The J P Joule (JD Wetherspoon), Sale

Standard suburban 'spoons with seating on two levels and a rather dark, cramped interior. However, pretty good selection of real ales from eight of the ten handpumps, with a couple from Brightside - Switchback (£2.19) and Manchester Skyline - Hobgoblin Gold, Pride of Pendle from Moorhouse's and Old Peculier in addition to the usual trio of Ruddles, Doom Bar and Abbot.

The J. P. Joule is a shop converted Wetherspoons with a large staircase directly in front of the entrance. The bar runs along the left hand wall and booth seating runs down the right. Behind the staircase, down the center of the pub are a line of tables and chairs that lead to more seating and another couple of booths at the rear. The bar supports a standard and premium keg range and I counted ten hand pumps for cask ale. A bank of four were drawing mainstream ales and a bank of six were more local. Upstairs seating wraps around the balcony at the top of the stairs and more seating is at the rear. A second bar up here supports four of the ales available from downstairs. I found the service to be quick and polite. This is certainly an above average Spoons, and it is located a stone’s throw from Sale Tram Station so is a perfect stop off.

Close to the tram station this is a regular finishing point for pub crawls from work. Start in The Vol and finish up here with assorted meanderings in between. It's a pleasant, two floored JDW, with some decent prints around the walls. As it's a small pub they often only have two or three guests alongside the regulars, but they're usually in good nick. Never seems to get too busy, but then I'm usually on my way home by 8.

It had been a few years since I have been in the J P Joule, however I found nothing major appears to have changed when I visited yesterday lunch time. Downstairs there is booth seating to the side wall, the rest of the seating is made up of standard table and chairs - high towards the front and low to the rear. Upstairs provides more seating and a second (smaller) bar, with booths around the perimeter and the rest tables and chairs. Downstairs there are 10 hand pulls split across two banks - the first bank consists of four hand pulls and boats the usual Spoons offerings of Ruddles, Abbot Ale (x2) and Doom Bar. The bank of six has the guest ales, and all of these were on at the time of my visit and priced at £2.15 a pint (£1.08 for a half). The upstairs bar has four hand pulls, offering the Spoons trio plus one of the guests duplicated from downstairs. There was a "craft" menu by the bar listing the draught, bottle and can options available. The usual mix of customers were in around 12:15pm. I can't remember the full selection of guest ales but I had the Burnt Orange by Wadworth and Fortingale by Inveralmond Brewery, both of which were fine. I seem to remember there was another orange/tangerine beer and a New Zealand Pale too. There are a few tables out the front, which was sheltered.

As noted below this is a shop conversion but rather a better executed one than some. The downstairs area is a rectangular room with the bar on the left and fairly standard furnishings. There's lots of dark wood and bookcases. Although I didn't actually venture upstairs there is another bar up there with up to four duplicates from downstairs. On the downstairs bar there are four hand pumps with the JDW Trio Of Doom with Abbot doubled while the six had Brains SA, Moorhouse Blond Witch, Phoenix West Coast IPA, Peerless Knee Buckler, Weetwood Eastgate and Titanic Iceberg. It makes a change to find a JDW with a full complement of guest ales and five of these are not from the current national guest list. I went for the Knee Buckler which was excellent. This one is rightly GBG 2018 listed.

Official site of The J P Joule (JD Wetherspoon) - www.jdwetherspoon.com

Official site of The J P Joule (JD Wetherspoon) - www.jdwetherspoon.com

Named after the erstwhile local resident and Engineer who gave his name to the SI Unit for energy, his statue is in nearby Worthington Park. There is the usual write up of his and other local names of fame such as Peter Tinniswood and George Carmen QC. It is a shop conversion 'spoons but refreshingly with natural light front and back as well as two stained glass rooflights in the upstairs area. Booth seating on both levels, lots of wood panelling, shelves of books and some rather nice bits of art on the walls upstairs. I reckoned on four guests plus the usual fare, my Moorhouse Blonde Witch was very good. One of the better JDWs.