The Park Tavern, Macclesfield

The Park Tavern has a small seating area to the left of the entrance that was empty during my recent early Monday evening visit. Through to the right is the bar area with seating under the front window and high tables up the right wall faced by the serving counter up the left. At the rear is some raised seating and more seating is found around to the left rear. This is a Bollington Brewery pub so five of the eight hand pumps were drawing their Eastern Night, Long hop, White Nancy, Bollington Best and Oatmeal Stout. SiDa Brewery’s Maxonian and Seacider’s Rhubarb were also available with one pump standing unused. I enjoyed the stout, but the barman made a right meal of pouring my half. I ended up with two glasses, one three quarters full and the other a quarter full. In addition to the cask the back bar supports six fonts for five craft keg and Thatcher’s Cider. There’s also a coffee machine on the back bar and a container full of cakes cakes. The kitchen was closed during my visit so I didn’t spot any menus. Out the back is an enclosed beer yard with picnic tables and benches. There is also a cinema room with screenings on Wednesdays and Sundays from 20:00. I’d not heard of any of the advertised films, reckon they must be a bit niche. This place is worth a look, if only to try the Bollington beer.

Excellent Bollington Brewery pub located slightly south of the town centre but well worth the walk. Refurbished and partly opened-out bar area to the right-hand side of the entrance, a further seating area at the back and another room (not in regular use?) off to the left. With five of the eight handpumps in operation, I found five of their cask ales (including the Long Hop, £3.90), and also noted six craft keg beers and ciders on the taps on the bar-back.

Can't add much to the descriptions below, but on a Sunday evening the only busier pub we went in was RedWillow. So they must be doing something right. It is a bit of a boring walk out of town, but it's worth the walk. Nicely decorated, especially the raised area. 6 handpumps serving Bollington beer plus a real cider. We ended up having two here and both my pints were in good nick. My only downside was that there were two small children playing on their own at one table, well behaved most of the time, but they both had screaming fits during our stay. Not good and costs them a point.

This is one of three outlets for the Bollington brewery. As noted below it's on the outskirts of Macclesfield but I must have visited it as a Robinson's pub in the days when their pubs were Macclesfield's main attraction. It's been more than well described below but I was very relieved to find they weren't showing the World Cup on my Tuesday afternoon visit. The eight hand pumps had one unused and six Bollington Beers. I went for the Eastern Promise (£3.50) which was in reasonably good nick but may have been suffering a bit with the hot weather. I would definitely return to this one.