Smithfield Hotel

November 29, 2008
Excellent boozer. Very basic and you could say it looks rather grubby but it has its own charm. Interesting selection of beers plus its own Smithfield Bitter produced by Phoenix. Basic but good food available.

October 31, 2008
Not the place where I would bring wife and kids. It looks a bit cheap, but we are here for the beer. Smithfield has 6 taps constantly changing according the owner. For me it was the first time that I tried English brews. I’m pleasently surprised.

January 22, 2008
Visited here on Saturday 19-01-08 having decided to give the national Winter Ales Festival in New Century House a rest for a bit. It was very busy as the pub had presumably deceided to have their own beer festival on this weekend as well. Both of the beers that I tried were in very good nick, the service was fine and the pub a great little place.

August 26, 2007
Another absolute must in Manchester’s North. The upcoming beer festival was supposed to present 40 different beers! A dark-lighted, no-nonsense place where beer is the focus. Out of the tourists path, dodgy looking locals. A worthy experience and possibly the best and widest selection in Manchester.

August 10, 2007
I can’t believe I haven’t rated this one yet as it must be my favourite scooping pub in Manchester, probably partly because it was the first pub I discovered when I started keeping track of my beers, I’d only mainly been to festival venues at that point. Some excellent beer festivals here, namely the one that coincides with the Winter Ales, providing the drinker with a vast range of new and rare beers. This brings the tickers here in droves and it’s not uncommon to have hardly anything left come the Saturday!

September 4, 2006
This city centre hotel has gone from nowhere in the mid 90s to become one of the best scooping pubs in the city. Run as a cheap and cheerful budget hotel, the bar serves 8 real ales (house beers are Greene King mild and Phoenix Smithfield bitter) with a high percentage of new and rare beers. Regular beer festivals are held with beers from the cellar served from jugs when the place is packed with scoopers sampling the Far North beers which are regulars at the festivals. The only problem is the variable beer quality at festivals with beers served from jugs getting warm and flat behind the bar, but this is usually nothing serious as a steady stream of scoopers ensures a quick turnover!