Swiggin' In Wigan

On Friday, I went for a drink in Wigan with my young friend Helen, a fellow trade unionist until I succeeded in escaping last year. Helen joined CAMRA at the Wigan Beer Festival earlier this year, but tends to prefer cider to ale. Our first drink was in the Berkeley, a pleasant,comfortable pub just across the road from the railway station, and the beer was a rather nice Prospect golden ale, the exact name of which has slipped my mind. Prospect beers are usually worth seeking out.

A few minutes walk away down a side street and scarcely visible from the main road is the John Bull, a rock pub with an excellent juke box, and serving 3 Thwaites beers, Original, Wainwright and Bomber. The Wainwright seemed a little insipid to me, so I stuck with the Bomber. I didn't get around to trying the Original. We met some other reps there on their Friday night out. A great pub, but with my hearing being what it is due to too much heavy rock in the 1980s, I found conversing difficult.

The final pub was the Anvil, a pub that has won many awards from the local CAMRA branch. There was a selection of golden ales: Banks & Taylor Golden Fox, Northumberland Jolly Rogers Ale and Bad Ass True Blonde cask lager. All were pleasant but tended to taste much of a muchness to me.

There are other good pubs in Wigan, which is well worth a trip out for a change of scenery and a few different beers. I intend to publish a proper pub crawl of Wigan some time in the Southport CAMRA magazine, Ale and Hearty, but as a starter these three pubs are worth trying.