retiredmartin

Never a dull moment at the Etihad, but some complex rail connections from Bradford and Hebden gave me little time for Bundobust yesterday.  With a personal best time from the Colin Bell stand to Victoria (appropriate footwear, folks), I had ten minutes to look for the the Pilcrow.  That reduced to eight as I was distracted by even more previously unseen street art.

It really is hard keeping up with Manchester’s pub scene these days (let alone Stockport), even as an avid reader of Opening Times.  BeersManchester is a pretty good source too.  This is one city where you can’t rely on the Good Beer Guide, with the Pilcrow, Beermoth, Piccadilly Tap and Brink, for starters, all too recently open to be in the Guide, whatever their relative beer quality merits.

I hadn’t read a lot about the Pilcrow, even though it’s been open 18 months now.  This post from Tyson  is the only one that jumped out, and it’s got better photos than I managed too. Look in the comments for Tandleman’s unfortunate presage of things to come.

Vaguely aware it was in the N.O.M.A. area, I’ve been weaving through the almost infinite routes across town for a year now.   Of course, I could use Google maps to find it, but where’s the fun in that ?

When I finally stumbled across it, I thought it was one of those pop-ups from the Christmas market left over.  Inside it’s very impressive, and will be to much to Mrs RMs liking, perhaps encouraging her to build me one in the garden.

That said, I really can’t imagine her finding it. Instructions like “Leave Victoria, cross the tramlines and squeeze thru’ the hidden entrance to the left of Russell Construction” will probably see Mrs RM ending up in Strangeways, and that won’t do at all.

The Pilcrow was ticking over with a fairly young crowd.  None of the thousands of “little princesses” who I saw come into town for the Strictly Come Dancing show at the Arena were sitting at the bar.

Clearly I was after some Cloudwater cask, but the Mallinsons keg will have to do, and it did. You’ll know by now that a beer list of 14 is much too many at my age, but you can’t question this list;

If I’d had an extra five minutes I’d have stayed for a Cloudwater and scotch egg; I was feeling in celebratory mood. 

If only this was the Victoria Station bar.