02/02/19 - Finding the Peveril of the Peak Open

Good Beer Guide Ticks - 360 and 361
Previous Manchester Good Beer Guide Ticking - Day 1, Day 2

Back to Manchester for more Good Beer Guide Ticking, with a couple of hours to kill before live comedy at Deansgate Locks.   It's never a chore in this incredible city but is seemingly a sisyphean task.  By the time I get close to completion, a new issue of the bible is released with more gems to discover.


Peveril of the Peak, Great Bridgewater Street, Timothy Taylor Landlord

I know this is a pub institution that really ought to be at the top of any list for the architecture alone.  And believe me, over the years I have tried to get my visit in here.   There is a log of mine on BeerintheEvening.com from 07/07/13.

"Closed on a Saturday Afternoon"

I think it was one of those pubs that used to open when it fancied.   There's even a rumour that its closed when Manchester United are at home.   I am unsure whether this means they are Man U fans and want to watch the game or they simply don't want Man U fans through the door.

At the moment, I think its keeping regular hours, as advertised.   Which is handy for out of town beer tourists like ourselves.

So why the fuss?  Mainly the tiling.

Everything's gone Green

It's grade II listed and Manchester's only detached pub.   A triangular island of externally clad green tiling dating from the early C19th.

End On

Inside, it wears its history just as comfortably.   All wooden paneling dividing rooms from a central bar.  Get it wrong and your are ordering beers blind from a hatch where the pump clips cannot be seen but a chalkboard proudly details their three hand pulls.   Drinking Yorkshire in Greater Manchester was probably a faux par but Timothy Taylor will never be ignored.

We make our way into a packed bar are, where there's a cracking atmosphere generated by a mixture of friendly locals and other beer tourists, equally as excited at drinking in a living museum.   I manage to get the family a seat and lean against the bar.   As more and more people crowd the bar, I eventually find myself impaled on the world's oldest pub table football game - delivered in the 1950s.

Everything I love about pubs in one visit.  Apart from the impaling.

Family Mappiman enjoying the pub ticking as much as their grinning father

The Gas Lamp, Bridge Street, Ilkley Porter

There's still time for one more tick and Family Mappiman love a good route march across a City Centre, every step taking them further away from their eventual destination.

The Gas Lamp provided refuge a couple of years ago.   It wasn't in the GBG then, but the Brink - directly over the road - was.   The Brink is a liar of a pub, that did not keep the Sunday hours detailed on their own door.

2019, sees the Gas Lamp recommended.  Its a cellar bar underneath an old Children's Mission. 

Eye's peeled in Bridge Street

Nothing beats the descent to a subterranean cellar bar and this opens out to wide spaces, tiled as impressively as the Perevil but in a far more muted colour scheme.

Downstairs at the Gas Lamp - Sans Beer Mats

I can only report on what I find and this was a bit of a disappointing visit.   There's a much higher concentration on bottled beers than hand pulled cask - with only two on.   No complaints with this impressive Ilkley Porter but it wouldn't have been my first choice.

The tables were also filthier than the JDW at Picadilly.  Our table was free of people but it took me two trips to the bar to return all the empties and once free of debris, your wouldn't have wanted to balance you elbows on the stickiness.

Admittedly, its the responsibility of any good beer person to return their own empties and I ensured this was done before we raced down Deansgate for the Comedy.