Hot chicken and cold beer at Manchester’s first ‘lagerhouse’

Hot chicken. Cold beer. Two truly fine things indeed. Possibly even two of the best things, when you think about it.

We’ve a few people to thank for bringing them together in this latest instance of holy matrimony, set to open in Manchester this week.

Manchester Union, the indie brewery from Piccadilly’s ever-growing brewery quarter, will be providing the amber stuff, while the good people from Trof will be supplying the burnished poultry to go with it, from a gleaming new rotisserie.

It will all be happening at Trading Route. It hopes to be more than just a bar and kitchen, though. A hub for the burgeoning St John’s neighbourhood, which is now home not only to an increasing number of residents, but also companies like Booking.com, games developer Cloud Imperium and communications multi-national WPP.

And not to mention Factory International next door, and the Manchester branch of Soho House, due to open next year.

For these good folk – either resident or just visiting – there will now be a fine new neighbourhood bar, as well as ‘provisions’ – a selection of great wine, cheese, charcuterie, sandwiches and some selected store cupboard essentials, as well as coffee takeouts – in the front, in collaboration with upscale Salford grocery Wandering Palate. This bit will be open from 8am daily too for breakfast takeout.

Manchester Union co-founders Jamie Cahill and Will Evans had been looking for a venue to open for three years, looking at more than 30 sites before snaring this one to work as a suitable shopfront for their beer.

“It was always going to be more beer hall style, but we’ve polished that a little bit,” says Jamie. “So rather than spit and sawdust, y’know, we’ve got the rotisserie.” Indeed, the place has been designed by PHAUS, the company behind the likes of The Jane Eyre and Erst, so it’s pretty smart looking.

While most other Manchester breweries – and breweries in general – spread their output around between IPAs, sours, stouts, double IPAs, triple IPAs, saisons, porters (you get the idea), Manchester Union make lager and only lager, a process which is a bit more involved and takes a fair few weeks longer than your average IPA, which can be knocked up far more quickly.

It’s worth the wait though. The taps at the Trading Route will be pouring their classic Manchester Union Lager, their brooding, soon-to-be-heavily-Instagrammed Manchester Union Black lager, and nothing else (though you can request half and half too).

The taps themselves (‘the only ones in existence’, says Will) have been fabricated specially, inspired by a trip to Vienna to a bar called the Schweizerhaus, which, similarly, serves nothing but beer and pork knuckles all day long.

The taps have been designed to give your pint an extra large head, which pokes out from the top of their specially crafted glasses (called ‘tübingers’) so drinkers will get the full, unmitigated fragrance. One tap will pour solely foam, while a second fills the glass with lager. A third tap then tops the glass up. They’ve put a tremendous amount of thought into this, not least the theatre of it. They want to become known as the ‘home of foam’.

“It’s kind of like a conveyor belt of beer,” says Will. “But you get most of the flavour of the lager from the aroma, so we’re giving the beers a big head to deliver that aroma. We want to be famous in Manchester for lager. Not for making all beers.”

They plan to bring in a Vienna-style lager in the New Year, and perhaps the odd ‘zoigl’ (another lager-adjacent brew), but other than that, it will be an extremely pared down selection, championing a style of beer which, thanks to the catch-all suffix ‘lout’, has long been misleadingly derided.

The style also appeals strongly to Ian Johnson, their other partner and brewmaster, who makes the stuff, and also happens to be a neuro scientist.

In the fridges, there will be cans from a few of their Piccadilly brewing brethren, the likes of Sureshot, Track and Cloudwater, but their own brews will be taking top billing. And quite rightly.

From the rotisserie, you’ll be able to get a whole or half chicken, served with pickles, along with freshly baked focaccia, and small plates like slow-roasted potatoes with chicken fat mayonnaise and salsa verde.

“The idea is to have a few more of these,” says Jamie. “Whether it’s in a city centre or a version of it in the suburbs.”

Big plans. But every neighbourhood deserves its own lagerhouse. Bring them on.