Rising Sun, Manchester

Much older pub sandwiched between two modern blocks, with the main frontage onto Queen Street but the rear part also has an entrance off Lloyd Street. The narrow, elongated and partially opened-out interior has the main seating area at the front and a rather gloomy bar further back. The furniture and decor in the refurbished interior is perhaps slightly more modern than one might guess. Not a bad selection from five of eight handpumps: TT Knowle Spring, Oakham JHB, Lancaster Blonde, Bowland Buster IPA (£4.30) and Old Rosie cider.

This is an historic city centre pub dating back to the 1680's, but in its current guise there is little to suggest any kind of history or tradition. The pub has a simple single room layout with the front part set aside for seating, where banquettes run along the front and right hand walls and some mid height tables and stools are arranged to the left. The walls have some decent wood panels and there are some nice frosted front windows bearing the pub's name, but these features pretty much amount to the total of interesting historic features within. The bar appears further into the room on the right hand side and has a standard dark wood counter and a pleasant part titled, part mirrored bar back which incorporates a display case full of beer bottles and pump clips, although I'm not sure the bottles necessarily reflect the current range available.High tables and stools fill the space opposite the bar, underneath some fancy decorative wallpaper with a large plain mirror above a drinking ledge on the back wall rounding out the furnishings and fittings. There is a corridor in the rear left corner, lined with some interesting old black and white photos, leads past the toilets to a rear entrance. A couple of TV screens were showing some sort of rubbish Saturday night prime time show with the sound off whilst dance music played over the loud hubbub of a decent sized crowd. A handsome row of handpulls offered a good selection of ale, with options on this visiting amounting to Kirkby Lonsdale Crafty Mild and Monumental, Alton Peakstones Rock Nemesis, Black Edge Ginger, Howard Town Monk's Gold and a house beer called, rather unimaginatively, Rising Sun Cask Bitter. I tried a pint of the Crafty Mild for £3.75, which was certainly in good shape. I was looking forward to a fine city centre pub with a pleasant historic interior, but instead found a rather unmemorable venue with bland stylings and very little to set it apart from the crowd, which is a disadvantage in a city full of characterful pubs. This pub is therefore all about the beer and the interesting selection and promising quality mean it's worth a look as part of a crawl, but it will remain relatively low on my list for revisiting.

Side-street boozer that would probably have been classed as modern 10 years ago but now feels a fairly comfy vintage. A long narrow interior with entrances at either end. A semi-traditional main room as you enter from Queen Street with a differently decorated mid-section and a more basic bar area at the rear. Not overly characterful but the beer is the star, eight pumps with five ales on - a bit samey as they were all blonde/pale; Castle Rock Harvest Pale, Bowland Gold, Sharps Atlantic, Oakham Scarlet Macaw (very good shape), Hawkshead Windermere Pale (exceptional) plus Old Rosie cider. Friendly service from the guv’nor behind the bar and it seemed like there were a number of regulars in, impressive for a city centre pub. I liked it here. It doesn’t necessarily excel at anything (beer quality excepted) but does well enough on the other aspects to absolutely warrant a visit.