Lass O'Gowrie, Manchester

It’s still a nice old pub but you can definitely feel the Greene King corporate stamp on it now. The menu is HQ mass produced and the service feels a bit impersonal. On the plus side, a good range of real ales besides the GK stuff and I did enjoy my half of Ossett Voodoo - but I should hope so at £2.80 a half!

Called into this 2022 Good Beer Guide pub on 12.8.22 and as it was quiet we had a chat with the barman while enjoying our beers. They don't put a lot of cask on at the moment and it seems the same in a lot of pubs that keeping cask cool in the current hot weather causes a lot of problems. We had both of the Wily Fox beers available. The Fox Hat and Karma Citra.

Beautiful brown Majolica tiled exterior. Perhaps surprisingly a Greene King pub (how far their tentacles stretch these days…). A fair bit of (modernised) character inside, a long thin main area with a nice room off to the side, this is carpeted with a marble fireplace and purple velveteen banquette; the oppressive dark green walls let it down though, very claustrophobic. A quiz was in full flow with an impressive amount of ignorance on display – I’d have fancied myself for a podium finish. Four cask on the go from a forest of pumps (testament I suppose, to either the Death Of Cask or a long-overdue reduction in order to keep it shifting) consisting of 2x GK and two guests; my Mobberley Bunji was fine if not exactly stellar for a GBG ‘22 listed pub (NBSS 3) but that’s Manchester CAMRA for you. There may also have been a cider but my notes don’t match my memory. Worth a widdle for the vintage ceramic urinals. Crawl fodder, this one. 6.5

Visited on Friday afternoon. 8 hand pulls at the bar, of which 4 were on. One of these was a cider (Rosie's Pig) with the ales consisting of Sundowner (Wily Fox), Moral Panic (Twisted Wheel) and Gangly Ghoul (Greene King). Initially I thought there were no Greene King beers on at all, which puzzled me, but I later discovered the Gangly Ghoul is a GK seasonal bitter - although I think GK sometimes do their best to hide the brewery name on some of their seasonal beers in order to catch people out! The Moral panic set me back £2 for a half and was very pleasant. I'd have been very tempted to stay for the Sundowner too, but I had a train to catch! Noisy and lively on Friday afternoon, but with enough space that I found a seat without issue. Oh and if Mr Mapp happens to read this - I believe the Lass O'Gowrie is back in the 2022 GBG.