Jack in the Box @ The Picturedrome, Macclesfield

Like other multi bar and food outlet places, a little smaller than some and perhaps easier to navigate and no daft, confusing ordering wank like some. The Blackjack bar is on a raised area to the right on entering just past the cunningly concealed gents or “Gentlemens House of Office” , thereby committing an apostrophe atrocity and being pretentious in one. The bar is mainly a stand up affair with a few stools at a thin shelf opposite the counter overlooking the food hall portion. Eight pulls on the left hand side of the servery with six keg taps plus a rack of cans on the right hand bit. Nifty little blackboards above the pulls give you all the info you need about the beer; name, strength, description and prices. Cool but the barman seemed taken aback when I asked for Irk Street, repeating it back as “Irk Street ????!”. Very odd behaviour but a decent beer if not very different to many other IPAs utilising West Coast hops.

Anyone who has visited the Mackie Mayor food hall in Manchester will be familiar with this set up from the same people, including the small on-site bar operated by the Black Jack brewery. The venture occupies a grand old building, which I can only assume used to be a cinema or theatre. The bar is on the upper level, to the right on entering, with all the food stalls down on a lower level, along the left-hand side. The servery has a brick tiled front and plain bar back, with all of the available beers detailed on blackboards across the top. There's a wine bar directly next to it, so unlike its Mancunian counterpart, there are no logistical headaches if you need to order some non-beer drinks as part of your round. Some limited high tables and stools have been arranged opposite the bar, and whilst these aren't the comfiest, they do give you a good view down into the main space below. This is a large, bare boarded area with a huge vaulted ceiling studded with skylights and sporting a highly decorative frieze beneath. All of the eateries have menus detailed on blackboards above their respective outlets, which stand behind the same brick tile counters that run along the whole length of the wall. To the front, high up on the wall, is an opening which looks like it might have been the old projectionist's room, and the building's former cinema credentials were furthered by an old black and white film which was playing silently on the opposing wall. There are also lots of cool retro movie posters on display back here too and some chilled tunes played quietly in the background on my very quiet, late Tuesday lunchtime visit. I tried the Katsu Curry from the ridiculously named Send Noods outlet, which was amazing, if a little short on chicken for the price I paid. The bar had four cask options - Red Willow Special Winter and Black Jack Stroopwaffel (£3.10 for a half pint), Irk Street and Pub Ale. There were many unused handpulls and lots more Black Jack beers on keg dispense. The Stroopwaffel was absolutely delicious and I regretted only taking a half. I like the concept this chain has adopted of repurposing historic buildings and creating a reliable meeting place that will suit a wide range of people, including those who don't typically enjoy pubs. It was a bit dead on my visit, but I imagine it packs out at the weekend, so it's good to know you can come here and be assured of some decent beer on your night out. Date of visit - 16th January 2024

A smaller verion of Mackie Mayor in Manchester, complete with a Jack in the Box bar with beers from Blackjack brewery. It's quite a pleasant space inside, but much too warm, so we got our beers and went to sit outside in the beer yard. The beers were pretty reasonably priced for around here, but the food was very expensive, although it looked and smelt good. May call in again on a sunny day.

A Blackjack bar in an overpriced hipster eatery like its sister in Manchester. I say ‘bar’ but it's basically a hole in a wall with a few rickety stools opposite. A range of their cask, I went for the Best, a pretty bog-standard malty ale which was a tad over-vented (NBSS 2.5). Spent the rest of my stay gasping at how much the moneyed locals were willing to spend on basic food to eat in a pretty soulless canteen environment. Do it once I suppose but I wouldn't countenance a revisit. GBG23 listed.