A couple of months ago I made the trip into Manchester city centre and back out again to The Crescent, a pub with a justifiable reputation as one of the very best real ale venues in the Greater Manchester area. I used to drink there on a regular basis when I was a student at Salford University, but haven’t been back for about fifteen years, for various reasons, so I was keen to see if the old place was anything like I remembered it (it was pretty much the same, yes).

I was at The Crescent, on a rare mid-week outing, to see my mate Howard Sherrington play his first solo gig (acoustic guitar & voice), supporting a band called Rising 44, with whom he also plays (much louder) guitar. Howard’s set was excellent – he’s a very technically gifted guitarist and can write a mean tune as well – and Rising 44 were, frankly, deafening (damn it, I must be getting old). And of course, I sampled a couple of beers while I was there… it would have been unforgivably rude not to, especially as it was National Cask Ale Week at the time, if I remember correctly.

The Crescent had an impressive array of beers on tap – around twelve or so, I think – as well as a decent-looking selection of bottled beers in their fridges (a couple on the table next to me were supping a Kwak and I’m sure I spotted a couple of Maredsous bottles and a few Duvels as well). Perusing the beer menu on the wall I opted for a pint of Sharp’s Spring Mild to ease me into the evening. According to a mention on Ratebeer.com this one is brewed with gorse, but there’s no info on the Sharp’s website to confirm. In any case, it was an interesting, fruity dark mild with hints of both apple and pear and a slight sourness developing towards the end of the pint. Not bad, but not one I wanted to rush back to.

Instead, I opted for a pint of 3Rivers Delta Dark, from just down the road in Stockport. This was one of their 2009/10 seasonal ales, brewed specifically for CAMRA’s Mild Month, so it was only available in April and May. Which is a real shame, because this was an extremely tasty little number.

At 5% ABV, Delta Dark weighs in a fair bit stronger than a typical mild and I think it’s fair to say it had a much more interesting flavour than I’ve encountered in most of the milds I’ve tried so far. Delta Dark is a distinctly dark, ruby-tinted mild that’s packed with chocolate and malt, with just a touch of coffee to give it a sharper edge. Great mouth-feel, extremely smooth and easy-drinking, I didn’t hesitate to go back for a second pint and would have happily settled in a for a session, if I didn’t have to head off and find a bus back into town. Well, it was a school-night after all.

Anyway, I’m sorry you missed it if you have missed it, but with any luck 3Rivers will brew it again next Spring. I know I for one would be highly tempted to track it down again if they did.

Brewery: 3Rivers
Origin: Stockport, England
ABV: 4.2%
Version: 500ml bottle
Source: Tesco

The two major chain supermarkets in our neck of the woods used to be pretty similar in terms of their range of beers. Then the local Tesco pretty much trashed their real ale section in favour of expanding its range of fizzy lagers. At roughly the same time, the local Sainsburys underwent a refit in which its real ale section roughly quadrupled in size. Guess where I do the weekly shop these days…

Having said that, though, I still have to remember to check the depleted and shell-shocked shelves in the former megamart from time to time, because very occasionally they’ll surprise me. Which is what happened a couple of weekends ago, when I found a single, lonely bottle of a new (to me) beer produced by local brewery: 3Rivers (of Stockport).

I can’t remember whether their Manchester IPA is bottle-conditioned or not – because I’ve recycled the bottle already and the 3Rivers website is in an interim rebuild phase at the moment, so I can’t double-check… oh darn, sounds like I’m going to have to sample it again – but I did make notes.

And I do distinctly remember that the overwhelming characteristic of this one was dark chocolate, both in the bottle-aroma and the flavour. I also noted that the beer was a smooth drinker with a pleasant bitterness and lingering coffee flavours. All of which sounds quite favourable to me and definitely worth a second outing.

Checking on ratebeer.com it seems that most of the reviews aren’t hugely favourable, but from what I gather 3Rivers is still a young brewery, so they have plenty of room to improve and I was impressed enough to want to keep an eye out for a draught version to sample. Maybe a trip down to Stockport might be in order, one of these weekends.