REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL – A BURNAGE OASIS

 

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Sorry, sorry, sorry.  Couldn’t resist it.  At least I didn’t try and fit “Wonderwall” in the title.

Next stop, last stop before the inevitable Chinese takeaway, is the remaining GBG newbie within the M60.

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I was getting a bit fed of walking in the Manchester rain by this time, and still had an hour back to my hotel, where WiFi would once again be a letdown.

But I’d never been to Burnage before, which says something of its Beer Guide heritage.  In fact, it looked a bit under-pubbed for a Manc suburb famous for the Gallaghers.

The walk from Didsbury is pleasantly autumnal, but I was pleased to get there, bang by the station I could have reached by train in six minutes.  And bang on the Stockport boundary.

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Not a *****

I know it looks like a *****, but it feels like a beer bar, with interesting keg and cans.  If I was lazy I’d compare it to Heaton Hops, and I am lazy.

Despite being a bit bare boards stylistically, it was also a classy operation, the sort of Leeds bar that Coldwell bloke raves over.

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Simple and functional

Blokes seated at the bar, woodchip, keg walls. I can see that not all Stockport’s venerable drinkers will warm to this one.

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Bar flies

But I did, for at least 5 reasons;

  1. Proper friendly service.
  2. Superior soundtrack including Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay” and Talking Heads
  3. A thick, straight class perfect for pints.
  4. The best beer of a long day.  Pomona’s Session IPA an NBSS 4.5 shoe-in.
  5. High quality discussions on the superiority of Palestinian hummus, Gill Scott Heron’s legacy, and autism.

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The sort of intellectual discussions I didn’t expect in Burnage.  Shame on me.

A cracker of a pub.

 

NB You may be wondering why I didn’t pop in and see Pub Curmudgeon to share a growler of Mikkeller sour from his private collection.

But tickers need to be focused on the task ahead. And I was completely lost when my battery died again.  

 

FOOTNOTE:  I also passed a new beer bar in Heaton Moor. To see how “smaller” bars are taking over the world (well, Manchester), see Boozy Procastinator’s definitive post here.

 

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Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

21 thoughts on “REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL – A BURNAGE OASIS”

  1. I remember ringing a friend when I was a teenager. You know, when you had to ask your Mum or Dad to use the telephone. My friends mother told me in bluff brevity something like, ‘No, he’s gone to Romiley with ‘is Dad.’ And hung up. It’s lived with me ever since, till I saw your highlighted GBG. Funny that. If that there Burnage is anywhere near Romiley, I might have wander over if the beer’s so good. it usually is in the kind of places I like.

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    1. I did think of you drinking that Pomona (Salford brewery); it was very crisp, the way the best Brass Castle and Cloudwater cask is/was. Selling well, too, despite good keg. Bars like that may be a quarter the size of the average pub but sell a lot more beer.

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      1. Sadly the current model of the trad pub – Pubco or buy the freehold (with the odd rare tenancy thrown in) means that people will open micros and give the paying punter what they want.

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      2. So you can just about run a Wapentake or Slocken in central Leeds but a Cardigan Arms has to be in the outskirts, and even then needs substantial food trade to survive (for example).

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  2. Lovely near complete pink highlighting. I liked the New Cross title, by the way. The quality of conversation may just, dare I say, have outstripped the Board. Another on my list to do. Impressed with your geographical spread recently.

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  3. Ah, memories come flooding back.

    “Lay Lady Lay” was a favourite track of one late, lamented Vivian MacKerrel, at the Falcon Inn, Canning Circus, Nottingham, during the 1980s. It boasted a fine juke box in those days, and so we forgave the variability of the Shippo’s.

    He was a long-standing close friend of Bruce Robinson, the film maker. Viv was the real person, upon whom the character Withnail, in the cult film Withnail And I is based.

    I can never hear that song without being reminded of him, of his irresistibly eloquent demands for more, and of pretending that I had no more fifty-pence-pieces left.

    This sounds like a damned good place too, Martin.

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      1. Talking of anecdotes and reasons to be cheerful you may recall my recent sojourn to the Florida Panhandle – the area we stayed in was where Hurricane Michael made land today.
        The owner whose beachside house we exchanged for one of ours in Ireland for the holiday rang me this evening in tears to say it longer exists.
        Life can be quite a bummer at times.

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      3. Well Martin, from my six decades, I’ve probably garnered enough to keep a sympathetic listener entertained for, oh, all of half-an-hour, if you strung them end-to-end, I suppose.

        Yes, Prof, all that we can hope is that damage is confined to property, rather than life and limb.

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    2. And all trad pubs don’t look the same, with their dark leather banquettes and photos of yesteryear on the walls? Next time you go in there, have a look in the back room, I haven’t seen another micro with handpainted sunflowers on the wall, or a concrete bar top yet.

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      1. Tap & Cork in Horwich has a concrete bar top.

        All pubs have their quirks, I’m finding that all micros, mainly because of cost are all wood based and cheap wood at that (obviously). At least R2BC has not gone fully for the “industrial” or “Ikea” look.

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  5. “If I was lazy I’d compare it to Heaton Hops, and I am lazy.” –This really did make me laugh out loud!

    That bar countertop looks like poured concrete; can’t say I’ve ever encountered that before. I confess I like it, traditionalist though I am. 🙂

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  6. Although it’s only round the corner from Burnage station, Reasons To Be Cheerful is actually just over the border in much trendier Didsbury. The Gallagher brothers grew up on the council estate on the other side of Kingsway, but you were pretty close to The Barlow RC High School on Parrs Wood Road which they were both expelled from.

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  7. “Not a *****”

    Tsk, tsk. And by the looks of that door not handicapable either. 😉

    “Bar flies”

    It appears the lad in blue colour coordinates his undies with his pants. 🙂

    “High quality discussions on the superiority of Palestinian hummus, Gill Scott Heron’s legacy, and autism.”

    Not sure what is so superior about autism but, ok. 😉

    “And I was completely lost when my battery died again. ”

    Ahem:

    https://preview.tinyurl.com/y96mp3z8

    Cheers

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