THERE's a lovely little ensemble of old Manchester on Swan Street. It's a pub sequence of little and large with the Burton Arms and the Smithfield Market Tavern, both from the first half of the nineteenth century, both as cute as pie.
The Smithfield has that almost indefinable quality of time passing and lives lived the best pubs always seem gather about them
The larger of the two, the Smithfield, has been taken over to happy effect by Manchester micro Blackjack Brewery.
The result is a delight: A proper pub that seems a reversion to some mystical time when pubs were simple and straightforward, an echo perhaps of a pub in Harold Brighouse's Hobson's Choice or Charles Dickens' Pickwick Papers.
The bar is a feature swamped with beery choice plus a decent range of spirits and wines. The pub is split into three main areas with timber floors, a simple two tone paint job, books and games including darts, chess, shove ha'penny and table skittles.
Drama is created by revealing the stairs to the cellar. Seating is a mix of soft and standard wooden tables and chairs. The generous room spaces make the place seem comfortable if basic. Clearly there hasn't been a lot of money to spend on decor but what has been spent shows good taste. Apparently Blackjack has a policy of 'when we find the right things we’ll add them in, we’re not in too much of a hurry'. A wood burner is promised for winter.
Production of the in-house beers takes place about ten minutes walk away in the Irk Valley in Manchester's railway arch micro epicentre alongside Marble Beers and Runaway Brewery. Six O'Clock Brewery shares space with Blackjack.
Smithfield Market Tavern, Swan StreetJoe Bird of Blackjack talked to Confidential about the idea behind the Smithfield: "We wanted to create a place that we'd like to go to for a drink, one filled with locals, the hum of chatter, old and young, a bit of food, music events. We always said we would rather have a proper pub first and foremost that just so happened to have brilliant beers in it, rather than have a hundred beers but be inaccessable and exclusive. Somewhere along the way of opening The Smithfield someone said that it sounded like ‘a modern old school proper pub’ and I suppose that's become the mantra since."
The Smithfield definitely escapes the 'exclusiveness' of many of the new wave of beer-swillers, most notably the Brewdog brand. Brewdog opened in Manchester a couple of years ago and remains over-priced with beers that are choked with harsh flavours. There's a self-satisfied 'we're so cool' conceit about the whole Brewdog offer that grates. The last thing beer drinkers should hanker for is the extremes of artifice that mark the wine market.
At the same time the Smithfield avoids the ludicrous roughness of Piccadilly Tap, the West's most basic drinking den in a former retail unit on Piccadilly Station Approach. If you've not been then the rough concrete, cheap panelling and unfinished state of the 'Tap' almost seems an insult. If Brewdog is up its own arse then Piccadilly Tap can't be arsed.
The Smithfield strikes the right balance, but then it is a proper pub built as a pub, and has that almost indefinable quality of time passing and of lives lived which the best pubs always seem to gather about them. It's as though the ghosts of generations of drinkers and chatters are sat among the present guests, informing the whole experience with their departed conviviality.
I adored a pint of Blackjack's Smithfield Anchor (£3) at 3.9%, a complex, floral, pale, that was very,very refreshing. A guest ale of Bibble, from Wild Beer, at 4.2% (£3.10 a pint) was very interesting too, sweet, but full. The 4.8% and hoppy Double Bluff, also from Blackjack, had a strong kick of bitterness but was again a winner at £3.20 a pint. Future visits will require a go at some of the keg varieties on the back wall. The beer range, in all forms including voguish tinned beers, is formidable.
Food is basic. I had a fine wild boar and pork sausage and a pickled egg for £3.50 then a pork pie with mustard. The sausage comes from Welsh specialist Trealy Farm and was fabulous, full of musky, dark flavours. The pie from Tittertons was bland, apparently Blackjack will be changing the supplier very soon.
As I walked down Swan Street on the way to The Smithfield I passed a venue called Lounge 56. 'Another bar', I thought. It turned out to be a massage parlour where 'a lady may undertake to provide any additional service'. Or 'ladies'. The website states rates of £35 for twenty minutes or the bumper deal of, to quote, '30 minutes/2 girls: £80'.
There's still something deliciously rum about the Northern Quarter.
I ended up swinging in the Smithfield.
I played a game of table skittles for fifteen minutes and it didn't cost me anything. To my utter relief I won. It was a happy ending.
My happy endingYou can follow Jonathan Schofield on Twitter @JonathSchofield or connect via Google+
The Smithfield, 37 Swan St, Northern Quarter, M4 5JZ, 0161 839 4424
Rating: 15/20 (remember venues are rated against the best examples of their type - see yellow box below)
Beer: 8/10
Service: 3/5
Ambience: 4/5
