Manchester Trip : Balance Taproom and Nell’s Pizza

I was too excited to get to the next bar to take the time to get a photo with the night mode on, so this will have to do.

It was a relatively short menu, but there were some interesting and tempting options there. Well, not the lager, although Ross was surprised and delighted to see that. Once again, my photographic skills are a little lacking.

Richard has arrived! My beer there is the Greengage from Balance Brewing themselves, and it was fruity and tart (the beer, not Richard). I’m not actually entirely sure what a greengage tastes like to comment on that element.

Nell’s Pizza are located a few doors down and Liam tried, and failed, to order a pizza on-line and so we went down to do it in person. The taproom encourages customers to bring pizza in, indeed, they’ve put the QR code on the tables to assist with that purchasing. The pizza place staff were friendly and explained they had been having some problems with the on-line ordering process, which is perhaps just a little sub-optimal when you take all your orders on-line. However, decent set-up and the pizzas didn’t take long to make.

I felt that a large 22 inch pizza would be best, although it wasn’t the easiest to carry into the bar. I was trying to take a photo for Untappd with the beer in it, but I’m not entirely sure how well that turned out but at least it’s sort of visible in the foreground. It was another tart little number, earthy, sour and intriguing. The pizza had plenty of toppings and tasted good to me, it’s a winning combination that pizza and beer thing.

It’s clear here from the writing on the box who ordered what. I’d add that some others shared that pizza, I didn’t have it to myself. I also ordered, but didn’t photograph, the Absolutely Electric beer from Sureshot Brewing (the taproom that we had just come from) which had a decent mouthfeel, was luscious, creamy and tasted like it had a bit of twig in it.

I hadn’t heard of Balance Brewing before coming here, but I liked their beers although they specialise in mixed-culture barrel fermented beer, which is perhaps a little niche although suits me. The taproom is very well reviewed on-line and I liked the friendly service, with a reasonable numbers of beers available.