A mile-long beer festival celebrating Manchester’s independent breweries is coming to Piccadilly Trading Estate next month.
Four of Manchester’s finest brewers are teaming up to host a massive free party along the city centre’s industrial beer mile.
Taking place on Saturday 13 May, Sureshot, Cloudwater, Track, and Balance are each inviting a guest brewery, an independent food vendor and live DJS down to their taprooms for a riotous all-day block party.
Kicking off at 12pm, punters can move freely between each taproom – collecting a stamp card designed by artist David Bailey at each.
At its upstairs taproom, award-winning brewery Cloudwater will host a Friends and Family sour bar with food from Isca wines in Levenshulme and music from Andy Votel and friends.
Over at Track Brewery, meanwhile, drinkers can enjoy a tap takeover from Verdant as well as selections from founder Adam, as well as tapas-style food from the excellent Porta.
Meanwhile, Sureshot Brewery, founded by former Cloudwater boss and mash time legend James Campbell, will host a tap takeover from Burning Sky Brewery and serve food from Lily’s Vegetarian Deli.
Final brewery Balance will also be running a pop-up bar at Sureshot throughout the day with guest beers from Torn Plant, which produces modern minimal intervention ciders and blends from the north west of England, outside of Delamere Forest. On the decks, it will welcome 2 DJs including the Wizard King.
Entry for the brewery block party is free, and anybody who collects all four brewery stamps on the day will be entered into a draw to win a hamper of beer-related goodies.
Featured image – Cloudwater
Eats
Lively Irish pub Nancy Spains set to open in Manchester for the first time
Daisy Jackson
An Irish bar famed for its live music is heading up to Manchester for the first time, and is promising £2.50 pints to lure us in.
Nancy Spains will be venturing out of London for the first time promising to bring the ‘ultimate traditional Irish pub experience’ to the Northern Quarter.
If you were to ask what the hottest trend in hospitality is right now the answer would, apparently, be Guinness. We’re drowning in the stuff.
This latest opening is more about Murphy’s, another Irish stout, than Guinness (they actually won’t serve Guinness at all) but the craic will be much the same.
Nancy Spains is actually set to open almost directly opposite the aforementioned Salmon of Knowledge, taking over the former Corner Boy unit on Stevenson Square in the heart of Manchester.
To celebrate its opening, the pub will be serving its first 5000 pints of Murphy’s for just £2.50, so that it can show off the atmosphere that’s established it as ‘one of London’s favourite pubs’.
They’re promising an array of Irish whiskeys behind the bar, live music performances, and a lively late-night setting.
Nancy Spains was set up by three brothers who travelled all over their home county of rural Kerry researching Irish pubs, before launching two venues down in London.
They want it to balance a traditional pub with the vibrancy of the city.
Peter O’Halloran, co-founder of Nancy Spains commented, “We’re so excited to be launching in Manchester, bringing Nancy Spains to the heart of the Northern Quarter.
“After the success of our two venues in London, it was only right to bring Nancy Spains’ infectious spirit and Irish pride to Manchester. Slainte!”
Nancy Spains will open its first Manchester pub on Saturday 15 March at 21 Hilton Street.
Lucky Mama’s – The Italian restaurant serving pasta in a dough bowl and ‘pregnant’ pizzas
Daisy Jackson
Lucky Mama’s is a local sensation, thanks to its slightly whacky but delicious Italian creations like pasta served in a bowl made of pizza dough and its latest offering, a ‘pregnant’ pizza.
What on Earth is a pregnant pizza, you ask? Firstly we should stress this is a nickname we’ve bestowed upon the dish, rather than Lucky Mama’s chosen branding.
But essentially it’s a helping of fresh pasta that’s folded into the bubble crust of the pizza, like a half-calzone.
Lucky Mama’s started life when founders Mamadou Dhiam and Gaby Santos set up a trailer in their backyard in Eccles in the depths of lockdown.
But thanks to a formidably loyal following that’s spread the word of Lucky Mama’s far and wide, it now has two pretty pink restaurants in Greater Manchester.
Back in 2022, they threw open the doors to their Chorlton restaurant, before returning back to home turf for spot number two in Monton in 2024.
The recipes are fresh and pretty authentically Italian up until the last step, when they throw a curveball by loading their pasta into unconventional vessels.
‘Pregnant’ pizzas at Lucky Mama’sTraditional Roman pizzasLucky Mama’s pink restaurant in Chorlton
Their pasta pizza bowls are what they’re best known for and they fly out of the kitchen – this is where pizza dough is placed around a metal bowl before being baked in an oven.
Then it’s piled high with freshly made pasta, with popular flavours like cacio e pepe, mushroom alfredo, and rasta pasta.
Pasta is available in a regular ceramic bowl too.
You’ll find Lucky Mama’s at 565 Barlow Moor Road in Chorlton; and 217 Monton Road in Eccles.
Georgina Pellant -
18th April 2023 
