The Magnet, Stockport

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.