The Magnet, Stockport

Very well reviewed so I'll focus on the salient points. The Magnet is a very comfortable pub with a great atmosphere and fun bar staff. Even better it has a phenomenal range of beers. On our visit the following was on cask: Light Ale - Thornbridge Wild Swan, Track Sonoma, Ossett Yorkshire Blonde, Blackjack Jack in the Box Blonde, Sureshot The More it Stays the Same, the Less it Changes, Salopian Oracle, RedWillow Weightless, Saltaire Hop Selecta!, Thornbridge Jaipur DDH. Medium Ale - Purple Moose Millstone. Dark Ales - Blackjack Pail, Steelfish King of the Mild Frontier. That's some choice with plenty of renowned and local breweries represented. Everything we tried was in top condition with tasters freely offered with even a hint of indecision shown. If that isn't enough there are three permanent kegs on, 2 lagers and a cider, alongside nine changing kegs with brewers including Northern Monk, Deya, Verdant, Anspach & Hobday, Track and Burning Sky represented on our visit. These would have had a look in most other spots but the quality cask range held our attention. Absolutely superb.

The left hand bar at the Magnet is long and thin with the bar counter up the right facing seating that runs up the left hand wall. The counter supports two banks of five hand pumps as well as six craft keg alongside Becks and Thatcher’s Gold cider. At the rear is a sunken area that houses banquettes, a pool table, dartboard and jukebox, which was playing some background music. A television screen listing the draught choices also includes another four cask ales and four craft keg that are found in the right hand bar. This bar is shorter and much quieter with seating front and rear adjacent to the bar and to the right up some steps to a carpeted seating area. Some stairs lead up, but a plastic chain suggests this area is off-limits. This is decent pub with a vast choice of ale, so unsurprisingly it was quite busy during my recent Tuesday evening visit. Friendly staff and well worth a look.

Visited on Saturday evening, and not much has changed since my previous review. Around 14 hand pulls for cask ales, most of which seemed to be in use. Many keg options too, and everything is listed on a screen near the bar. This is clearly a popular pub and it can be difficult to get a seat, but in my experience people come and go and something usually becomes available. This was the case on Saturday night so we made the most of it and stayed for a second drink. Both the cask ales I had were in good condition. There are several rooms in this pub, plus a strange covered outdoor area to the rear. The only downside to this was that this is the outdoor area the smokers use, and there was an open window in the back room meaning that all the smoke came straight back in the pub. Still, it tolerable and not enough of a problem to detract from the ales. Definitely one to include for any fan of real ale or craft keg.

Yet another excellent Stockport pub. A wonderful selection of cask from approximately 12 handpulls. A TV screen next to the bar displays the beers available. Multi-roomed and a friendly atmosphere. A pub I will definitely return to when in Stockport again.

Another excellent pub that we unfortunately visited towards the end of a massive pub crawl of the area meaning we were unable to take advantage of the 12 cask and 14 tap beers on offer. Noted to try and get back up here at the end of May as I believe there is a local beer festival but an opportunity to do this pub justice. We did however enjoy the Track Sonoma beer, but will be back.

I had been looking forward to visiting this pub for a while, and Saturday evening did not disappoint. More real ale and keg than you can shake the proverbial stick at. Like the Hope Inn, if you weren't on a crawl, you could easily spend an evening in here and not drink the same beer twice. An electronic beer board lists everything on offer, which is very useful as due to the number of beers available it would be hard to take them all in otherwise (especially as the pumps seemed to be split between the rooms). I had a New York Cheesecake by Box Social Brewing (on cask), which was pretty good, not sure I could taste cheesecake as such but there was some subtle lemon/lime flavour coming through. I then tried the Orange Mocha Frapp Stout on keg, by Tiny Rebel, a 7% stout which tasted its strength, though the orange was not overpowering. My drinking buddy had a Faithless 81 by Redwillow, a pale ale which I found to be excellent. The pub was rather busy on Saturday evening but a table soon became free so we weren't left standing in the way of the bar for long. Definitely one to visit - I had wanted to for a while and it did not disappoint!

One of Stockport’s nationally-known pubs, I was really looking forward to doing this one and it did not disappoint. Brilliantly confusing ‘tangled warren’ of rooms, with different beer seemingly available in every one. Notes of layout restricted to ‘Front bar with breweriana and lino. Rear areas have arches and artex. Big screen with beers and tasting notes. Room upstairs. Pool and darts in a sunken room. Packed-out. Brilliant’. Having had a few by this stage, I may have been lacking a little sharpness but this place really did feel like something from Alice in Wonderland. I ended-up (fortunately) with Tiny Rebel Hank from the plethora of pumps, which was in great nick. There were also a load of keg options and I discovered the full beery gamut displayed on an electronic board in one of the rear rooms. This really is a super place and I really enjoyed my visit here. It won’t be my last, hopefully – top of the list for next time. 9.5

This is a cracking multi-roomed freehouse in the Heaton Norris end of town, with an excellent ale policy and its own on-site brewery. The left hand side of the pub takes you into the Vault which is a fairly compact room with the bar down one side and some very pleasant fixed bench seating opposite. It’s an intimate space that has been nicely decorated to give it a very warm feel and is exactly the sort of room I could imagine settling down in for a few pints. Beyond there is a small games room, dominated by a pool table, but with a couple of dartboards on the wall as well. Passing behind the pump clip lined servery, you emerge into a tangled warren of rooms, mostly carpeted, offering a mix of seating options as well as a fair bit of standing room. Two of these areas have a similar feel to them, although one has a small servery in the back corner, whilst the third is located up a short flight of stairs, past some book shelves with a few board games on them, in a cosy looking back room with a lounge feel to it. Decor includes plenty of framed pump clips and the gents toilets were a real talking point with their wall covered in 70’s LP covers. There is also a sizable garden with the usual smoker’s shelter and garden furniture – it’s worth talking a quick peek out here to get a grand view of the Stockport viaduct which runs behind the pub. There was an extensive ale range on when we visited early on a Friday evening, with handpulls in the Vault dispensing Tiny Rebel Hank, Track Sonoma, Beartown Ginger Bear, Dorking Pilcrow Pale, Salopian Oracle, Thornbridge Guthrie, Wycliffe & Duke XB1, Wild Beer Cottage Industry, Wildside Cyro Cascade and Lincoln American Brown. There may well have been further options in the other bar, but I didn’t get round to checking. Suffice to say, the beer quality was excellent, as befits a pub that has racked up a fair few CAMRA awards over the years. I really liked this place and it was a shame that once again the crawl dictated we move on rather than explore the place a little further. There seems to be a lot going on here which would no doubt reward repeat visits and if the quality can be maintained across so many hand pumps, then you will pretty much always be guaranteed to find something of interest at the bar.