STATION Approach. Ah yes, the old Elbow song – ‘I haven't been myself of late/I haven't slept for several days/ But coming home I feel like I/Designed these buildings I walk by.’
Did Guy Garvey, at his most winsomely nostalgic, really want to claim credit for Gateway House, a serpentine Sixties office block, admired by some critics, but at ground floor level home to a tired parade of retail outlets most of us hurried past on the way to Piccadilly Station.
One of these, the Suede and Leather store has gone – replaced by the Piccadilly Tap (above), the perfect excuse to miss a rail connection or two. It opened its doors on Friday, March 20, after what can only be called a slow burner or a refurb.
A visit a few days later confirmed my suspicions this may well be the most low key launch in recent times. No sign yet of the promised neon signage to alert passers-by that beer nirvana awaits. Sinks were being fitted, a bottle fridge was still en route. “We should be open to the public again after 3pm today,” its manager, Mike John (pictured below) told me over a glass of Mallinson’s Cascade single hop pale ale at a reasonable £3.60 a pint. The 25 taps behind the bar are operational thankfully.
Beer geek’s note: The Cascade was pale gold in colour, with a hoppy light citrus nose, a bitter citrus lemon taste and a tart citrus finish.
The chalked-up lists of cask and keg span the UK and the globe, but it was comforting to see Mallinson’s and Magic Rock from Huddersfield on the board and, most of all, Chorlton Brewing Co’s Dark Matter – a self-styled Imperial Dark Gose ‘sour’ style.
Mike, of dual US-British nationality, has spent the last decade in Vermont and champions that state’s beers, but he is enjoying discovering their British counterparts. Cloudwater, the most high profile Manchester brewery launched in recent times, will certainly feature, too (the Bergamot Hopfen Weisse an early arrival) alongside the likes of London’s Beavertown and Kernel, regulars at the Euston Tap and other Capital craft beer bars run by owners Bloomsbury Leisure.
The Euston bar is set in a characterful Victorian gatehouse. Very cramped. There’s lots more space in its Piccadilly sibling, including an upstairs ‘sit down’ lounge but alongside this a very odd decor mixture of stone boulder and Sixties-style wood board. In embryo it looks even more uncomfortable than the Black Dog bar on Peter Street.
Its location makes it more of a rival to Port Street Beer House just across in the Northern Quarter. LIke them, it dispenses with a food offering. Beer rules. What time does the next but one Virgin Pendolino pull out?