The Society Rooms (JD Wetherspoon), Stalybridge

In a shitey modern building and with an uninspiring interior long and thin with a raised area to the left. Usual counter layout on the right with two banks of five with high T-Bars spread about along and between. My beer, Coach House Elderflower, was distinctly average. Mostly off putting with the building, the decor and the queue of numpys, at least they were along one end of the counter not sticking out. Not a big ‘spoons there were 3 or 4 staff actually serving although they kept buggering about and dashing here and there and at times there was only one behind the counter. I ordered on the app at 16:05, beer arrived at 16:17; food at 16:26. Typical ‘spoons layout but no local history boards even on the way to the upstairs toilets. It’s in the GBG for some unearthly reason, the local CAMRA branch has been dissolved due to CAMRA’s controversial “Regional Review”.

Society Rooms is a Wetherspoons with a central bar area where the serving counter runs up the right whilst facing high tables up the centre. Standard tables are found at the rear in a ‘dining area’ that is faced by a large kitchen hatch. In the front left is a raised seating area and to the right are a few tables that lead to a large open plan seating area in the right-hand side of the building. In the right rear is an enclosed beer garden full of seating. On the bar, in amongst the usual array of standard and premium keg, are two banks of five hand pumps that were drawing the three nationals plus Moorhouse’s Blonde, Phoenix Brewery’s Wobbly Bob, Acorn Brewery’s Darkness, Bank Top’s Palomino Rising, Northern Whisper Brewing’s Oppenchops (decent), Purity Brewing’s Ubu and Kirkby Lonsdale Brewery’s Radical. The service was very quick, in fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many Spoons staff on duty. They were almost fighting to serve! This isn’t the most attractive JDW, but don’t let the exterior put you off because it’s not bad.

Initially feels like a relatively small Spoons over two floors until you clock the sizeable extension off right as you enter. Simple modern interior in white and red with some mid-colour wood trim. Four guest cask on, my Lancaster Red was fine (NBSS 3) maybe a little towards the barrel end. Apparently the pub name comes from it being a former Co-Op. Decent Spoons which seemed well-run. 6.5