The north’s biggest beer festival is coming back to Manchester this October, as Indy Man Beer Con (IMBC) announces its official 2023 dates.
The beloved Manchester beer festival will return to its home at Victoria Baths from Thursday 5 to Sunday 8 October, welcoming some of the finest brewers from the UK and across the globe for four days of tastings, talks, and special beer collaborations.
Tickets have gone live as of today, 17 May, with presale tickets available from Port Street Beer House and The Beagle between6 and 9pm for those who want to make sure they don’t miss out.
Tickets for 2023 start from £14.50 and prices have been frozen, and for the first time ever customers can pre-order bundles of tokens with their tickets – also frozen from last year at a discounted rate of 10 for £25 that won’t be available anywhere else.
Breweries taking part are yet to be confirmed, but in previous years IMBC has welcomes the likes of … X
Some of these breweries will be with IMBC for the entire weekend, and others will only be in attendance for either the first half of the festival (Thursday/Friday) or the second half (Saturday/Sunday), with the changeover happening in advance of the opening session on Saturday.
As ever, there will also be a street food village at the event with pop-ups from a range of different eateries with everything from pies to pizzas, burgers and chips on hand.
First launched in Manchester in 2012, the festival has become somewhat of a mecca for northern beer lovers – with people travelling from far and wide to attend and sample all the different weird and wonderful beers on offer.
How to get tickets to IMBC 2023
This year, ticket have been frozen for IMBC despite a rise in costs. This also applies to token prices for those who purchase before 17 June.
Your ticket gains you admission to the festival, as well as a commemorative glass to keep (or to leave, if you’d rather not take it). To be clear: drinks tokens, ticketed tasting sessions, and food are not included with your ticket.
Refunds on both tickets and pre-ordered tokens will be available up until 11:59pm on Wednesday 20 September 2023 – after this point, IMBC will be unable to provide any refunds under any circumstances.
Token pre-order can only be done at the point of the ticket being purchased, as your pre-order will be linked to your tickets..
Tokens will function in the same way as they did in 2022: namely, in that it’ll be one token for one third of a beer across all three days.
Featured image – IMBC
Manchester
Inside Soots, the tiny new pasta restaurant in the Northern Quarter
Daisy Jackson
There’s another success story coming out of Altrincham Market – pasta kitchen Soots has gone and opened its very own restaurant in the Northern Quarter.
Owners and co-founders Ellie Proudfoot and Ruth Duarte have taken the leap to their very own bricks and mortar site on Tib Street, where they can serve up their handmade fresh pasta in their own restaurant space.
Named after their cocker spaniel Soots, the restaurant opens officially tomorrow.
The pair had hoped that Altrincham Market would be a launchpad to them eventually opening their first restaurant – and it’s worked brilliantly.
Inside Soots, it’s a cosy space with amazing green arches along the walls and a huge window that opens out onto this iconic Northern Quarter street.
Soots will again have a fully plant-based menu, broken down into snacks, small plates, pasta and puddings.
Everything is plant-basedEverything is plant-basedThe menu at SootsFresh, handmade pastaSmall plates
Expect heritage tomatoes with stracciatella and basil oil, butternut squash and chilli arancini, and a beautiful dish of marinated beetroot.
As for the pasta, there’ll be rigatoni with browned butter and confit tomatoes, sundried tomato-filled girella, and a lovely basil pesto spaghetti (a firm favourite from their Altrincham Market days).
And it wouldn’t be a pasta kitchen without a tiramisu on the dessert menu, along with lemon and olive oil ice cream, and white chocolate mousse.
Soots Pasta has been the first solo venture for Ellie, who used to work as a private chef as well as at restaurants around the region.
She’s taken her background – which includes culinary school in France – to create this modern European menu that takes inspiration from Italy.
What’s not immediately obvious, on reading the menu or eating it, is that everything on the Soots Pasta menu is entirely vegan – and they have gluten-free pasta available on request.
Soots Pasta is on Tib Street and officially opens on Saturday 9 Augst.
A mobile Manc cocktail bar is rolling into a thriving new Greater Mancheser neighbourhood
Danny Jones
Greater Manchester has plenty of up-and-coming areas both here in the city centre and out in the boroughs, and one of those – Middlewood Locks over in Salford – is about to be treated to its own mobile cocktail bar.
You’ve got to love a Manc-born and bred independent business.
The canalside New Makers Yards apartments on Middlewood Locks are some of the most desirable new homes and flats you’ll find on the outskirts of the city, but with their on-site Seven Brothers pub sadly closing earlier this year, it is lacking one key thing: somewhere to drink.
However, with Cocktail Cartel MCR rolling into town for National Rum Day, residents can get a taste of, hopefully, what’s more to come.
Cocktail Cartel is a brand new, completely independent mobile bar that’s already starting to take the events industry by storm.
Serving unique and innovative creations (including plenty involving Captain Jack’s go-to tipple), they’ll be slinging cocktails to the New Makers Yards natives along the stunning and ever-thriving Middlewood Locks this month.
Created by Katie and Erik, who have been working in Manchester’s hospitality scene for nearly 20 years combined, these two have a passion for supporting fellow local indies and bringing amazing drinks to the table wherever the opportunity presents itself.
From their ‘Grown Up Coke Float’, which has all the punch of a classic Long Island Iced Tea only with a scoop of toffee ice cream, chocolate sauce and sprinkles thrown in there, to a Pedro Pascal-inspired tequila numbers (yes, really), they have a lot of fun behind that bar.
Better still, most of their spirits are coming from local legends, Spirit of Manchester, and for this particular upcoming event, it wouldn’t be right to host National Rum Day in 0161’s second city without a gorgeous bit of Salford Rum.
But it doesn’t stop at just cocktails; the Cartel will also be pouring pints from nearby Track Brewery among various other regional favourites.
Once again, they’ll be popping up at New Makers Yard on Saturday, 16 August from noon onwards, promising rum, cocktails, beer, wine, cider and softies – so let’s just hope we get plenty of sun for it.
Keep an eye on their socials for how you might be able to grab some freebies also…
If you visited the most recent edition of Middlewood Locks Fest, you know this place is buzzing when the weather hits just right and the drinks are flowing. See you there.
Georgina Pellant -
17th May 2023 
