I’m sure Pub Curmudgeon will quickly correct me in lumping Cheadle Hulme‘s newest pub in with Greater Stockport, but the Good Beer Guide can’t make up it’s mind whether the Heatons Norris and Chapel deserve separate billing, so I’m in good company.
The Chiverton Tap is certainly winning awards from Stockport and South Manchester CAMRA though, and I’m awarding it favoured micropub status, along with those in Gillingham and Worthing.
You can walk here in 50 minutes from Stockport, but (perhaps controversially) the Adswood scenery isn’t the finest in the borough. Cheadle Hulme itself is leafy suburbia at its best/worst, rather like Golders Green but with decent beer.
The first time I visited the place a highlight was an opportunity to sample Holts, Hydes and Robbies when those family brewers had major pub in the Beer Guide at the same time. The latter’s Church was my favourite, with the Hydes and Holts becoming characteristically food-driven following huge investment. In comparison the Spoons now looks a bit downbeat.
So plenty for fans of Boring Brown Bitters (pick me !), but the Tap has certainly added to choice, as the inevitable blackboard reveals.
It’s certainly a bigger range than the three @ £3 you find in the formulaic micropub of the south-east, but I can only judge on the basis of the Bollington Best, which was in superb condition, and cellar cool (NBSS 4).
Bright and cheery, with plenty of top reading material, and proper pork pies. Unlike some micropubs with just posing tables, the Tap has good proper seating and a pubby atmosphere once the mid-afternoon crowd start to arrive. If I didn’t still have 1,100 pubs to go I could very happily have worked my way through that range.
retiredmartin 
Not been in the Chiverton Tap but did get to its sister bar, the Mounting Stone in Bramhall.
Micro seems to be a more than a stretch to describe that venue but it is very nice.
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Bramhall as a place has a bit more to commend it as well !
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Can’t possibly comment, I went there and drive through it – it does indeed look a better version of ‘leafy’ than most other places.
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Bramhall to Cheadle is like Hampstead is to Golders Green, has a great park and more impressive architecture, though a bit short on top pubs.
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The Spoons next to the Asda precinct is one of a package recently sold to Stonegate. I doubt that it will improve much to be honest.
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King’s Hall was still Spoons when I visited, though clearly run down and with much less food trade than you’d expect.
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I understand that contracts are exchanged on the package; presumably the pubs will trade as Spoons until completion, but run on a shoestring. I was in a Reading ( for sale ) site in the summer after the sale package was announced and the supervisor was talking to regulars on a Saturday morning about cuts to staff hours.
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The Chiverton Tap is very good – it’s really more a small, modern-styled pub than a micropub. Ideally placed for returning commuters.
The King’s Hall is changing over to a Stonegate format some time during October. Never really Spoons’ best piece of site selection.
Cheadle Hulme is within the Stockport MBC area but is definitely a place in its own right.
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Thanks for that. It’s always good to know when we are getting things right.
Mary – The Chiverton Tap
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