Crown & Kettle, Manchester

Visited on a Saturday evening at the end of May, when they had their Tiny Rebel tap takeover. Somehow I managed to pick the only ale which was not by Tiny Rebel, but it was a very nice stout so I had no regrets. As has been noted in the many previous reviews, the front room ceiling is quite badly damaged and has a net underneath to catch falling plasterwork. The back room (to the right of the bar) has had its ceiling restored and looks in a much better state, but I did hear a rumour that it was not done to the specification required by English Heritage, so that may be why the front room ceiling has remained as is. The rumour could, of course, have been completely false, but there you go. There is also a room to the left of the bar which is more basic. For the last few years there have been around 8 hand pulls, from what I can gather the quality has gone up and down during that time but I must have been lucky and caught them on good days as I don't recall a bad pint in there. Other than the crumbling ceiling the décor itself is rather plain and possibly bordering on sparse in terms of furniture. I tend to judge a pub on the quality and selection of its beer, and for me I have had no issues there.

An impressive facade but inside the pseudo-gothic interior is a quite a dump with a high ceiling that's falling down (falling masonry is caught in a net hung underneath!), gloomy lighting and oppressive poo brown walls. There’s a rear room with a makeshift wood frame and plywood wall. Apparently there was also a third room that I didn’t discover that sounds less terrible. All-in-all, it was drinking in a squat. Still, there were a number of ales on, 8 in total. The two we tried - Mobberley Moari and Blackjack both smelt odd and tasted like they’d been aspirated beyond their normal shelf-life. Had to dodge a group of powdered locals on our way out. Really bad, there’s no way I’d go back while it’s in this state. I know it re-opened after a long period of closure after a fire but that was 12 years ago, so I’m not going to give it the sympathy vote that some others do. Reminded me a bit of the Bree Louise in that many ales at the bar does not necessarily equate to a good pub.

Built around the turn of the 19th Century, this Grade II listed building was remarkably lost to the pub-going world for sixteen years following a fire, before eventually reopening in October 2005 after some major restoration work by English Heritage. The pub has a slightly unusual layout, with a large open main bar to one side and two smaller, darker rooms on the other side of the bar. The main bar area has dark floorboards, a dark wood servery and half panelled walls with both the top and bottom half painted in the same dark shades, all of which creates a bit of a gloomy appearance. The pub is rightly famed for its magnificent, ornate ceiling, which was sadly a victim of the aforementioned blaze and now has a safety net suspended beneath it to protect customers from falling masonry. There are two fabulous period chandeliers on show as well, but sadly they are flanked by the empty sockets which two more of their kind would have previously occupied. The room has lots of vertical drinking space, but standard tables and chairs have been arranged around the perimeter of the room, under the modern, stained glass windows with crown motif that provide some much needed light. An old pub sign hangs inside, to the left of the entrance and next to it was one of several TV screens showing live football. The walls have been decorated with lots of interesting bits of historical information and elsewhere there are blackboards detailing some of the beers available. Of the two side rooms, the front one was similarly styled to the main bar and also had access to the servery, with a few more standard tables and chairs dotted around. The rear room was marginally nicer and had a nice fireplace at one end. The ale range on arrival looked pretty impressive, with the pump clips giving the choice between Tickety Brew Table IPA, Tweed Black Shire Stout, Wadworth Henry's IPA, Lincoln Imperial Ale, Ossett Silver King, Thornbridge Jaipur and Axholme Spiced Pumpkin Mild. However, in the time it took me to drink an excellent pint of the Stout, this range had remarkably depleted to just the two ales, despite only a modest crowd in attendance. One poor old boy trying to order a round for three people found that all of the beers they were drinking had since been taken off and having then asked his companions to pick an alternative, returned to find that this had gone off as well! Having recently been named CAMRA Greater Manchester Pub of the Year 2015, this seemed like bad timing, with customers adding the pub to their itineraries based on the award, expectations are bound to be high and failure to provide a good selection of ales won't go down well. The bar staff coped well with a lot of inevitable grumbling and were very personable and happy to chat with the barfly's in between serving customers. I wasn't that impressed with this place and thought it was a strange set-up with limited seating and drab décor. The good beer certainly helped make up for things, but I'm glad I didn't arrive 30 minutes later, otherwise I would have been even more disappointed. It would be nice to think that the extra business the pub gets in the wake of the CAMRA award might allow them to finish restoring the ceiling and perhaps sort out the gloomy paint job. I'd give this place another try and it works well as part of a crawl, but with other superior pubs a short walk away, you have to wonder how they scooped the big prize this year.

The pub occupies a prominent corner site a couple of doors down from the iconic former Daily Express building. The ground floor has gothic looking double storey height windows which are matched in line upstairs by smaller versions. Inside there are three rooms, you enter to the main bar, to the right is a smaller room labelled as the cider vault. Both rooms link through to the rear via a snug which has a shelf of books and whisky bottles. Despite obviously once being a place of grandeur the pub these days feels rather basic, the floorboards are well worn, brown walls, exposed brick at the back. A few bits of interest, a pair of old very faded maps, a nice hand written letter of appreciation from some old boy and lots of old pictures of the pub through the years. Seating is pretty basic too, old school style chairs at a number of small tables. Much has been said about the high ceiling, the area over the main bar is in a right old state as are the chandeliers and arches over the bar, so much so that netting is provided to prevent chunks of it falling on the drinkers below. The ceiling over the cider room is better and looks to have had a bit of an attempt to restore and repaint it. The story I heard was that there was serious football disorder in here in 1989 resulting in a fire bomb, the consequences being the fire and subsequent water damage. It seems a shame that it cannot or will not be restored. The pub nowadays is aimed squarely at the real ale and cider drinker. Nine handpumps of which eight were on, Brains IPA, Daleside Porter, Charnwood Salvation, Lincoln Imperial Blonde, Adnam's Lighthouse, Oakham JHB, Ossett Silver King and Temperence Street Body Snatcher. The chalkboard over the bar lists the bottles in the fridge, around 30 of them, an eclectic selection. I couldn't fathom the cider dispense, maybe there are boxes somewhere. This is not a food pub apart from snacks and pork pies but the barmaid was helpful in directing a couple of blokes to a recommended curry house. It's many many years since I've been in here, part of me thinks it used to be one room but perhaps my memory is fuddled, a great beer pub which I wish could be fully restored to former glories.