February 2024. Manchester.
Still on the Matthew Curtis Beer Book trail,
and a fourth tick by 13:15, which sounds a bit scary when you say it like that,
but we’d walked 5,000 steps by then so it was probably fine.
The walk from Mr Thomas takes you past the Midland, where Mrs RM and I stayed for £60 the weekend before the Manchester bombing,
which seemed good value at the time but 28 years later (blimey) I wouldn’t spend that on a hotel.
Ah, here we go, the Briton’s Protection.
Some will tell you that high rise is a scar on the Briton, but not me. I love the Beetham and the Viadub et al, and you’d expect those apartments to provide much needed custom for pubs.
Unfortunately, this gem lacks the lunchtime trade, despite looking astonishingly gorgeous.
A touch of Liverpool’s White Star,
and this room at the back is an absolute classic.
It filled up in the 25 minutes (BRAPA approved stay), probably folk coming in to admire Paul’s notes, and I’m delighted to report the Cloudwater Mild was astonishingly good. Cool, rich, chewy (NBSS 4).
I don’t wish to enter this particular argument;
I just hope the folk here (and Cloudwater, to be fair) can maintain these standards,
so Paul can keep the Briton on his pub crawls for many years to come.
retiredmartin 
I had the odd reaction that I wished I’d chosen a back room to sit in rather than that beautiful bar. Those back rooms are so cosy feeling.
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I don’t remember that room at all. I recall an excellent day with Joan and yourself culminating (?) in the Briton.
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Yes, we sat in the main bar which is a great bar. I only briefly saw the back of the pub. I may have it wrong.
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Dave, you do have it wrong. You and I sat in that very room when we were there.
Dick
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Multi room pubs are remembered years later.
Single room pubs are quickly forgotten.
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I must correct my statement. You may not have sat in the room when you were with RM, but you did when we visited. So I should not say you were wrong!
Dick
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I was about to say that, Dick, but the internet was lost on the tube. I assumed you’d been here more than once !
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If we’d known eight days ago we could have asked the Britons Protection licensee how long they keep the CCTV footage for.
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30 years plus a day.
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Those Cheddars are doing an impression of a doner meat rotisserie.
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Oh yes ! Great spot.
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“and you’d expect those apartments to provide much needed custom for pubs”.
Yes, but Holts’s Eagle just across in Salford ( mentioned by Andy Burnham in the Foreword to your book, on its way back to you ) is being surrounded by such blocks and I fear the new residents objecting to the live music that’s been a feature of the classic pub for many years.
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Actually I’m not sure the folk living in those tower blocks do always provide custom for pubs like the Briton during the day; they’re more likely to head for Spinningfields. But on the Saturday Manchester was packed again (as were the trains).
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That’s probably like Stafford’s Railway Inn. I rarely saw anyone walking past until dozens of houses were built over Bagnall’s Bridge, but I don’t see those residents in the pub though they might use it on Friday and Saturday nights.
My last twenty nights at Youth Hostels have been Sunday to Thursday mainly because they’re much cheaper then but I must admit to also preferring pubs at quieter times of the week now.
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When I was a familiar in the BP it was full of guys doing Proper Jobs at GMEX – lifting, carrying, hammering etc – and orchestral musicians. Not sure if the residents of these blocks would find that their thing or not if it’s still like that, which I hope it is
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I love that pub. But as Manchester is increasingly looking like Rotterdam or Frankfurt by the year, I see less and less reason to stop there.
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Frankfurt it is!
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There are too many of these pubs I haven’t been in.
Speaking of back rooms. We were in the back room at the Britannia, Upper Gornal, on Saturday and wow! Felt like we were in a museum.
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Andy,
I was in that back room a month ago today, after Wolverhampton’s Wheatsheaf and before the Beacon Hotel, Bulls Head, Great Western and, back in Stafford, Railway.
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The previous visit we’d sat in the front room, across from the bar. A very different experience but also good. The Bathams Bitter was merely OK though. I’d have said NBSS 3 if I hadn’t fallen out with CAMRA and left in a huff*
* small Bulgarian hatchback
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Andy,
It was a very different experience fifty years ago, a free house with keg Whitbread kept since the 1940s, the Andrews sisters era I’ve learnt today, by Sally Perry. Only the back room is recognisable now.
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Must go back. And have that curry.
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I shall have to have a think as to when I might return to Manchester.
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