Grey Horse
The Grey Horse is a little glimpse of what pubs used to be like. The bar staff are super chatty, as are the regulars, the gents are still outside in the yard and the soundtrack is old northern soul and Johnny Cash. Yet this Hydes' pub is something of a pioneer, too. Alert to the threat posed by the craft beer scene, Manchester's traditional family brewers are responding in different ways. Robinsons has drafted in Elbow and Iron Maiden to help design its beers (try these at the Castle. Hydes, meanwhile, has launched the Beer Studio, a craft brewery within its main plant, turning out monthly specials – which the Grey Horse carries. A sample half of the Studio's Titian Tipple (a malty, reddish ale) was fine, if less exciting than the blurb on the Beer Studio website. Perhaps all Hydes needs to do is refresh and rebadge its Original? It's a little sweetly, wishy-washy in the body, but, for a beer of its ilk, it has a real thirst-quenching bitterness to it. Kept well, it is Manchester's best old school pint.• Pint from £2.80. 80 Portland Street, 0161 236 1874, facebook page
Sandbar
Sitting between university buildings, Sandbar has a busy cultural programme (from comedy nights to life drawing classes), and lots of very good beer. It was originally known for its range of continental and specifically German beers, and you can still find rare goodies here (for instance, bottles from Munich's Hacker-Pschorr, £4.70). However, these days, its primary emphasis, across eight cask and 13 keg lines, is on British beers, several commissioned directly from small breweries. These exclusives include 4.1 (pint, £2.90) from Bury's Outstanding Brewery; a lemony Czech-style pils, rampant with Saaz hops; and Tarantula (£2.90), a lightly roasted, clean-drinking dark ale from Manchester brewery, Privateer, who are based – boom, tish! – on Temperance Street.
• Pint from £2.70. 120 Grosvenor Street, 0161 273 1552, sandbarmanchester.co.uk
Marble Arch
It's 125 years old but this handsome Victorian boozer – all glazed tile work and vintage detail – has never been busier. The flagship for Manchester's finest microbrewery, Marble, it attracts beer fans of all stripes. Get there early to bag a table or risk internal exile to a much uglier back room. Eleven hand-pulls and three craft keg lines showcase mainly Marble beers. Historically, Manchester loves dry, pale session ales and Marble's laconically named Pint is a corker in that style. Its revelatory best bitter and lush chocolate stout may suggest a brewery that is all about reviving traditional styles, but a new Earl Grey IPA and its legendary, ever-evolving Ginger ale (now in its 5.1% iteration) illustrate how Marble has its finger on craft beer's creative pulse. Food is good quality (mains from £9.95) and the extensive cheese menu is a boon (from £6.95, four choices). Marble also has a modern bar in the Northern Quarter (57 Thomas Street).
• Pint from £2.80. 73 Rochdale Road, 0161 832 5914, marblebeers.com
Knott Bar
It's a stone's throw from Deansgate Locks, a noisy, flashy strip of so-called style bars, but Knott Bar couldn't be more different. There are indie tunes on the jukebox, Ramones posters and Schneider Weisse adverts by way of decor, and beer lovers crowded around its large tables. Seven cask ales (Castle Rock's reliable Harvest Pale is one of two permanents) and eight craft keg lines feature a rotating cast of trend-setting northern brewers, with Thornbridge, Magic Rock, Summer Wine and the awesome Red Willow appearing regularly. Prices for the craft keg beers (from £4.60 a pint) can get silly, but it goes with the territory. Knott also carries a solid Belgian range, various German pilsners and wheats, and a newly expanded range of American bottles. As they put it, their stock runs the gamut: "from Scottish punks to Trappist monks." Food includes popular burgers (from £7.95) and there's a good smoking terrace.
• Pint from £2.95. 374 Deansgate, 0161 839 9229, knottbar.co.uk
Port Street Beer House
Manchester's premier craft beer bar. Long before Brewdog opened, Port Street was already turning Mancunians on to explosively hoppy US imports, edgy craft keg beers and impoverishing those who couldn't resist that second bottle of Alesmith Speedway Stout (750ml, £18). Expect to find the cream of local, national and international breweries represented across 25 pumps (seven of those cask) and around 120 bottled beers, with Wirral "nanobrewery" Madhatter and London's fantastic Partizan currently getting the nod from Port Street's enthusiastic bar staff. Regular meet-the-brewer evenings and sporadic themed beer festivals add interest.
• Pint from £3. 39-41 Port Street, 0161 237 9949, portstreetbeerhouse.co.uk
Cask
CAMRA militants may complain that actual cask ale is somewhat underrepresented at Cask, on just four pumps. But more rounded beer fans will find plenty to enjoy in its vast array of bottles (a bit bewildering, as there was no menu on a recent visit) and 13 keg lines. Cask is one of a select band of British beer hubs that serves Budvar yeast beer (half, £1.90). This unfiltered, unpasteurised version of the Czech classic is, naturally, a shade more in-your-face than its mainline version. Much more impressive, however – as it should be at an eye-watering £3.70 a half – was Belgian Coast IPA, a collaboration between Americans Green Flash and St-Feuillien. Basically, it does what it says on the tin; it's spicy, it's peppery, it's sour, as you would expect of a Belgian beer, but it's also got all those tropical flavours jostling around in there. It's a complex mouthful. Cask itself is a plain, utilitarian space, but its covered patio garden is a lovely little spot.
• Pint from £3. 29 Liverpool Road, 0161 819 2527, caskmanc.co.uk
Font Bar
Located in a raucous bit of Studentsville, Font ("...#partyvibes since 2000...") isn't the first place you would look for good beer. But fear not, those £2 cocktails are just camouflage for one of the best-stocked beer bars in the city. It carries four real ales (including, last week, the excellent Hop from Salford's First Chop, £3.30), while numerous craft pumps dispense ales from local and international breweries in thirds, halves and pints. There is serious fun to be had browsing its huge bottled beer menu, which runs the gamut of new wave UK breweries, including Kernel, Wild Beer, Hardknott, Camden, and their US inspirations, such as Left Hand and Magic Hat. Font also does a fine line in German beers, from fearsomely dry pils, Jever (500ml, £3.80), to that old smoked classic Schlenkerla Rauchbier (500ml, £4.60).
• Pint from £3. 7-9 New Wakefield Street, 0161 236 0944, thefontbar.wordpress.com
City Arms
Most of Manchester's best pubs fringe the city centre, but this traditional two-roomed boozer (polished leather banquettes, black-and-white photos, etched mirrors) fights the good fight bang in the heart of the city. Eight hand pulls, featuring such steady breweries as Hornbeam, Moorhouse's, Titanic and, often, a couple of beers from Thwaites, keep the regulars happy. Many of these are suits from the surrounding business district, diluted with beer lovers and those who relish that rarity: a simple, unpretentious city pub, where you can settle in and natter the night away. • Pint from £3.20. 46-48 Kennedy Street, 0161 236 4610
The Molly House
Manchester's Gay Village is plastered with posters advertising offers on Smirnoff Ice and the like, but the Molly House is taking a stand. This real ale redoubt for dissenting Village drinkers serves six cask ales (from local outfits such as Little Valley, Beartown, Dunham Massey, etc), two craft keg beers from Bury's Outstanding and a short, solid list of imported bottled beers, including Flying Dog's Raging Bitch and Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout. The groundfloor bar space, with its open kitchen and cake displays (the Molly is also a cafe and restaurant), won't suit pub purists, but it's pleasant enough. If you want to drink real ale while listening to 1980s synth classics from Sparks and Blancmange, this is the place to do it.
• Pint from £3.60. 26 Richmond Street, 0161 237 9329, themollyhouse.com
Bar Fringe
It's a bit rum, is Bar Fringe. Its decor – a lifesize cardboard Sid Vicious, a motorbike in the eves, a skeleton tangled-up in barbed-wire in the cobbled beer garden – should give you a feel for this earthy, hard-drinking joint. Every pub draws the audience it deserves, and Bar Fringe's crowd is an unlikely mix of hairy bikers, bohemian folk, gnarled beer-tickers and brainy students, who leave mystifying, maths-related graffiti in the toilets. On a recent visit, its ale pumps included far-flung beers from Darkstar and Franklin's in Sussex and (an unusual, citrussy best bitter) Blue Sky Drinking from Bristol's Arbor. Cask beer aside, Fringe majors on continental and Belgian bottles, with the likes of Duvel, Leffe and Timmerman's on draught, as well as real perries and ciders. It's CAMRA's cider month through October, so if you like Badger's Spit and Wonky Donkey, this is the place to be.
• Pint from £3. 8 Swan Street, 0161 835 3815
