The Hope, Heaton Norris, Stockport

Enjoyed our visit to this Fool Hardy brewery pub with its massive ale selection with 11 to choose from. Around half from their own brewery plus guests. The downside for us was coming here after a big pub crawl of many good ale houses, but we still enjoyed Fool Hardy Rhidonkolous and Crafty Monkey Sunset Now. There are keg tap choices too plus foreign beers.

Doesn't look much from the outside but the inside is a different story if you are a real ale lover. As others have said, the room to the right is where the cask ale is and I think there were 10 or 11 pumps, which may have included a cider. A fair few of these are from their own Fool Hardy brewery and their Renowned Ginger was very pleasant with a prominent ginger kick. Overwhelmed by choice we stayed for a second drink, this time I went for the Duck Dastardly by Green Duck Beer Co, which was a dandelion and burdock stout - pleasant and unusual in equal measure, and in great condition. My drinking accomplice had the Russian Roulette (by Fool Hardy) and I had a little sip and this was also a decent ale. This pub obviously has no problem in keeping its real ale in good nick despite the quantity it has on offer. This is a large pub with a traditional feel inside, and a great selection of real ale. Pricing was middle of the road - not outrageously expensive and not suspiciously cheap. I would be more than happy to come back again!

A brewpub (Fool Hardy, a reference presumably to the Hardy Crown Ales exterior signage and rooftop lettering) and our first stop in a pub ‘up the hill’. The lounge (with cask on) is right from the porch; left to the vaults which houses keg, pool, darts, pinball, music and semi-circular button back seating. There’s also a teeny room behind this with table football. The comfy lounge is a little opened-out inside but definitely feels like it’s in the early part of the 1980s, feel-wise. The less said about the confusing pink gents, the better. Six of the homebrew beers on plus guests including Dark Star and Salopian. My Rhidonkulous was rather good actually and in great shape. Also a large range of Belgian bottles too. This was one I hadn’t previously heard of before our crawl, and to that end it was the most impressive new find of the day. Well done.

Still bearing the external signage from its days as a Hardy Crown Ales house, this pub is now home to the onsite Fool Hardy Ales brewery and has, by all accounts, been transformed from an unloved pub into one of the town’s top ale destinations. The pub is split into two roughly equal sections either side of the central servery area and each with their own entrance from the front porch. To the left is a Vault with some decent looking seating options and a nice set of display cabinets full of old bottles. A games room area can be found to the rear and here you can enjoy a few of the rarer pub entertainment staples, such as table football, pinball and retro arcade machines. It’s a pleasant enough area, but this side of the bar doesn’t have the full cask ale selection, which instead you will have to enter the right hand lounge bar to find. This is a large split-level room with decent carpeting and a smart dark wood servery with a tile banded counter and pump clip lined bar back to the left. Fixed bench seating runs around the perimeter of the room and some high quality breweriana fills a lot of the wall space along with some nice paintings and a few information boards. A bookcase in the far corner was full of old paperbacks and I noticed a stack of old Good Beer Guides near the bar as well. The friendly barmaid explained how she had helped brew a couple of the Fool Hardy beers that were on the bar, so I sampled one of them called Rhidonkulous, which was a decent enough sessionable brew. Other Fool Hardy beers included Oozy Rat in a Sanitary Zoo (it’s a palindrome apparently), Riddle, Rash Dash, Rhum and Risky Blonde, whilst guest options included Bude Neet Light Ale, Salopian Oracle, Outstanding 3.9, Thirst Class Green Bullet Pale Ale and Dark Star Equinox. A decent keg selection can be viewed from the vault and beer menus detail what must be the most comprehensive Belgian beer menu this side of Antwerp. There was a lot going on here and I didn’t really feel I was able to do this pub any kind of justice as part of a crawl – it’s the sort of place that demands repeat visits and I can easily imagine losing whole days in here. An excellent brewpub and the pick of a very good bunch of pubs around the Heaton Norris area.