In the interests of supporting the local brewing industry I’ve decided to attempt to track down and try a couple of beers from each of the 25 independent breweries currently operating in Greater Manchester, as listed in the Good Beer Guide 2010. I realise that to some ways of thinking this may make me a ticker. I’ve been called worse than that, I’m sure.

I finally got my hands on a copy of this year’s Good Beer Guide a couple of weeks ago – in the end I cancelled my Amazon order and followed Ed’s tip, re-ordering from The Book Depository – so now I have the full list of 25 Greater Manchester breweries at my fingertips, and they are:

• 3 Rivers
• All Gates
• Bank Top
• Bazens’
• Boggart Hole Clough
• Cellar Rat [no website]
• Danetown [no longer brewing - see comments]
• Dunham Massey
• Green Mill
• Greenfield
• Holt’s
• Hornbeam
• Hydes
• J.W. Lee’s
• Leyden [no website]
• Marble
• Mayflower
• Millstone
• Outstanding
• Phoenix [no website]
• Pictish
• Prospect
• Robinson’s
• Saddleworth [no website]
• Shaw’s [no website]

A cursory scan shows that I’ve definitely sampled beers from a just under half of the list to-date: 3 Rivers, Boggart Hole Clough, Dunham Massey, Holt’s, Hyde’s, Lee’s, Marble, Outstanding, Phoenix and Robinson’s are all in the bag and I’ve got rough tasting notes for a few more somewhere in my notebook, I’m sure. Thanks to last week’s shed research) there are a couple from Bank Top and Leyden waiting for me in the beer cupboard as well.

It shouldn’t be too tricky to track down beers from most of the remaining breweries; they’re bound to turn up from time to time at places like the Marble Arch (they had a Millstone beer on the other week, but I didn’t have the list with me so I didn’t realise it was one I was keeping an eye out for), the City Arms or the Trackside.

That just leaves the slightly trickier ones: Cellar Rat beers are brewed using spare capacity at 3 Rivers in Stockport and tend to just turn up in local beer festivals. The Dane Town brewery is apparently on hiatus whilst the brewing operation at the Lowes Arms in Denton is re-established, unless they’re contract brewing via Hornbeam again. [Update: Tandleman and John Clarke tell me that Danetown is officially defunct now - see comments]

[Incidental note to the editors: is there any chance that next year, you could actually put the list of Greater Manchester's Independent Breweries in the breweries section, as well as the Greater Manchester recommended beers section>? That would seem a more logical place to stick it, surely?]

According to the latest CAMRA real ale Premier League table there are twenty-five breweries in the Greater Manchester area. This total puts us a slightly disappointing 11th in the table; well behind our always-friendly rivals over t’Pennines, West Yorkshire, who are sitting pretty in the top-spot with 34. (Dammit, we need to open another 10 breweries in Greater Manchester! Tandleman, Tyson, what are you waiting for?)

But anyhow, Wars of the Beer-Roses aside (that not actually being the point of my post) I’m immediately intrigued to know how many of those 25 breweries’ brews I’ve managed to sampled to-date. Off the top of my head I’d guess maybe half of them. Then again, the figure could actually be higher. So here’s the plan:

Step one: Obtain a copy of the list. That’ll involve purchasing a copy of this year’s Good Beer Guide, then. Right, over to Amazon.co.uk (sorry CAMRA shop, but they’re only asking £7.99 and I get free next-day Amazon Prime delivery as well) and that’s on the way now (along with a copy of Pete Brown‘s Hops and Glory – been meaning to read that for ages) and should be here tomorrow.

Step two: Double-check the list against my posted Tasting Notes to-date and the as-yet un-posted scribbles in my pocket notebook. I realise that this technically constitutes some form of ticker-like behaviour, but I’m prepared to take one for the team there, in the name of supporting local (indeed: locAle) businesses.

Step three: Aim to track down one example of each as-yet un-sampled brewery’s best beers, hopefully before the end of the year (it’s always good to set yourself a deadline for this sort of thing, I reckon).

I rather suspect that step three might be the best bit. And there’s a Manchester Beer Festival on in at least one of the Manchester city centre Wetherspoon’s branches in a couple of weeks. That might help.

Chocks away!