Northern exposure
Prosaic images of England’s north west – rain, flat caps, black pudding, Vimto, hot-pot, meat-and-potato pies – are easy to bring to mind but are evidence of lazy thinking. Exploration of the north west reveals a multifaceted cultural landscape proud of its industrial powerhouse glory years, home to world-influencing creativity and possessed of a tattyfilarious sense of humour (especially when Yorkshire is mentioned).
For our purposes the north west counts as Cheshire, Merseyside and Lancashire. Cumbria, where new breweries are appearing with every blink of the eye, is sadly excluded as it has already benefited from its own BotW feature. Also omitted are the cities of Liverpool and Manchester as they qualify for their own city features (though we have included their breweries in the listings here).
We hear a lot about Yorkshire and its resplendent virtues – generally from Yorkshire people, whether they’ve been asked or not – but a visitor from Mars, as the cliché goes, would point out the abundant similarities rather than differences between the north western counties and Yorkshire (“the Texas of Britain”) to the east.
And that includes a fondness for the odd pint.
If Yorkshire’s characteristic beer taste can be summarised as a pint of Tetley’s – nut brown malty, moderately bitter with some ephemeral rich fruit flavours. By comparison, the Lancastrian equivalent would be a shade or two lighter with a more noticeable lingering bitterness and dryness. Thwaites Original Bitt.....
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By Jeff Pickthall
Section : Regional Focus
Page number : 64
