Pubs With B&B near National Winter Ales Festival

Greenfield is a small village on the edge of Manchester at the foothills of the Pennines. If you particularly fancy staying in a rural setting, there are direct trains to Victoria (which is near the festival venue) which take

Personally, I'd look for something a bit more central, and not have to worry about the last train, because in Britain the railway companies like to make sure that everyone who lives outside of central London is tucked up in bed by 10pm.

My usual first internet stop in these situations is virtualtourist.com, because it's simply consumer reviews. The Manchester accomodation pages are at

I hope you enjoy the festival. Our CAMRA branch is going down on the Friday, I think.

One of Manc's best R.A. pubs, the Smithfield in Swan Street, does B&B, as does the Burton Hotel a few doors down. Both are near the venue and actually

Bit of a struggle, I'm afraid. There are very few pubs these days that offer both good cask ale along with B and B - not within easy reach of city centre Manchester anyway.

Of those pubs that do offer both ale and a bed, many will be block booked by staff working at NWAF.

I think you might do better to consider staying in a separate hotel, of which there are many more than there used to be, with a lot of Ibis/Travelodge type accommodation now. There are plenty of good pubs within staggering distance of city centre hotels. How about Jury's Inn - a hotel, not really an inn, unfortunately - on Great Bridgewater Street, surrounded by the remarkable Britons Protection, the Rain Bar and the Peveril of the Peak?

If you have your heart set on staying under the same roof as your beer, then you might consider the Ox (formely Oxnoble) on Liverpool Road: . It has 9 rooms and fairly good if expensive ale (not GBG listed though). Or Galvin's (formerly the Crown) on Deansgate, but the ale range there is limited.

Otherwise, think of somewhere like Bolton, Bury or Altrincham, all of which towns have high frequency bus, train or tram links with the city centre. I can't think of an ideal pub just off the top of my head, but others may know of some.

Or Salford, which is a lot closer to Manchester city centre than Bolton or Bury!

There's not much by way of B and B in Salford, not at the Manchester end at any rate. The only place that comes to my mind is a place that used to be called Dolby's Hotel or something similar and now has a new name. It's a fairly modern, "budget" hotel at the junction of Trinity Way and Blackfriars Road, opposite the Renault garage. Probably 20 minutes walk from the NWAF venue, and 10 minutes from interesting places like the Kings Arms (Bloom Street) and the Eagle (Collier Street).