Liverpool Weekend (Day One) – Manchester and Track Brewing

Safely into Manchester Piccadilly railway station, I was getting 50% off my fare due to Delay Repay which meant I thought I’d use that to visit Track Brewing and Cloudwater.

It’s around a fifteen minute walk from the railway station to Track, although I did walk at something of a speed to maximise the time that I had. Which inevitably mean I over-heated as, something I might have mentioned, it was too hot. There are quite generous opening hours for a taproom, it’s open from 14:00 until 22:00 on Tuesdays to Thursdays, from 12:00 until 22:00 on Fridays & Saturdays and from 12:00 until 20:00 on Sundays.

I didn’t find it the easier beer board to read due to how it angled back, but I was more interested in the beers than the internal decoration. They didn’t have many sour beers, it’s primarily pale ales and the like but it looked all rather interesting. They’ve usually got around 20 keg beers and 3 cask, something for nearly everyone. Oh, and what looked like a bucket of bar snacks.

Everything was reasonably priced, so I went for four different 1/3 measures (the more astute readers will notice one of these isn’t in the photograph). All the beers I ordered were brewed by Track and they were the ‘Sonoma’ Pale Ale, the ‘Half Dome’ Pale Ale, the ‘Not Equal To’ DIPA and the ‘Made in the Shade’ porter. The highlight of the arrangement for me was the DIPA, which was dank, smooth tasting and hazy in appearance.

The taproom looks over the brewing area and there’s also a food section selling pizzas. I would usually have been tempted, but alas, time was not on my side. Being able to see the brewery set-up always gives an air of authenticity to matters.

The pizza menu. The pepperoni, hot honey and N’djua one sounds quite delightful and also reasonably priced given how inflation seems to be taking its toll everywhere at the moment.

There was also an assortment of shrubbery to look at. They hold numerous events here, including brewery tours and samplings, as well as a chess, cheese and beer evening. I’m not sure any of my friends are particularly engaged in playing chess (and those who do are unlikely to be excited by the combination with craft beer and cheese), but that does sound a rather tempting event. Not that I can play chess very well, but I always remain enthusiastic with such things.

They’ve got a leaflet explaining the history of the brewery. Frankly, they’ve made more effort than many pubs do which have hundreds of years of stories to tell. The online reviews for this taproom are very positive and they’ve annoyed only a few people over the years which is always good going when there’s alcohol involved.

I liked it here as it was airy (important when it’s so hot), bright and not too busy. The service was friendly and there were plenty of different beers available. I was pleased to have made the effort to walk out to the brewery and it also meant that I had time to visit Cloudwater which is located over the road.