you didn’t look at it. There were also no dark beers at the Gateway (JDW) – I had hopes of Kelham Island Smoke on the Water, but it turned out to be a smoked pale beer; or at the Red Lion, where the Marston’s name over the door is as much a guarantee of bland predictability as it once was of quality (I had Snecklifter); or at the Smithfield (Kennet & Avon Caen Hill Hop), or the Great Central (JDW) (Brightside Topaz); or at the Friendship, where I havered between Hyde’s Lowry and someone-or-other’s Fireside Ale, unable to read the a.b.v. on either of the pump clips, and eventually jumped the wrong way. (The Internet tells me that Lowry is actually over the magic number of 4.5%, and that the Fireside Ale is under – and that it’s brewed by Greene King, although they keep very quiet about it.)

Not Actually Qualifying (plus Not Actually On The List)

None of the eight pubs in the previous paragraph had any dark beers on (let alone old ales), and most of them only had the one beer over 4.5%. After less than satisfactory encounters at the Vic and the Red Lion, I was in the mood for something dark – and it had been a long time since that Heartless at Wine and Wallop – so I bobbed into the Turnpike for a half of Samuel Smith’s Extra Stout. It was on keg, of course – Sam’s stout isn’t available on cask anywhere (unless you know better…) – but it was fine; if it was sold more widely, and if people bought keg stout for the taste, I could see it taking market share from Guinness. (Of course they don’t, and it never will, so the point’s academic.) Elsewhere, the Arndale Micro Bar, last time I passed, was listing three more beers than were actually on sale; this struck me as odd, given that they only had one pump idle at the time. One of the phantom beers was a draught stout, but none of the beers that were actually available was either dark or over 4.5%, so I passed. I was less scrupulous at the Crown (Northenden), having made a special trip out there; I had a pint of Weetwood Cheshire Cat, an unexceptional but agreeable golden ale, and found a corner to watch the match.

Are You Man U, You?

Watching the footie at the Crown was actually quite pleasant, which I fear doesn’t bode well for the pub – there were only about twice as many people in there as TV screens. Liverpool v Everton was still playing at the Red Lion and at the Vic; both of those were absolutely rammed, to the level where you have to keep up a constant stream of warnings and apologies to get from one side of the room to the other (“sorry… mind your backs… excuse me… coming through…”).

I made it to Fallowfield a bit later in the afternoon and decided to hit the Friendship before the Great Central, thinking that the latter wouldn’t have the game on and the former probably would – although I did also think that the Liverpool game would probably be over by this time. Good news: the Liverpool derby had indeed finished. Bad news: the Friendship was now showing the Manchester derby – Manchester United and the other lot – while also, apparently, trying for a world record for the number of people they could get into one room. I’d thought the Vic was busy, but this was something else. To get across the room – which included getting to the bar – you basically had to keep up a constant stream of warnings and apologies, and then push hard. You know when you’re at a gig, and there’s a support act on who nobody really cares about, but there are about eight rows of people at the front jealously guarding their positions for when the headliner comes on? Picture that, except that you need to get to the front of the stage in order to get served. My sticker-requesting technique – smile, make eye contact, ask directly and succinctly, say thankyou – was heavily tested today, never more than at the Friendship. (It worked, though – at least, nobody got at all narky about having to fossick around for a bit of sticky paper on one of the busiest days of the year. Which reminds me – why do we do this in December?)

The Scores

Everton equalised, apparently; I don’t know how they managed that. I don’t remember the score for the other match. As for the beers, in sixteen pubs I’ve had

1 old ale
4 porters
2 stouts
7 ‘other’ qualifying beers (>4.5%)
2 non-qualifying beers

7/16 – a bit on the low side, sadly.

The Twist Ending

After all that, I’m afraid I won’t be participating in the Winter Warmer Wander 2017, even though the sixteen pubs I’ve visited put me well on the way to a t-shirt to add to my collection. (Don’t knock it – my stash of CAMRA t-shirts and polo shirts makes packing for summer holidays much simpler.) At my first stop this afternoon, reaching for my sticker sheet, I found it wasn’t there; this didn’t worry me until I got home and found it wasn’t here either. So farewell then, my stickers for Brink, the Castle, the Crown and Kettle, the Fletcher Moss, the Ford Madox Brown, the Gateway, the Paramount, Pie and Ale, Reasons to be Cheerful and the Smithfield. As much as I like some of those places, I really don’t want to do all ten of them again – and I can’t see myself getting to 24 without them – so I think that’s going to have to be it for this year.