I've been back over the Pennines and revisited a few old favourite haunts followed by a gig in a new venue on a typically wet Manchester evening. I had a good evening overall, although unfortunately one of the places turned out to be an unexpected let down.... The spots of rain started to appear on the window as soon as my train slipped through the Pennines, somewhere between Walsden and Littleborough. By the time we arrived in Rochdale, little streams were flowing down the glass, meeting each other, coalescing, and changing course as the train rocked and railed along the track. We arrived in Victoria, and I decided to stay dry, at least for now, at least on the outside, by heading to the Victoria Tap for a Welcome to Manchester pint. The small bar was quite busy with a mid-afternoon crowd but I got served pretty quickly. I went for a pint of a beer from a new brewery to me, Coleys, who are based nearby in the Weaste area of Salford, just off Eccles New Road. Their website descr...
A few thoughts on a fairly local and relatively small, independent family brewery who are well known to cask beer drinkers throughout the country for one of their beers, whilst closer to home they have once again been selling off some of their pubs.... As regular readers of this blog may recall, I was conducting some field research in Leeds the other week, and in the resultant write-up I referred to the Town Hall Tavern on Westgate which has been run by Taylors Brewery for the past few years as their pied-a-terre in the city, but as I noted it was closed and up for sale when I walked past. Coincidentally, I had also recently picked up a copy of Alesman , the excellent magazine produced by Keighley & Craven CAMRA in which there was an interesting article by the editor on Taylors, whose brewery is of course situated in the town. In it it was mentioned that not only was the Town Hall Tavern up for sale, but also Taylors' only pub in Harrogate, the Inn at Cheltenham Parade, plus...