retiredmartin

October 2026. Romiley. Greater Manchester (it’s Cheshire ! shouts Old Mudgie)

The new Greater Manchester entries in the Beer Guide are an eclectic bunch;

well, OK, not really. Your usual group of small bars, brewery taps, a Spoons and just Flixton waving the flag for large dining pubs.

But those new “micro pubs but not in a Thanet way, oh no” are routinely high quality shop conversions, and so it proves again in Romiley, as the Voltigeur joins neigbouring SteelWorks in the Stockport village sections of the Guide.

Romiley is on the slow but beautiful line from Sheffield to Manchester, and this seems to be the first time I’ve wrote about it. I reckon the station itself might be the highlight,

but St Chads offers strong competition.

In a lovely rural setting near the Peak Forest, Voltigeur (it’s a horse) is on one of those parade of shops that characterise late Victorian Cheshire.

More folk drinking outside than in, and people complain about the weather in Manchester !

Bright and cheery, dads and daughters, granddads and greyhounds, with seating booths down the left mirroring horse stalls.

3 pint pots on the CAMRA website, a good sign, and loads of old brewery tat. like these Robbies classics;

For a change, a soundtrack set in the early 60s,

and a beer line-up anchored by a superbly chewy Holt Bitter (VG),

for which I get a little stamp on my collector’s card, though most of the cask is Brightside.

It would NOT be my last stamp of the day.