The Central Manchester Slow Pub Crawl

Inspired by the suggestion of a friend (who goes by the name of 'barney') to do a year-long pub crawl of the pubs within the Manchester M60 ringroad (bit excessive that), spaceman has decided to undertake the honour of a pub crawl around the whole of central Manchester. There was never an intended time limit on this great task. Instead, the pub crawl was be done over a number of weeks and months (or even years, hence the word 'slow') making sure that every single pub and bar is visited. In the end, it took us a mere two and a half years. Truly, it was an epic.

The boundaries for such an expedition have been carefully set. The crawl zone is the area within Great Ancoats Street to the east (and to some extent north), The Mancunian Way to the south, the River Irwell to the west (which serves as the Salford-Manchester border) and Trinity Way to the north. The vast number of pubs and bars in this area can only be guessed at. But spaceman (with the help of barney) aims to find out.

Spaceman has now established in writing the official Rules of Engagement for the pub crawl and the best and worst of our grand beer tour can be seen in the Awards.

There will eventually be a map of the route for each day's pub crawl and a full map, which will highlight the catchment area.

Unfortunately, however, Big Brother is watching and we have been forced to remove said map pictures due to copyright infringement. Just think, there are actually people who spend their day looking for things like that. Oh dear. Anyway, undiscovered artist barney has offered to produce some hand-drawn maps. Spaceman wonders how they'll turn out (and indeed when)...

If anyone knows of any pubs or bars we miss out on our journey, please email spaceman. Any emailed comments, suggestions or witty anecdotes will be posted on the readers' comments page. (If you don't want your name put with your comment, say so).

Click here for the first day, day 1.