BrewDog Manchester, Manchester

Typical BrewDog layout to the point of becoming boring, the beers ok if you're ok with keg, Zest Fest was fine but these are no longer venues I feel the need to visit.

The usual industrial Brewdog interior with large board up above the bar listing the many keg beers. Around to the right of the bar is a fridge with cans and bottles for sale. Friendly staff, but I’m not a huge fan of this chain.

Official site of BrewDog Manchester - www.brewdog.com

Official site of BrewDog Manchester - www.brewdog.com

Details taken on entry, we were asked if we were from the same household then given the option of sitting inside or outside. We were guided to a table, and advised to download the Brewdog app to order, or you can scan a QR code and see the menu and pay that way, without needing the app. Table service only. I went for the BrewDog Cocoa Psycho Espresso, an imperial stout which tasted every bit of its 10% ABV but was rather enjoyable. My drinking accomplice had Duopolis which was also good.

Good selection but pretty expensive. No cask, all keg. Busy on Saturday evening and looking a bit scruffy in parts with rubbish on the floor etc. My Baltic Bandit was fine. Really the kind of place I would go to once in a blue moon. In addition to the keg offerings there are fridges with cans and bottles in which can be purchased for take away, or for an additional £2 you can drink in with them. There is a further seating area upstairs, which was also full apart from one reserved table at the time of my visit. People do tend to come and go, so seats become free fairly quickly.

This is a typical city centre Brewdog bar, just down a couple of doors down from the Albert Hall. The chain’s distinctive industrial stylings are in evidence here, thanks to a concrete floor, stone topped bar counter and exposed utilities running across the ceiling. Some nice padded bench booths run along the front wall, beneath the floor-to-ceiling windows and were a good choice to enjoy some top-class people watching in the run up to midnight on New Year’s Eve. The servery runs down the rear part of the right hand wall and has a simple stone-topped counter and the usual cinema-style beer board on the bar back, detailing the full range of draught beers in lieu of any pump or tap signage. More seating can be found along the left hand wall and a few tables also run through the centre of the room, but crucially, plenty of space has been retained for vertical drinking which, on a busy night such as when we visited, looks to be a very wise choice, as the room quickly fills up. The decor involves the inevitable drab paint scheme but this has thankfully been brightened up considerably by some pretty cool mural artworks and, less impressively, by a Brewdog merchandise stand. An outstanding 90’s alternative rock soundtrack played throughout our visit – every song was an absolute belter – and if this is indicative of the sort of stuff they usually play in here, I’d be tempted to return for the tunes alone. Thankfully the pub has more to recommend than just the music though, with twelve keg taps devoted to Brewdog beers and a further six dispensing guest brews from small batch micros. I decided to try the Brewdog Kingpin, only to find they had just run-out, but the incredibly helpful barman rushed off and performed some behind the scenes trickery in no time at all to get a new keg of the Kingpin on. I’ve definitely been to much nicer Brewdog bars than this one, as it feels a bit under-developed and too similar to your average craft beer bar. The helpful staff and great soundtrack made me appreciate this place a little more, but overall it probably ends up in the lower tier of Brewdog bars and as such struggles to make an impression in the wider Manchester pub scene.