On the Wigan Ale Trail

Day two in Wigan, as we awoke to a thick mist which had descended on the town overnight and obscured my view of the car park from the Premier Inn window.
Our Oxford quartet convened at a sensible hour and trekked to the surprisingly busy and hectic Wetherspoon's for a leisurely breakfast and several coffee refills.

By quarter-past 11 I realised The Anvil had been open for 15-minutes already.
What were we playing at?! 

The Anvil (Dorning Street, Wigan, WN1 1ND)
This is a very proper-looking town centre pub, a big red brick affair with Tudor gables, located on a corner close to the bus station.
It had a fair few punters in for a pre-noon Friday, spread out over three drinking areas from the quiet end with a wall of CAMRA awards to the bright corner room with big TV and multiple satellite boxes. 

The eight hand pulls served up some big brand brews alongside the local Moorhouse 'White Witch', and Chorley micro Ben's Brewery 'Mosaic'.  I picked the 4.4% IPA from Heywood, Greater Manchester brewery Phoenix, an easy-going first beer of the day. 

We took our drinks though to a table in the corner with red leather cushioned bench seating, dumpy stools and beer mats, Wigan rugby and football memorabilia adorning the walls, a chap reading his paper and a white wine-drinking lady pampering her poodle on the seat next to her.

There was a lesser-seen pairing of Maiden's Number of the Beast and cricket on the TV.  Actually, the music was very rock for early doors.  None of the clientele looked like they wanted to hear Metallica's 'One', not that they were taking much notice of it.  I guess you need a bit of metal on the playlist when your pub is called Anvil.

Next to be marked off on the Ale Trail leaflet was a nearby micro in an alleyway in the Victorian Quarter.
It's been a while since my pub pictures were let down by scaffolding...

Tap 'n' Barrel (16 Jaxon's Court, Wigan, WN1 1LR)
We were afforded a friendly cheerful welcome at this former local award winner where we found a solid Lakes and Dales cask line-up of Hawkshead 'Pale', Abbeydale 'Deception', and Wensleydale 'Semer Water'.

One of our party skipped the sensible ales and delved into the fridge for a lunchtime 8.4% cherry chocolate imperial stout.  Let's take a guess that this was Tanya, who was already planning a return visit to the Chophouse having been promised something special in the cellar.  We assumed this referred to a craft can selection.

  

Seating in the ground floor room was limited to stools lining one wall, with the bar taking up a good bit of the space. There are tables upstairs, but who sits upstairs? So we gravitated to the bright patio area, covered and sealed to keep the cold out, heaters and old guitars attached to the walls.
The soundtrack was very 00's indie rock, with a bit of Bastille and Dandy Warhols.  John may have an encyclopaedic knowledge of Thin Lizzy but was surprisingly blank on recognising The Killers when not one but two of their tracks drifted out the speakers.

Here's a random WC sticker picture...how did 1.FC Kӧln find their way to Wigan?

After visting those couple of venues we decided to make our way back to the Beer Festival.
This was Friday's vintage transport which put a smile on our faces, even if we were overtaken by a small child in an electric toy jeep on the bus station concourse.

After a mellow and easy-going afternoon session at the beer festival, we found ourselves back in the centre of Wigan.

A short walk from the bus station took us into a quieter part of town, where our next destination was a craft bar in the former British Legion building.

Real Crafty (9 Upper Dicconson Street, Wigan, WN1 2AD)
This was the Greater Manchester regional pub of the year in 2022 and appears to be the place to get your unusual Untappd check-ins.  There were 30-or-so taps lining the back of the bar, necessitating some staring at the TV screens as the beer listing looped around.
I'm usually wary of any bar with an office-like suspended ceiling, but the beer selection more than excused this feature.

Ooooh!  Cheesecakes reimagined as a beer, you say?  From Nottingham's Neon Raptor?  That'll do.
The 8% 'Love Taker' pastry stout may not have been the most sensible pick on this long day out, but it was quite marvellous.  Should you prefer to stick with the cask, Marble, Ossett and Wigan Brewhouse provided the selection on this visit.  Real Crafty is somewhere I'd linger for longer on a less full-on day.

But this was a full-on day and we were soon making a half-mile walk north along the side of Mesnes Park, on our way to another of Wigan's current Good Beer Guide entries.

 

Sherrington's (57 Kenyan Road, Wigan, WN1 2DU)
This was doing a roaring Friday evening trade with all tables on the ground floor and outside on the patio on a balmy March evening taken.  That relegated us to sitting upstairs away from the action, which probably dampened my enthusiasm for the place a little.  It certainly scuppered my photography, although no denying that the ale selection is fairly satisfying.

 

Cask ales on the bar were local Wily Fox 'Crafty Fox' and 'Dublin Up', alongside Bowness 'Swan Blonde' and Fyne 'Jarl'.
A half of Crafty Fox and a half of the keg 7% Rivington 'Monte Carlo's and El Dorado's' was my order.  That'll be the strongest beer on offer - I'll never learn. 

Gareth had spotted that we'd passed another venue on our Wigan Ale Trail leaflet on the walk to Sherrington's, although it had cunningly changed its name to confuse us.
Docs Alehouse had become the Yellow Monkey... 

The Yellow Monkey (85 Mesnes Street, Wigan, WN1 1QJ)
We entered to the sound of Billy Idol, two dogs provided trip hazards, and there was a buzz of jovial conversation in this converted shop unit turned micro pub.

Cask ales on offer were a second sighting in a row of local Wily Fox 'Crafty Fox' an Fyne Ales 'Jarl'.  Being as I'd just sampled the local brew, I opted for a pint of Argyll's finest, served in tip-top condition.

The two dogs greeting us on entry - or any of those on the patio at Sherrington's for that matter - were no match for this fella called Bobby, who'd made himself comfortable at the back of the Yellow Monkey.
No you ask him if he wouldn't mind moving so we can sit on the sofa...

I really enjoyed our time in this laid-back micro, chatting to the dog owners ("How much does Bobby eat? A shit-load"), enjoying the beer, stroking dogs and being treated to a decent music playlist.

That left us with a walk through the dark streets back into town, where we figured we'd tick off The Raven from the Ale Trail leaflet.

The Raven (5 Wallgate, Wigan, WN1 1LD)
Ossett 'Silver King' was my pick here, the other choices being Wainwright and Plum Porter.  This may be a more pedestrian selection of ales than the places we'd been earlier (and the Bay City Rollers 'Give a Little Love' made for less appealing background music) but the Raven was well worth a visit.  It featured some great green tiling on the corridor and wooden panelling around the seats we took in the front room, renovated and restored in 2012. 
Not that I dared take any pictures, having been quizzed by the staff about why I'd snapped a photo of the pub from outside.

We still somehow found our way back to the John Bull Chophouse for a rock-sound-tracked end of the evening and that extra pint of Thwaites that would guarantee a fuzzy head in the morning.

Next up: one more Holt's heritage pub in Wigan and a quick side-trip on the train to St Helens.

Wigan - Beer Festival, Bass and Pie 'n' Peas

Four go on an adventure to Wigan, in search of historic pubs and fine ales and a beer festival in a leisure centre.
We were making good time under blue skies on the M6, the only delay encountered being the predictable traffic jam circumnavigating Oxford, some 5-minutes after setting off.  The rock playlist was curated by the man behind the wheel, John, who was going into great detail about when Richie Blackmore reached his peak.

I was spared the 8 minutes plus of Stargazer as we reached the final leg and needed to listen to the sat nav directions to deliver us to our car park by the hotel.

🕧12:30 - time to head to the Swan and Railway...

Swan and Railway Hotel (80 Wallgate, Wigan, WN1 1BA)
This is a great-lookin' red brick pub, built in 1898 by W.E.V. Compton.  There is a pleasing mosaic floor displaying the hotel name in the doorway, with options of heading right into the narrow bar or straight to a corridor, with serving hatch, Victorian tiles, some great glasswork, staircase, and routes to two other rooms.

There were seven hand pumps on the bar, serving Bank Top 'Dark Mild' (first beer thumbs-up from one of our party), a stout from Brewsmith (I'll be back for that before closing time), pale ales from Pinnacle and Beerworks, a fruity collab between Ossett and Vault City, Black Sheep best bitter, and Bass🔺.
A great choice, but I hadn't had a pint of Bass in 2025, so started the day with two of 'em.

And a pie..

The only problem with the Swan and Railway was the danger that we may never leave.  After all, we had a fine selection of beers, a seat by the fire, sport on the TV, a pie menu. 

But we're more intrepid than that - and figured we'd be back.  As it was, we met some of the team from the pub in the beer festival later and made a couple of revisits, getting chatting to the owners about their dedication to Bass and their recent acquisition of the Woodman in Birmingham.  We also got a tip about sleeping with onions in your socks when you're coming down with a rotten cold...not tried and tested yet.

We didn't have far to go to the next destination - under the railway bridge, turn left and into the arch.

Wigan Central (Arch No.1 and 2, Queen Street, Wigan, WN1 4DY)
The station-style signage and giant blue locomotive on the window give a clue that they've embraced the railway theme here.  They really have...railway carriage seating to one side, a bar in a bit of rolling stock, signs and historic pictures throughout, and wooden signals on the tables to indicate you're ready for service (didn't see this in action, so it may be a throwback to 20/21).

The Bank Top 'Signal' is the house beer, rebadged Flat Cap, alongside five other cask ales and some craft keg lines that I didn't even look at on this visit (again, we'd be back, drinking murky pale ale as a DJ souped up 80's classics at a thunderous volume in the side room on Saturday evening).  On a quieter Thursday afternoon I picked a 4.2% pale called 'Outside the Frame' from the nearby Black Lodge Brewery.

Leaving Wigan Central, we ambled up Wallgate as far as one of the pubs on the local Ale Trail, a one-time Wigan Good Beer Guide Entry.

The Berkeley (27-29 Wallgate, Wigan, WN1 1LD)
Heading straight to the bar we found four hand pumps serving 'Wainwright', 'Cumbria Way', and Moorhouses 'Blonde Witch' and 'White Witch'.
The staff member was efficient and no-nonsense...
"What's the difference between the White Witch and Blonde Witch?"
"They're both popular".
You'd have been bold to ask for a taster.

We took our picks of the Moorhouse beers to a high table in the centre of the pub, asking ourselves 'how is this not a Wetherspoon's?  The sprawling size of the place, the carpet, the layout and style of the furniture were all JDW-like, as was the impressive mid-afternoon crowd. 
Looking above us at the closed upper floor, we pondered if the balconies and unusual pillars rearranged themselves overnight in a Hogwarts style...I fear we were knocking back the ale too fast and talking nonsense already - and we still had a beer festival to get to. 

The clock had ticked past post-pandemic hotel check-in time (it's never going back to 2pm is it?), so we drank up, and got ourselves settled in our lodgings.  A thirty minute 'freshening up' break - cup of tea, spot of a daytime TV quiz show, a glance at the local map to see how far it was to the pubs I wanted to visit - then we were back on the move. 
A walk up Millgate took us to Winstanley Gardens and the Face of Wigan...

We were heading to the John Bull Chop House, which is situated on a cobbled lane to the side of the gardens.  Although I suspect we'd have diverted here had we been headed anywhere else as soon as we heard Master of Puppets playing from the speaker in the doorway.

John Chop Brewhouse (2 Coopers Row, Market Place, Wigan, WN1 1PQ)
This is very much the rock pub to complement our in-car soundtrack on our journey up the motorway.   As such, we ended up back here late on both Friday and Saturday nights - wild rumours may suggest that I did a little dance at some point.  Cracking music and a great atmosphere when it was busy with customers in the night-time.  Here, however, is the early doors photograph...

Timothy Taylor 'Boltmaker', Thwaites 'Gold', or Thwaites 'Brewhouse' were the cask ale choices on our visit.  The malty, treacly, 4.3% American brown ale Brewhouse was delicious.  A few of these were sunk on our consecutive visits. 

We'd come to Wigan because of the beer festival with an enticing list of beers, so figured it was about time we made the effort to get there.
We hopped aboard the vintage bus which had been laid on as a shuttle between the town centre and the Robin Park Leisure Centre.

Situated beside a retail park and Wigan's football stadium, the leisure centre was an odd venue for the festival, with non-beer-quaffing folk doing healthy sporty stuff and posters advertising various medical clinics including, ironically, free liver scans.

 

The bar was split into light and dark halves - the dark side for me on Thursday evening, with a switch to the paler stuff on Friday.  I started with Vocation 'Birthday Cake' milk stout from the wooden cask, complemented Clay Brow's 'The Hooded Monk' as having the best pump clip of the festival, and spent a while trying to decide whether or not I actually liked the draft red wine barrel aged 11% old ale from Romanian brewery Blackout.  Yep, this was a festival that really did the craft keg justice.
Top marks for the value pie and peas available on the catering stall which nourished me well for two visits.

Wrapping things up/running out of tokens, we caught a bus back to the centre and popped back into the Swan & Railway for a nightcap that I probably didn't need.

I'll be back in Wigan for the next post as we continued to explore the pubs of the town.

Belgravia Pub Crawl

On Saturday 1st Feb I headed to London where a group of folk from the one-time Central Southern Region CAMRA branches had organised a West London pub ramble.

Making good speed on the Oxford Tube, I found myself in Victoria with time to spare and Spoons crying out that a pre-noon pint would be the ideal preparation for the beery day ahead.  It really probably wasn't, but never mind.

The Willow Walk (25 Wilton Road, Victoria, London, SW1V 1LW)
Handy for your £3.49 pint of real ale to prepare you for Wicked at the Apollo, The Willow Walk is a couple of minutes on foot from Victoria station, black cabs lined up in front of it.
Between 1954 and 1984 this site was part of the Wilton Road Woolworth's which had the longest store frontage in the whole of the chain.  Record Rendezvous and the pick 'n' mix section are long gone, part of the building becoming a JD Wetherspoon's in 1999. 

On this occasion there was a mini beer festival line-up on the bar featuring London breweries...

I ordered the By the Horns 'Foundry', a very drinkable 4.2% stout.  After enjoying this pint, it was sad to read a couple of days later than the Wimbledon brewery has gone into liquidation.

Pints came in sturdy plastic cups, my neighbour at the bar asking the staff why this was (plus why are there three security guards on the door and a police van parked outside, for that matter).
"There's a CAMRA regional pub crawl passing nearby."  Actually no, that wasn't the answer.

The chap turned to me when he didn't catch the actual reason.
"What did he say?  Who's playing?"
"He said there's a march for Tommy Robinson."
"Oh, right.  I'm an Ipswich fan myself."
???!

The meeting place for the pub ramble was Pimlico's marvellous Cask, which would be unlocking the doors at midday.  As the clock was ticking towards that time, I strolled in that direction, stopping for supplies in Sainsbury's, reaching the pub at ten-past.

Cask Pub & Kitchen (6 Charlwood Street, Pimlico, London, SW1V 2EE)
A couple of steps through the door and I found myself at the end of an orderly long queue to the bar, a gaggle of folks from the Oxon, Berks and Bucks CAMRA branches waiting in line to peruse the hand pumps.

Credit to the lone member of staff who worked efficiently through this early customer influx and never showed any consternation that most of us wanted two half pints and a picture of the pump clips.

I followed the two halves trend, unable to narrow the strong choice of cask down to one single pint pick.
The Newbarns/Omnipollo 'Henok's Mild' was a top notch 5.2% mild, chocolate and roast malt flavours edging it towards a porter.  Lined up next to this, I had the Heritage Brewing Co 'P2 Czar's Imperial Stout', deceptively smooth and easy-drinking for the 8% strength. Unsensible, maybe, but oh so nice.

Other than not being able to try all the beers, Cask made for a great meeting place for the participants on today's west London pub excursions.
It's a comfy place, those slanted front windows in the Grade II listed post-tower block Lillington Estate building giving this 60's pub some character. 
The cask prices didn't break the bank (it's usually a diversion to the keg that does that for me).
And it has a great descent to the gents...

Cask was very much the outlier on the itinerary, necessitating a 15-minute walk to the next stop.

When I moved to London as a youthful whippersnapper, our next destination was one of the few places brewing beer in the capital.  In a city dominated by Youngs and Fullers, Pimlico's Orange Brewery was a rare spot to drink beers concocted in the basement.  I vaguely remember Orange Square, on which the pub is located - artisan market just packing up as we arrived.  But I can't remember much about visiting the brewpub or if it was a bit more down-to-earth than the current incarnation.

The Orange (37 Pimlico Road, Belgravia SW1W 8NE)
Searching online I discovered a description of the latest refurbishment, detailing where the lampshades and fabrics had been sourced and how 'natural paint made from earth and mineral pigments' had been used.
Probably best not to expect rickety bench seating, spit and sawdust, and graffiti in the gents, then.

The Orange is a multi-roomed place- you can do a full circuit of the ground floor, taking in the characterful dining area to one side, seats by the fireplace, and staircase leading down to a subterranean 'Blood Orange Bar' or up to first floor bedrooms.  £200 for the night, should I not be able to face that bus journey home.

There were two hand pumps on the bar, one turned around, the other being Allsopp's 'Pale Ale', served to us in continental handled mugs that made half pints look very small.  

Moving on, we deviated from the suggested route, figuring we'd skip past a couple of small pubs that wouldn't be comfortable if all the CAMRA ramblers were to descend on them at once.
Another 15-minutes took us to a bit of a classic in Belgrave Mews...

The Star Tavern (6 Belgrave Mews West, Belgravia, SW1X 8HT)
The Star is famed as one of the 'famous five' pubs that have appeared in every edition of the Good Beer Guide, a blackboard by the staircase celebrating that achievement.
This Grade II listed pub dates back to 1864 and has hosted a colourful clientele over the years.  John Profumo was reputed to have met up with Christine Keeler at the Star; Diana Dors, Peter O'Toole and Albert Finney also drank here. 

In the sixties it was said that the well-heeled and celebrity clientele made themselves comfy downstairs, whilst a whole different set used the first floor library, most famously the collaborators planning the Great Train Robbery.

The cask ale choice at the bar was Fullers 'ESB' or 'Pride'.
Here's Michael by the upstairs library bar, making extensive tasting notes on his Fullers 'ESB'...

Or perhaps he's scribbling down his ideas for the next audacious heist to be dreamt up in the Library of the Star?

We finally had a shorter walk between pubs, trekking along the southern side of Belgrave Square to a pub hidden down a narrow cobbled street, featuring some fine foliage out front and evergreen window boxes.

Horse and Groom (7 Groom Place, Belgravia, SW1X 7BA)
The interior of the Horse and Groom is micro-size - five tables if I remember correctly, plus additional seating in an upstairs room that I didn't explore.  It's a cosy, brown-hued pub, with wood panelling, and a wooden screen secreting the steps down to the WCs.

This is a Shepherd Neame house, giving us a choice of the familiar 'Whitstable Bay', 'Master Brew', or 'Spitfire'. 

My 'Master Brew' was close to being past its best - the only significant beer quality dip of the day, whilst the 'Whitstable Bay' got a thumbs up from my drinking companions.
We perched on a handy vacant table in the corner, content in this classic west London pub, even if the TV showing the rugby was a little out of place in these surroundings.

It was a short walk back around Belgrave Square to reach the next pub on our list.  We tested our flag knowledge en-route; then, on request, I took some photos of a young lady holding signs in front of one of the embassy doors, with no idea what sort of protest I'd become an accomplice in.
Tucked down (yet another) back street was The Grenadier...

The Grenadier (18 Wilton Row, Belgravia, SW1X 7NR)
This is somewhere that I visited in the not so distant past and covered on this very blog as a Halloween post.  So, no need for me to go into detail here or recount why the ceiling is plastered in banknotes from around the globe.

My beer pick in the Grenadier was the house brew from Woodforde's of Norfolk, other options being Greene King 'IPA' or Tim Taylors 'Landlord'.  The 'Grenadier Ale' was served in reasonable condition but far from the most exciting of best bitters.

Right: let's visit a London classic, with a set of strict rules.

The Nags Head (53 Kinnerton Street, Belgravia, SW1X 8ED)
Something went amiss with the photo of the frontage, as you can see above.
Could the Czar's Imperial Stout have finally caught up with me?

Set in another quiet side street, the Nags Head has a few outdoor tables, plentiful hanging baskets and a canopy labelled 'Kevin Moran'.  Kevin - probably Mr Moran to me - is a former guardsman and actor who has created a set of rules for the pub, proclaiming himself 'Britain's strictest landlord' in an article in The Sun.

The upper front bar claims to have the lowest counter in London, and features a pewter beer engine with pink ceramic Chelsea Pottery hand pulls.  Real ales came from Adnams with 'Southwold Best Bitter', 'Ghost Ship', and 'Old Ale' available.

 

Our fearsome host hurried along our orders (Old Ale for all) serving them in dimpled mugs and efficiently taking four separate payments being as we'd reached end of buying rounds.
"It's eight pounds a pint, cash only for anything under sixteen pounds," she instructed us.

"No, not up there, there's no seating up there - sit there!"

What with the 'no mobile phones' signage and insistence that coats be hung on pegs and not draped over chairs, we were all a bit overwhelmed as we settled on a table next to the fire and took in the plethora of vintage games machines, curiosities, memorabilia and old pictures around us.

"Hang on a minute...£8 a pint for a 4.1% beer?!" said John when the penny dropped a few minutes later.
WhatPub suggests considering the steeper end of London real ale prices as an admission fee for a unique gem of a pub, something I can't argue with.

Several of our colleagues from Oxford caught up with us here, as our own adapted route around the Belgravia pubs crossed paths with the original itinerary.
They got told off for moving a stool to a spot in front of the fire and told to squeeze in on the bench by the window instead.  The last thing I heard as we departed and waved them goodbye was "did we just pay £8 a pint?!"

The 'Old Ale', by the way, was excellent, the whole pub experience the best of the day.

We had missed three suggested pubs compiled for the pub ramble (not a crawl... even at this stage, definitely a ramble!) but had now reached the end of the route and didn't have the inclination to back-track to the ones we'd skipped.
Instead, we opted to poke our heads into the second pub on Kinnerton Street.

The Wilton Arms (71 Kinnerton Street, Belgravia, SW1X 8ED)
Dating back to 1826, I suspect this would once have been as characterful an old inn as many of those we'd visited today.   But from it's 'Card Only' sign to the bright airy uncluttered space, it's 50 meters yet a million miles from the Nags Head.
The latest refurbishment came in 2021 after Shepherd Neame let the pub go and it was taken over by a small gastropub group.

Cask ale on offer was Fullers 'London Pride' or Allsopp's 'Pale' - we picked the pale again, being as this is something we're less likely to see back home.

Most of the other custom were eating and we were the odd ones out without our shopping bags from exclusive West End boutiques.
If I came in the Wilton Arms by myself I'd probably have hated it, but good company usurped by grumbles.  I'll even forgive the display of vintage Playboy covers - a pitiful attempt at mild smut in the gents...

Our day - or my participation in it, at least, as I headed for the bus stop afterward - ended in the Paxton's Head in Knightsbridge.  An old gin palace dating back to 1900 with a superb central bar and lots of etched glass and wood panels.
Unfortunately the guest beer had just run out leaving us with an unexciting 'Abbot Ale' - we'd gone downhill as far as exotic beer choice was concerned since Cask at midday.

I extend my thanks to those who arranged this pub ramble, taking me to a few new pubs hidden in the streets of Belgravia, making for a lovely afternoon in London.