Manchester's beer scene bubbles over
By Phil Mellows
When I started writing professionally about beer and pubs, back in the mid-1980s, it seemed as though nothing was going to change. After less than a year and a half as a drinks writer on the pub trade’s Morning Advertiser, then a daily, I handed in my resignation. It was clear that each year on the job would be the same as the last. It was just too boring.
Later, I was lured back to cover someone’s maternity leave – and I stayed. The dominance of the Big Six brewers and their control over pubs had begun to crack, even before the 1989 Beer Orders forced their hands. Through the fissures new opportunities for entrepreneurs and new ways of operating pubs began to surge, and early in the next century Progressive Beer Duty fuelled an explosion of independent breweries.
Of course, there were huge problems with it, too. Different monopolies threatened to replace the old. But the stasis had been shaken and it would go on shaking. The shock of the new became a permanent feature of the beer and pubs world.
This thought struck me afresh while watching Steve Dunkley’s new video series, The Beer Tourist. The first episode focuses on Manchester, where Dunkley presides over Beer Nouveau, a brewery dedicated to experimenting with heritage styles and barrel-aging.
Dunkley’s interest in brewing history is evident at the start of the film, as he walks the streets of the city, landing up in the car park that was once Boddington’s Brewery. It didn’t survive the globalisation that swept the industry once the market was prised open by the Beer Orders, but as our guide stresses, what’s remarkable about Greater Manchester is that four family brewers continue to thrive there, against the odds.
His walking tour ends, abruptly, at the Marble Arch Inn (pictured) – and why wouldn’t it, one of my favourite pubs – where Dunkley picks up the story with a pair of local experts, John Clarke, editor of Manchester Camra’s magazine Opening Times, and Lianne Williams, who runs brewery tours and tastings in the city.
From here, over a couple of pints, it gets messy. In a good way. Clarke tells stories about the beginnings of independent brewing in Manchester since the 1980s, the pioneers who hopped up cask beer. The Marble Arch has its place in this history as Marble Beers started brewing here exactly 25 years ago.
As we get into the 21st Century more and more names tumble from the memory. I’m trying to take notes but it’s getting confusing. Like a proper pub conversation, the trio spark off each other, recalling brewers they’d almost forgotten
Not all of them made it through the pandemic. Beatnikz, which closed earlier this year, is mourned. But others have started up. The next Camra Good Beer Guide, due out in October, will probably list at least 60.
The Beer Tourist fails to contain this effervescent deluge of activity and change, as the video bubbles over the hour mark. It is not the definitive guide to the Manchester beer scene it perhaps hoped to be. But, like a good glass of pale ale, what it does do is stimulate the appetite.
I want to go back to Manchester now, to seek out beers from Squawk, Steelfish and Balance, to check out the new tap room at Track and see the Marble Arch once more.