March - Railway (Portwood)
Avenue Street, Portwood, Stockport, SK1 2BZ
Mike Gilroy is a regular and explains why the Stockport & South Manchester CAMRA Pub of the Month for March is the Railway, Avenue Street, Portwood.
This is a multi award winning family run business; at the helm are Sue and Vince, with a crew of four talented staff: Brian, Frankie, Phil and Sara. The pub has been under threat of demolition for many years but seems to have more lives than your average cat. It has once again had a reprieve for at least another 12 months before it is knocked down to make way for a supermarket (Sainsbury's will have to wait).
Meanwhile it is very much business as usual. The bar sports 14 hand pumps, serving cask ales from Pennine, Outstanding and Moorhouses breweries , with ever changing guest milds. Every Friday up to three guest beers are on sale; there is also a hand pump with Thornbridge "Jaipur" as a permanent feature.
The cider and perry are supplied by John Reek of Merrylegs Cider, so the quality is top notch. The perry is Weston's "Country" 4.5%, and as for cider, a different cider goes on as soon as the last barrel is empty, so you never know what cider is coming next, but you do know it will be good. A wide selection of Belgian, German and other bottled beers complete the range.
The pub has a railway theme, with a large loco mural at the back of the pub, and a model railway at the top of the bar. There is a bar-billiards table which gets used a lot, and card games (crib) are played around the pub. There is a quiz team and a darts team so the place is buzzing with different things going on.
And if all that wasn't enough, the Railway puts on up to three beer festivals a year and the same amount of cider festivals (which are not to be missed). All the local beer festivals get visited from this pub with buses/minibuses organized by Sue & Vince. For the Ramsbottom festival there was a vintage bus and a steam train used to get there.
The presentation is on Thursday 22 March from 8pm. The pub is just a short walk from Stockport Town Centre but buses 330 and 325 will drop you almost outside.