July - Crown Inn (Stockport)
Crown Inn
154 Heaton Lane, Stockport SK4 1AR
The Stockport & South Manchester CAMRA Pub of the Month award for July 2014 has been awarded to the Crown, Heaton Lane, Stockporty. Dave Platt reports.
When the Crown receives its Pub of the Month Award on Thursday 24th July it will be a bitter sweet occasion. While CAMRA will rightly be celebrating the pub's continuing success, one significant person will be missing. Tracy Mullen, partner of licensee Steve Alexander and the pub's landlady sadly passed away last month. Tracy was proud to be called the pub's landlady and she will be sadly missed by everyone. We will be raising a glass to her memory on the night.
The Crown, meanwhile, carries on as a thriving and bustling cask ale flagship. It is already a multiple award winner having one local and regional Pub of the Year titles. It was also a National Pub of the Year runner-up - no mean feat that.
It would be easy to rest on your laurels with a track record like that. The Crown however goes from strength to strength. There are now up to 16 ever changing cask beers (with always a stout/porter and a mild available) alongside up to three real ciders. The pub is also a regular outlet for beers from the new Stockport Brewing Co, based just across the road. Quality is top notch and the pub is a Good Beer Guide regular.
The pub itself, while having undergone some alterations over the years, still retains much of its Victorian layout and fittings with four rooms radiating off a central drinking lobby. There's a Thursday quiz, live entertainment (local bands are showcased on Saturday nights), an excellent beer garden, folk nights on Tuesday and Sunday - and on Saturday afternoons a ukulele band performs. At lunchtimes pub grub is available and at other times rather fine pork pies and sausage rolls can be had.
In short the Crown ticks almost every box you can think of. It's one of the cask ale flagships that are now putting Stockport on the national beer enthusiasts' map. Join us as we mark this success on 24th June - the pub is easy to reach being just a few minutes' walk from Stockport rail and bus stations.