Beer: The real cream of Manchester

Mancunians like to think they’re a bit different. There’s an attitude that goes with coming from the city that began with the late 1980s music scene and has, in some cases, mutated into bandy-legged, gurning self-parody. This manifests itself most obviously in pop and football, but the people of Manchester believe they’re a cut above: anything London can do, as Tony Wilson would have had it, Manchester can do better.

Well, ‘better’ is a matter of personal opinion – but it’s true that Manchester has tended to do things its own way. That’s as evident in beer as in anything else: the city has a long-standing affection for bitter, straw-coloured ales (like Boddington’s of old) that predates the current worldwide obsession with New World hops. Boddingtons’ Strangeways brewery, sadly, is no longer in operation but that hop-loving tradition lives on in the city, in the shape of the Marble Brewery.

Marble has established itself in a short time as one of the most interesting breweries in England. Like hundreds of operations around the world, they’ve benefitted from a growing desire for good beer. Unlike those other breweries, though, Marble have that Manchester heritage to call on -  their Manchester Bitter, for example, is more than just a great pint. “That’s our best-selling beer,” says James Campbell, the head brewer. “It’s a pale, mid-strength, hoppy bitter beer, as was drunk in Manchester 30 years ago. That’s the tradition here.”

It’s a tradition that Marble embrace. “We like hoppy beers, make no mistake, but there’s more to it than a blunt instrument. We like balanced beers; we try to achieve an elegant hop character. That’s different from a big hop character. It’s a fine point, but you want something that people want to come back to.”

Certainly the quality of Marble’s beers has made the Marble Arch (pictured below) and its sister pub, the Marble Beer House in Chorlton, real destinations for serious beer drinkers. The former has until recently doubled as part of Marble’s brewing operation, but that’s coming to an end. All the brewing is moving to a site 200 yards down the road where capacity has been increased in order to deal with growing demand.

“The building won’t stand up to brewing anymore,” says Campbell (right). “It was designed to brew twice a week for a short while and it’s been brewing six times a week for many years. It’s knocked seven bells out of the building.

“We’ve gone from strength to strength of late – we can sell everything we make. It’s a very nice position to be in. Being on one site is very helpful; you can keep a closer eye on things. We’re very positive and happy about the way things have gone in the last few years.”

Marble’s output amounts to more than just hoppy pale ales, though, as good as they are (“We do a very broad range,” says Campbell. “I was looking at the stock the other day and I had 20 different products there. We’re a quality led outfit and we like to experiment”). Recently they made a Tripel – a Belgian-style strong ale –and there are plans for a Saison to be brewed in collaboration with Mark Tranter of Sussex’s Dark Star Brewery. Like Dark Star, Marble is a brewery that deals in both British tradition and more unusual – for these shores – offerings.

“That (Tripel) was an interesting beer to do – it’s a Belgian style Tripel but it not really,” says Campbell. “It’s brewed in Manchester with British equipment; we used a Belgian yeast for it and we used a lot more barley yeast than most Belgian triples use. We also put more bitterness in, and an awful lot of Kiwi hops. I think they’ve got a more elegant aroma than US hops.”

Campbell, 39, is clearly a student of beer history, something that has its roots in his youth in Birmingham. He’s worked for the Firkin chain, for a brewery in Tipperary and another in Dublin plus a stint down in Sussex. It all started, he says, with some of those ales he tasted in his West Midlands youth.

“It was a beer called Holts Entire that really got me interested,” he says.  “A lot of the beers in Birmingham were on the sweet side: Ansell’s was on the sweet side, not particularly hoppy, not particularly bitter. It was like drinking mild. Holts Entire had a really nice hop character, it was a tawnyish session beer, only about 3.9 per cent. It had a very distinct hop character, and that got me into drinking beer.”

In 2000 he came to Marble, which is where he’s stayed ever since. In that time Marble have become a vegan brewery, something that is rarer than you might think. Fish finings are often used to clarify beer, but not at Marble. “Strict vegetarians can’t drink beer, largely,” says Campbell. “We’d like it to be available to them. One of our pubs is opposite the largest organic vegan supermarket in the north-west, so quite a lot of our customers are vegetarians!”

But it’s not just vegetarians who enjoy Marble’s beers. In a nation increasingly interested in what they eat and drink, Marble’s quality-led approach is right at home. “People are a bit wiser to beer than they used to be,” says Campbell. “When I worked for the Firkin chain there was an assumption that because you were on a small plant and you didn’t have big shiny branding, that your beer should therefore be cheaper, but it cost an arm and a leg more to make.

“The nation is more interested in good quality foodstuffs overall these days. It’s all to the good. I enjoy my dinner as much as the next man and the better it is, the better for me!”

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