August 2024. Stockport.
One down, two more ticks in the CAMRA Manchester Guide to do before the football.
This next pic isn’t from a pub in the Guide.
Prizes for identifying it.
And then to Stockport’s iconic view over the Underbanks,
whose modern bars were pleasingly busy this sunny Saturday,
though the loss of Winters still hits hard.
Across from Winters Alfredo’s Social we have one of those modern bars,
the highly regarded Cracked Actor.
It must be good, as I can almost forgive the reference to the overrated Bowie,
as the staff and customers were so welcoming and lovely, and Whiplash of Dublin’s crafty stout was a gorgeous alternative to the usual Anspach and Hobday you get in craft bars.
A superior soul soundtrack at perfect volume,
comfortable seating, and superior street art.
Blackpool Jane will love it.
She’d have hated Winters.
retiredmartin 
I’ll leave it to others to discuss whether Bowie is overrated, but that Anspach and Hobday stout definitely is. The Titanic keg stout is much better IMO.
LikeLike
Sam Smiths stout is best
LikeLike
Glad it’s not just me that thinks Bowie is overrated. Although he did do a few good songs, notably Ziggy and Heroes (all three languages)
LikeLike
Absolutely no Bowie songs make me cry. Would take Overkill by Motorhead over the entire Bowie output. Funny to remember how low his stock had fallen by 1984 and all that Tin Machine rubbish.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I actually can’t think of anything remotely listenable he did after Let’s Dance and that was in 1983.
LikeLike
He was, I think, musically very gifted, though lacked any special singing voice. For me the problem was that it was completely for anyone, as to what he was about besides trying to appear to be whatever he thought might look charismatic, mysterious, spectacular or whatever. The words to his songs said the same – if you ask me.
The only song that made me cry in recent years was Days, as sung by Kirsty MacColl, and that was by accident as I don’t go looking for it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Days by Kirsty is wonderful, heard it played at a funeral in ely 20 years ago.
From this year alone “The Weeping” by Bess Atwell has me welling up every time.
LikeLike
Never mind about David Bowie – I never rated him anyway – what about the beer in the Cracked Actor. There’s no cask beer, is there. Were you hoping we wouldn’t notice?
LikeLike
Shhh. You’ll spoil the surprise for Paul(s).
LikeLike
On the subject of music heard in pubs I was delighted to twice hear over the past few months “English Country Garden” by Jimmie F. Rodgers, a song I was very fond of as a seven year old. My thanks go to Craft Union and their Crown in Rugeley.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Rugeley is an English Country Garden, of course. Or, at least, the Vine is.
LikeLike
Well, my visit to Rugeley today confirmed that it won’t be completely transformed from a mining town to an English Country Garden within my lifetime.
There was no ‘English Country Garden’ today, ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ being about the best I heard in the rather busy Crown.
On entering another of Rugeley’s best pubs I was told “The Gents is condemned, you’ll have to use the Ladies”. I’ve known these past few decades that moving lavatories “inside” was a mistake but in my fifty-fourth year of using pubs I’ve learnt that net curtains are a feature of ladies’ toilets.
I didn’t expect Bass in the Rugeley Craft Union to be 5p, a shilling in proper money, more than in the Lichfield one.
Earlier, as Lichfield’s Craft Union was getting quite full at 11am a dozen ‘mature’ women started going in but then left with one of them saying “They don’t do any food and I don’t think they do coffee”. Just in time I realised that “but what d’you expect from a Proper Pub ?” would have been wasted on them.
I can do worse that going a few miles down the Trent Valley occasionally.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think Rugeley is probably better than Cannock, you know, and not just for pubs.
LikeLike
Paul I just had a look at Rugeley on What Pub and realised that not only is it well pubbed but also the majority serve cask (often Pedi). I see the Vine sells Grapefruit IPA and Vanilla Porter, which will suit many.
LikeLike
Martin,
Neither Rugeley nor Cannock have as many pubs nor as much proper beer as they did fifty years ago but I still get to both occasionally, Rugeley more often as it’s only half an hour on a bus from a stop two minutes walk away, a train or walking also being options.
LikeLike