Lancs/Merseyside/Cheshire Micros

Recently George Wright (Rainford) has been putting some crackers out - esp a blonde & a StPat's night-related hoppy stout, both just lovely.

Brimstage (Wirral) brews a small, but really good range of beers, esp Trapper's Hat & Rhode Island Red (hoppy golden ale & redder bitter).

Higson's (recently resurrected in Bootle, Liverpool) has an old-style, but characterful dark-ish & "bitter" bitter, plus a seasonal stout at the mo.

Northern Brewing (nr Northwich) - brewing a range, incl. several US- hoppy golden ales, such as the lovely Northern Dancer.

In terms of micro news, I hope to have mine up & running on The Wirral, in a few months!

- brewing a range of ales + craft lager (we think cask & bottle only, initially) - we currently "cuckoo brew" at Northern (above) & sell bottled beer through local farmers' markets (see website for more).

I've also had good beer from WC (nano or picobrewing near Chester, with excellent website -

I think), Weetwood (nr Tarporley), Spitting Feathers, (nr Chester), Cambrinus (Knowsley), Jolly Brewer (Wrexham), Facer's (Flintshire) - OK those 2 are N.Wales! & there's prob a load more, but they're the ones springing to mind. Good luck! Cheers MikeMcG

Tell me more! Are the beers similar to the old ones?

Not even declared a DOCTYPE - I wouldn't call that excellent - very poor in fact.

go on - give us a clue, what's a doctype? & why does that make the site very poor?

(I was going to make some excruciating pun about "what your GP might use if his/her handwriting's really bad" but I'm glad I resisted)

I really like the way the site is set out & aside from the slight wearing nature of the (literally) toilet humour, to me it looks, works & reads a damn sight better than most other brewery sites. MikeMcG

DOCTYPES are essential to the proper rendering and functioning of web documents in compliant browsers. They tell browsers to render your page in standards-compliant mode, treating your (X)HTML, CSS, and DOM as you expect them to be treated - and thus your page(s) will render as you expect them to render.

If you use an outdated DOCTYPE, or none at all, the browser will attempt to parse your page in backward-compatible fashion, rendering your CSS as it might have looked in IE4, and reverting to a proprietary, browser-specific DOM.

There are also a fair number of coding errors.

I hate frames and I think the perceived wisdom these days is that they are a no no. But having said all of that, the site is easy to navigate and fairly pleasant on the eye. I've certainly seen a lot worse.

Breweries come and go all the time round our way, and I struggle to keep up with them all. But I can recommend the products of Dunham Massey Brewing Co: . Well, not sure about the Chocolate Cherry Mild, haven't tried that one yet!

As others have managed, George Wright also does some fine beers.

I was at DH last Saturday - wish I'd known about the brewery then!