The countdown is over as Alphabet Brewery's new keg bar let us in for a sneak peak
After almost two years in development, Manchester’s newest bar The Quick Brown Fox opens today on the corner of Swan Street and Oldham street.
The plan is to offer drink choices that are not currently available elsewhere in Manchester
Named after that famous pangram - which, if you don’t know, is a sentence that contains all the letters of the alphabet - the bar is right on the unofficial border between Ancoats and the Northern Quarter.
We nipped in for a nosy as they were putting the finishing touches to the decor and it’s a bright, welcoming space with plenty of the green stuff - no not that green stuff, you need to go a bit further down Oldham street for that.
There are hanging plants and large potted cacti dotted around the space, with a choice of low leather sofas for loungers, round wooden tables for socialites and more intimate green booth seating on the periphery for a cosy vibe.
What really stands out about this place is the range of exclusive premium drinks available. There are six natural or low intervention wines and Prosecco on tap, something that has been a thing in London for a while but is only just catching on here. Owner Joe Fearnhead told us he had hoped to be the first but with multiple setbacks, including a flood, he’s now one of a small handful of bars and restaurants on the cutting edge offering wine on tap in Manchester.
We tried a natural Beaujolais and it was very quaffable with a huge burst of fresh red fruit. They will also be getting involved in the Beaujolais Nouveau celebration in November - a fun tradition in which the freshest bottled Beaujolais is knocked back while it’s less than two months old.
With the team behind Alphabet Brewery and PLY involved in the project, there will be 12 rotating beers from local and national breweries on tap as well as six tap cocktails including a white negroni and a transparent strawberry daiquiri. General Manager Daniel Smith, formerly of Kosmonaut and The Liars Club, has curated the cocktail menu and the plan is to offer drink choices that are not currently available elsewhere in Manchester.
Alongside the taps will be another 20 bottles of wine that are seasonally selected in collaboration with acclaimed London wine bar and magazine, Noble Rot.
While plans to offer food eventually are not quite there yet, we heard whispers of cheese and wine nights on the cards. We look forward to seeing how things develop and in the meantime, pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.
The Quick Brown Fox, 1-3 Swan Street, Manchester, M4 5JJ
