GRUB, Manchester

Paid a visit last weekend as GRUB were hosting their Winter Beer Fest 2023. Four brewery bars upstairs complemented by two bars for guest beers (one upstairs, one down). The downstairs bar had a single real ale on, though I believe this was for the festival only and real ale is not a permanent feature. In this post COVID era, everything is back to normal in terms of rocking up, finding somewhere to loiter, ordering drinks from the bar, etc. Card only, which is not unusual for this kind of place. Street food stalls are still operating here (I think they may be card and cash friendly). The beer festival was well run and had plenty of variety from many different breweries. I assume they will be hosting another one and if so I would be happy to return and check it out.

Visited for the first time a couple of weeks ago on a Saturday evening. A one way system is in place so you enter the building, wait to be seated, then are shown to a table in the yard outside (I say table, we were shown to a bit of bench seating without a table, but it was adequate). There was no mention of taking contact details but the menu did give their web site address for you to register. Full table service, someone comes along with a tablet and takes your order, it's then delivered to your table. A tab seemed to be set up automatically, which was a bit of a pain as the service was quite slow - from the drinks arriving to then being asked if we wanted another and then to settling the bill. That said, in fairness, it was busier than the two brewery taps we had just come from, and the waits were not unreasonable. It's a fairly big place, from what I could see, and seemed to be quite popular. There are various food stalls. I believe they have now reopened the indoor hall (it was outside seating only a couple of weeks ago) and the food stalls are included in the table service process. There was a fairly extensive, albeit slightly expensive, beer menu, and of course it is all keg. Cider and wine also available. Interesting to have tried it and I will probably be back again at some point.

Official site of GRUB - www.grubmcr.com

Official site of GRUB - www.grubmcr.com