Dec 8, 2024
A very pleasant way to spend a Friday afternoon - What a wonderful way to spend (or mispend depending upon your point of view), a Friday afternoon! I joined the Craft Beer Tour around Manchester. It took me back to my working days at #Symology, when my colleagues and I would venture to places like Manchester, Liverpool, Chester, Harrogate and many more, to have our own best pub tour, superbly led by our very own beer guide expert, Stuart.
The tour started as 13 beer enthusiasts met out guide Dazzer in the Fell Northern Quarter bar on Dale Street. No. 35 if you want to locate it yourself. Fell brewery is located in Flookburgh, near Grange over Sands and they produce a wonderful range of craft beers, both in cask and keg. The bar manager gave us an in-depth talk about the beers and the brewery, while serving us with our first two 1/3 pints of the afternoon; Fell Crag bitter, a well balanced smooth, clear bitter at 3.8% and Fell Cracked Earth, a rare Red IPA at 6.0%. A cracking start to the afternoon.
Then we got the major walking of the afternoon in, about 10 minutes, when we made our way towards the Picadilly area and the famous Cloudwater brewery. Here we got a really good talk from the manager about Cloudwater, it's history, brewing the different ales and much more as we sampled 3 different brews; Cloudwater Pils at 4.2%, Fuzzy IPA also at 4.2 and Picadilly Porter at 4.6%. Although I'm not usually a lover of porters and stouts, the latter was probably my favourite tipple of the afternoon.
Next it was a short walk around the corner to the Balance microbrewery in the arches behind Picadilly station. Here we were treated to three more beers with our guide providing the descriptions as the bar staff were getting quite busy on a late Friday afternoon as workers clocked off for the week. The beers were Long Shadows at 4.8%, a bit like cider vinegar to be honest, would have gone well with fish and chips, Utopian British lager at 4.7%, a bit bland or maybe my taste buds had been depleted by this time and Beak Hun Hazy Pale at 4.8%, which was just about drinkable.
Our last stop was virtually next door at the Sureshot microbrewery, where our guide talked us through the last couple of beers; Absolutely Electric at 5.5%, a pale ale and My Brass Hand at 5.0%, another stout, both quite decent ales to finish the proceedings. Porters and stouts are welcome drinks on a cold afternoon in Manchester. The tour lasted about 4 hours and I think it was good value for money at £40. It would make a good Christmas present for any beer lover and you get your steps in as well! Many thanks to Marge, who bought me the tour as a birthday present. You get 12 months to redeem the voucher. A very pleasant way of spending a Friday afternoon, when you are retired or otherwise.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Dec 3, 2024
Best Day Out , Can't wait to book again - I booked the Craft beer tour as a birthday gift for my husband and myself .And all I can say is Book It . I can honestly say it was one of the best days out we have experienced. Daz the guide is a fantastic fella , very knowledgeable and such a fun happy guy .I was the only female on the tour but did not feel uncomfortable or not included at all . Everyone on the tour was extremely friendly . Each venue we visited explained different IPAs , Craft beers etc and we got 3 taster drinks in each of the 4 venues and they were explained of how they came to be made from % to flavour chices etc by someone from each venue . Fantastic day out , We are definitely going to book it again .
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Nov 26, 2024
Great experience - Great beer tour, really mixed group in terms of ages and backgrounds. The tour guide was friendly and kept checking in on us and we got to see some great different bars and breweries. A 5 star rating and would do it again but the only it if feedback would be that the sour beers didn’t go down well and so 3/4 of them was probably too many for our group. It would probably be good to reduce that to 1 or 2 for the experience and have another variation.
I can’t mark them down for it though as it was a super experience and although the majority of our group didn’t like them, we might have been the exception!
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Jul 18, 2024
A beer lovers dreamday out - Superb beer experience, with skilled guide Lee. Our group was a blende group consisting of beer nerds and our better half’s. The guide managed to tailor the tour to meet our level of interest and everyone in the group is super satisfied with the experience. Highly recommend this to all beer lovers. Cheers
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Feb 19, 2024
Fun afternoon - Lovely afternoon.
Some great tasting beers at four locations. Interesting talks in each brewery tap.
Our leader Isla was enthusiastic, knowledgeable and good fun.
Our group was mixed age. Two fellas from Iceland 🇮🇸
Was a great present from our nephew.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Feb 16, 2024
Superb - Isla is an absolute delight, amazing tour, great fun and great beer 100 characters needed so here we go lalalalalalala!
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Sep 16, 2023
Great experience - Very good guide and hosts at every place. Enjoyable and very different beer every time - can recommend for anyone loving a bit of IPA.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Sep 2, 2023
Awesome - The tour was awesome! Since there were only 4 of us for the tour, we got to spend some quality time together enjoying each others company and tasting great local beer.
Would definitely recommend when in Manchester!
Personal advice: don't book anything after the beer tour, you probably won't be able to go anywhere nice and polite, like a string quartet concert in Manchester cathedral.
Cheers!
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Aug 5, 2023
Great afternoon off in Manchester - One afternoon free and try to find interesting things to do. Highly recommend this tour. Nice short tour. Great choice of beer. Within walking distance.
Review provided by Viator
May 20, 2023
Local beer and breweries at it’s finest - Really nice and relaxed Tour, including 4 special places to taste some extraordinary beers. I liked the experienced guide at Cloudwater Brewery, who did a real beer tasting with us. Thank you.
Review provided by Tripadvisor