Award Winning Pubs in St Helens

A few hours of a Saturday afternoon spent in the Merseyside town of St Helen's, where I had a plan to visit all the current beer guide entries - something which turned out to be less of a challenge than expected.

But let's start my report from St Helen's in...erm...the western suburbs of Wigan with a pint of Holts in a heritage pub.

The Springfield Hotel (47 Springfield Road, Wigan, WN6 7BB)
The pub was built in 1903 for local Oldfield Brewery.  A great example of a brewery showing-off at the turn of the century, it features etched windows, dado tiles and mahogany bar counter.
We headed through the main door into a wide lobby with bar counter on our right, lounge to the left.  The spacious bar occupies a central position from which the staff can serve you in the busier front room where the early Premier League kick-off was showing on TV, the lobby, or a rear corridor in front of an unfussy back room.

Holt's Bitter please.

Sanitiser top?

£8.85 for three pints - cripes, we'd paid almost that for one pint of Adnams in one of London's more expensive inns a few weeks prior to this.
That Adnam's 'Old Ale' was admittedly pretty good, but then so was the Holt's... 

 

The Springfield was every bit the community pub on our visit, with a succession of folks passing through with carrier bags, face-painting setting up in the lounge and a table of cakes appearing next to the games room.  All the activity and youngsters scuppered a wander with the camera, but I was content in our little space in the back, surrounded by pictures of Wigan in times gone-by.
We figured we'd upset an elderly lady by sitting at her usual table, but she must have forgiven us and got chatting as we stuck around and procured halves of the keg Holts 'Black' dark mild.

Having enjoyed a pleasant visit to this suburban Wigan gem, we walked back to the centre where there was time for another pint of Bass in the Swan & Railway prior to me diverting from the rest of the group.
Twenty-minutes on a Liverpool-bound train took me to St Helens.

The logical first point of call was directly opposite the Central Station, 2025 Good Beer Guide entry the Royal Alfred:  "A large traditional pub with a friendly welcome".

Or perhaps not...

Yep, the Royal Alfred has the red 'temporarily closed' strip on its Google listing.
Quite how temporary, I'm not sure. Looks like it closed in its current incarnation in 2024 before the Guide hit the shelves.

So instead, I skirted around the north of the town centre, pausing to admire the Queen Vic statue and snap a picture of the town hall.

I navigated a busy roundabout named The Landings, then walked up North Road past the spectacular Church of St Mary, veering into the side streets to reach what was now my first pub stop.
Any disappointment that the Royal Alfred was closed was reduced by the knowledge that I had a Regional Pub of the Year and a former National Pub of the Year to visit.
Starting with the current regional champ...

The Turks Head (49 Morley Street, St Helens, WA10 2DQ)
It looked the business from outside: hanging baskets, mock Tudor, Tetley lamps and its own little turret in the corner. The entrance is along the side presenting a choice of turning left or right, although it turns out you can circumnavigate once inside, so no real jeopardy.

There were a massive 14 hand pulls spread over two sections of the bar.
Too many?  I've known beer festivals to have less to pick from. 
I ordered the one closest to me - a 'Pacific Gem' single-hopped pale from Rochdale's Serious Brewing Company.  A dry, biscuity pale in good condition. 

I couldn't fault the enthusiasm the bar staff had for the ale.  A couple who proffered their liking for dark ales were encouraging to drink the Vanilla Stout faster in order for the fantastic North Riding 'Chocolate Fudge Cake', waiting in the cellar, to be put on faster. 

With no tables spare I ended up propped on a stool at the end of the bar, getting in the way of anyone trying to see the beer blackboard.

The Turks Head is the winner of the 2024 Merseyside and Cheshire Pub of the Year, making it one of the 17 that was in contention for National POTY.
It certainly had a cheerful crowd of beer drinkers in when I visited, settled within sight of the TV in the front bar or eating in the cosier back room from a proper pub grub menu.  You can also place an order for food to be brought across the road from the Cowley Grill, attached to the Cowley Vaults pub, which is where I was heading next...

The Cowley Vaults (50 Cooper Street, St Helens, WA10 2BH)
Just one door away from the Turks Head, the Cowley Vaults is a completely different looking pub owned by the same folks.  I admired the basic tiled frontage, then stepped through the door into a much more rough 'n' ready basic open plan boozer.  Pool table to the right with one fella playing himself; TV to the left showing the rugby.
 
Ah, it's St Helens on the telly, which explains the lack of a free table in the previous pub.
Rugby watch🏉: 30 minutes in and St Helens were leading Wakefield Trinity 6-12.

There was a much less daunting pick of five cask ales here: two Timothy Taylor and three local brews.
One swift half of Wily Fox 'Blonde Vixen' later, I found a route through streets lesser-trodden by St Helens tourists and rocked up outside the good lookin' Cricketers Arms.
2017 CAMRA National Pub of the Year.

Cricketers Arms (64 Peter Street, St Helens, WA10 2EB)
And stepped through the door into a hot and heaving wickedly busy pub.  Hmm... I was beginning to see the folly of visiting the town pubs on a day when the St Helens away fixture was on TV.

The Cricketers was matching the Turks with another whopping 14 cask ales, plus pizza from a hut in the garden, cheese truckles and a brewery in the back yard (Howzat).

The beers were from the likes of Timothy Taylor, Thornbridge, 4Ts, Osset, Abbeydale and so on.  Not that I saw the list until later, picking a 'Black Moss Stout' from West Yorkshire brewery Riverhead as it was right in front of me at the spot that I managed to squeeze in the bar.

I just visited at the wrong time, propping up an unused bit of the counter and still managing to get in the way there.  This is somewhere I'd love to return to when it's a little quieter and I have the chance to sample the pizza and the home brew.  Next time.

Rugby watch🏉: Wakefield 6 St Helens 20

Moving on, I made my way to Duke Street where the News Room was the next Beer Guide entry to tick off.
Except it wasn't.
This small bar appears to have changed its identity since the Merseyside CAMRA folks made their fateful beer guide selections for the town.  The name was still the same but there was zero cask ale or anything of interest to drink.  Just one table with cocktails in front of them in at the time that stood wondering if I had the right place, a staff member lurking in the back who didn't spot me, enabling a quick exit.

That left me with one more beer guide tick...The Lamb Inn which I'd passed earlier, so at least knew was open.

The Lamb Inn (113 Corperation Street, St Helens, WA10 1SX)
Built 1864, this sits on a street corner at the end of a two-storey terrace. It consists of two rooms within, either side of a central bar, everything tastefully renovated in 2022.  According to the local paper it was feared lost forever prior to that renovation, having sat closed for some time with 'for sale' signs attached to the wall.

You can peruse the cask ale picks before going in, which was handy as the bar turned out to be another busy one with no change to study pump clips.

A Titanic 'Little Lamb' for me, a 3.8% light pale ale - although looking back at the choices now, I'm surprised I didn't pick the North Riding or Beartown.

🏉 Rugby update: all done & dusted - Wakefield 6 St Helens 26
Which meant things quietened down a little, giving me a table to myself as punters moved on, or relocated away from the screens to the garden.

With two less Beer Guide pubs than I had expected to visit I was feeling a little deflated.
Nothing like Wetherspoon's for a pick-me-up.

Glass House (Market Street, St Helens, WA10 1NE)
Converted from an indoor market and opened in 2000, this central St Helen's Spoons is named in connection with the town's links to the glass industry
There are two Wetherspoon Glass Houses in the UK, the other being in Norwich - don't send your app order to the Fens
The Wolf Brewery 'Granny Wouldn't Like It' had come all the way from Norfolk too, with other guest options from the more local Birkenhead Peerless Brewery.

I haven't captured it in a picture, but it was chaos in the Glass House.  Too busy at the bar to get easily served when I arrived, so I grabbed a seat in the side room and ordered a Peerless 'Little Eye' and Veg Pizza with extra chilis by app.  My pizza arrived before my beer.  Then two beers instead of one, which would be a great bonus on occasion, but I really didn't need two this afternoon.
Then a drama unfolded outside the big windows as someone tried to evade capture by security guards and later the police, keystone cops antics getting the Spoons crowd cheering and popping outside for timely vape breaks and a closer look.

I called it a day on pub explorations in St Helens at this point - I'll await the 2026 Beer Guide and find out where I could have gone to make up for those two closed/revamped '25 entries.

But at that moment I had a return train trip to Wigan, a visit to the Brewhouse before its early closing time, craft in Wigan Central and a little more singing along to rock classics in the John Bull Chophouse to end the evening.
A great few days in the north-west.
Big thanks and a pint of beer next time I see him to Oxford CAMRA chairman John for coming up with the idea of visiting Wigan beer fest and driving us up the motorway to cause havoc in Greater Manchester. 🍺🏆

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 some fine battered beer mats.  Wigan rugby and football memorabilia adorning the walls, a chap read his paper, and a white wine-drinking lady pampered her poodle on the seat next to her.

There was a lesser-seen pairing of Maiden's Number of the Beast with 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.

  

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.

The gents WC featured a good cistern sticker collection, although I'm not sure how or when 1.FC Kӧln found their way to Wigan?

After visiting 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 it was 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.
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. 

I'm usually wary of any bar with an office-like suspended ceiling, but the beer selection more than excused this feature.

Should you prefer to stick with the cask in Real Crafty, Marble, Ossett and Wigan Brewhouse provided the selection on this visit.  This is somewhere I'd happily 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' and 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 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' Mash

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, Chairman 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.

Along the bar were seven hand pumps, 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, and 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 first 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', I believe), 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 more details.  Or 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 anyway 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 between 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.