Northern Bar and Restaurant Show

I attended this beano yesterday. Held at Manchester Central (formerly G-Mex) it was a veritable cornucopia of all things you could possibly need, should you run either a pub or an eating place. Naturally there was a drink in it, so we supped minute quantities of beers from Copper Dragon (excellent) Freedom (nice pilsner, yuk dark and organic lagers), Holts (splendid bitter and surprising good smooth mild), Maisels and Erdinger (Pikantus) wheat beers and of course Lees. The new Coronation St beer was on offer and it was good, but malty in the Lees way. I chatted to Simon Lees-Jones, who buys and sells pubs for Lees. He is buying currently and was very buoyant about the future. We did for politeness sake try a little drop of vino reddo too, but turned down countless offers of tasters of lurid alcopops, albeit from rather fetching young women.

Later, using a couple of free pint vouchers supplied by Lees, we supped the Coronation Street beer in the Rain Bar where the beer seemed a bit hoppier. It is available in bottle too. Worth a try I'd say.

We actually made some good contacts for NWAF, but mainly it was a piss up.