Manchester’s first wunderbar has taken to the street with the opening of its brand new outdoor terrace.
Now that ‘Step Two’ in the government’s roadmap to lifting England’s current national lockdown has commenced – which crucially allowed hospitality businesses to reopen for outdoor service only – Manchester’s iconic bier palace, Albert’s Schloss, has unveiled a glorious Alpine-inspired outdoor terrace in the heart of the city centre – Schloss Straße.
Inspired by Alpine summers and al fresco dining of continental Europe, Schloss Straße is a 100-cover, partially-heated terrace situated on Peter Street directly outside the venue.
There’ll be a summer-themed drinks menu, biers and Alpine cook haus delights.
For drinks, Schloss Straße will serve a range of Bavarian tap biers, Fresh Unpasteurised Pilsner Urquell, plus Schloss’ very own Manchester Rein, highballs, spritz and Sommer cocktails – including Strawberry Spritz, Pear Old Fashioned, Chinotto White Negroni and Alpina Colada.
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‘Gülden Hour’ boozing will take place every Monday to Friday 4-7pm, with highballs and spritz for £5, Kozel for £4, and bottles of prosecco for only £20.
Albert’s Schloss
The acclaimed cook haus will serve a range of Alpine-inspired delights, from small plates including meatballs and cambozola, garlic bread and hummus and flatbread, to classics like fish fritz and pan-fried Schnitzel.
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The Cook Haus will also be serving up a rotating sandwich of the week, a Cook Haus special, and a selection of classic burgers and wursts.
As night falls, Schloss Straße will welcome live entertainment, DJs and promenaders.
Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, some of Manchester’s finest DJ’s will be on the Straße decks, including Jonjo Williams, Hattie Pearson and DJ Paulette, and this weekend will see the return of the infamous ‘Sunday Service’ with a selection of Sunday roasts available throughout the day and DJ Paulette DJ’ing in the afternoon to keep your weekend hanging on as long as possible.
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Albert’s Schloss
Advanced booking is required, with drinks bookings available all day from 12-9:45pm and food bookings available from 12-9:15pm up until Sunday 16th May.
After this date, outdoor tables will operate on a first-come-first-served basis.
This Manchester bar serves a bottomless cheese fondue with endless beer and wine
Georgina Pellant
There’s a bar in Manchester serving a bottomless cheese fondue with endless wine and beer, and it honestly sounds like the perfect treat.
While it might scream cosy winter night in, with a huge outdoor terrace, The Mews is also a firm favourite during the summer months.
Add in a board of melt-in-the-mouth charcuterie, springy pieces of garlic sourdough and a host of crunchy cheese biscuits, and you’ve got yourself the ideal afternoon if you ask us.
But there’s more. Alongside all that cheese and meat and bread, included in the price of The Mews’ bottomless fondue, cheese lovers can also enjoy 90 minutes of non-stop drinks.
Bottomless cheese fondue at The Mews on Deansgate in Manchester. (Credit: The Manc Eats)
Costing £37.50 each, included in the deal is a huge pot of melted Italian Fontina cheese served with homemade garlic croutons, sourdough crackers, and slices of British charcuterie.
You’ll also get to enjoy an hour and a half of endless pints of house pilsner and carafes of red or white wine to enjoy alongside.
Serving up to six people, the bottomless cheese fondue is available only when you pre-book, so make sure to get in touch ahead of your visit to let The Mews know that you’re coming.
If you’re not on the sauce, you can opt for the cheese fondue alone. Without the booze, it’s quite a bit cheaper at £25 for one, and £2.50 on top for any additional people who want to get stuck in.
Housed up on Deansgate Mews, just behind the main hustle and bustle of Deansgate, there’s plenty of space inside as well as a large, secluded terrace that is quite the suntrap (when the Manchester sun is shining).
‘The average cost of a pint’ in the UK by region, according to the latest data
Danny Jones
Does it feel like pints keep getting more and more expensive almost every week at this point? Yes. Yes, it does, and while you can’t expect a city as big as Manchester to be one of the cheapest places to get one in the UK, we do often wonder how it compares to other parts of the country.
Well, as it happens, someone has recently crunched the numbers for us across the nation, breaking down which regions pay the most and the least for their pints.
The data has been examined by business management consultancy firm, CGA Strategy, using artificial intelligence and information from the latest Retail Price Index figures to find out what the ‘average cost of a pint’ is down south, up North and everywhere in between.
While the latest statistics provided by the group aren’t granular enough to educate us on Greater Manchester’s pint game exactly, we can show you how our particular geographic region is looking on the leaderboard at the moment.
That’s right, we Mancunians and the rest of the North West are technically joint mid-table when it comes to the lowest average cost of a pint, sharing the places from 3rd to 8th – according to CGA, anyway.
Powered by consumer intelligence company, NIQ (NielsenIQ) – who also use AI and the latest technology to deliver their insights – we can accept it might seem like it’s been a while since you’ve paid that little for a pint, especially in the city centre, but these are the stats they have published.
Don’t shoot the messenger, as they say; unless, of course, they’re trying to rob you blind for a bev. Fortunately, we’ve turned bargain hunting at Manchester bars into a sport at this point.
We might not boast the lowest ‘average’ pint cost in the UK, but we still have some bloody good places to keep drinking affordable.
London tops the charts (pretends to be shocked)
While some of you may have scratched your eyes at the supposed average pint prices here in the North West, it won’t surprise any of you to see that London leads the way when it came to the most expensive pint when it came to average cost in the UK.
To be honest, £5.44 doesn’t just sound cheap but virtually unheard of these days.
CGA has it that the average cost of a beer in the British capital is actually down 15p from its price last September, but as we all know, paying upwards of £7 for a pint down that end of the country is pretty much par for the course the closer you get to London.
Yet more reason you can be glad you live around here, eh? And in case you thought you were leaving this article with very little, think again…
Emily Sergeant -
21st April 2021 
