The Wharf, Macclesfield

This street corner pub is a little walk from the Macclesfield Canal and is close to the former Hovis Mill which dominates the area.There has been a refurb which has produced a very good real ale house while retaining the atmosphere of a back street local.There is a U shaped bar which serves two areas,the front left of the pub has a small real fireplace,carpeted with bench seating,while to the right is a wooden floored section with more bench seating,a wood burner,a wall mounted beer engine and two display cabinets with collections of toby jugs and other pub artifacts.The rear of the pub is large enough to accomodate musicians,a pool table,darts,table skittles and more tables and chairs.The ceiling supports indicate a previous layout of seperate rooms,but the open plan design works well. The four handpumps dispence a changing array of beers and my Phoenix West Coast IPA was in good order.Looking around the collection of old pump clips indicates that some high quality ales have featured in the past from some leading microbrewers such as Dark Star and Magic Rock and the pub is quite rightly featured in the 2013 GBG and has won some local CAMRA awards. A steep walk up the hill from the main drag in Macc ,I would say it's well worth the effort if you are looking for a cosy,well run boozer that is viable because of a focus on decent real ale, especially when so many other back street pub are falling by the wayside.