Indian street food favourite Bundobust has been secretly brewing its own beer in Manchester for eight months – and now the creation is about to be revealed to the public.
The restaurant has always had a strong reputation for sourcing excellent craft beer, but this new batch has been made to certain specifications.
Head brewer Dan Hocking has been quietly working away at the new brewery on Oxford Road for the best part of a year, using the lockdown-forced reopening delays to play around with new specialty ingredients.
The new Chaitro beer – a smooth and creamy Porter with roast malts, chai masala and fresh ginger / Image: Bundobust
To kick things off, he’s created three new bespoke house beers – a coriander lager, a masala chai porter and a tropical pale ale – that will be available exclusively at Bundobust restaurants.
Now they’re about ready for drinking, meaning they will all be available to try in Manchester at Bundobust’s Piccadilly restaurant from tomorrow, Thursday 24 June.
The new beers will also be available at Bundobust restaurants in Leeds and Liverpool.
New drinks set to be revealed include their 5 percent Chaitro beer – a smooth and creamy Porter with roast malts, chai masala and fresh ginger.
Then, there’s the Peela – an easy-drinking 4 per cent hazy pale ale with tropical fruit flavours.
And last but not least, there’s an adventurous coriander lager the Dhania Pilsner is available at 4.8 per cent.
The popular Indian restaurant’s new brewery is housed in a site on Manchester’s Oxford Road, with construction first starting in 2019.
The home of Bundobust’s secret brewery, due to open to the public later this summer / Image: Bundobust
Initial plans for the venue included a second restaurant and brewhouse, with a small private room in the brewhouse for paired dinners and events but these were postponed by the pandemic.
This delay, however, has given the head brewer time to experiment with more adventurous ingredients.
“It’s been really great to have that time, with no deadlines or pressure, to just focus on the beer and how we can make it exactly how we want it,” said Dan.
“Not a lot of breweries can say they had eight months of practice on the kit before they sold a single beer, so in that respect, I feel really lucky to have had this time to play around.”
All new beers have been created to complement different dishes at Bundbost / Image: Bundobust
Previously at experimental Dutch brewery Uiltje, Dan knows a thing or two about working with weird and wonderful ingredients.
This will come in handy at Bundobust, where the plan seems to be to mix up traditional beer styles with more unusual flavours that will complement their food.
Housed in a unique 100-year-old space within the iconic Grade II listed St James building, the brewery is a custom-built 10-hectolitre facility capable of producing 20,000 pints a month.
Bundobust plans to open its Oxford road brewtap and restaurant in late summer 2021.
Feature image – Bundobust.
Eats
Award-winning chippy in Prestwich announces heartbreaking restaurant closure
Daisy Jackson
Chips @ No. 8, a chippy in Prestwich that’s lauded as one of the best in the UK, has announced the sad closure of its restaurant.
The award-winning takeaway made some big moves last year, expanding into the unit next door so that they could comfortable double their space downstairs and add a restaurant upstairs.
The restaurant was a brand-new concept for the much-loved Prestwich chippy, serving a seafood-focused menu that wasn’t necessarily all about the fryer.
But sadly, Chips @ No. 8 has announced that the restaurant element of its business, Loft @ No. 8, has closed for good.
They wrote that the economic climate and the huge amount of choice in Prestwich has left them struggling to fill seats in the chippy restaurant.
The good news is that the fish and chip shop itself remains open for business and thriving, and customers will be able to use the former restaurant space to eat their takeaway in.
The bar downstairs also remains open for business for a cheeky pint or glass of wine while you wait for your order.
The Loft @ No. 8 is closing. Credit: The Manc GroupCurry sauce on a Chips @ No 8 chippy tea. Credit: The Manc Group
In a statement, Chips @ No. 8 said: “It is with great sadness that we announce the closure of Loft.
“With so many great places to eat in Prestwich, and the economic climate being what it is, we have struggled recently to fill enough seats to continue to make it a financially viable side to our business.
“I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support whilst we were open, the team for their efforts, in particular, Craig, the creator of the delicious food that we had on offer up there.
“Chips @ No.8 remains open as normal and going forward, we are opening up the space upstairs for additional casual seating for the takeaway.
“The bar will remain open so you can still enjoy a pint or a glass of wine with your fish & chips, even if it is out of a box! We hope to see you soon!”
There’s a tiny Japanese restaurant inside a Manchester cafe serving matcha afternoon tea
Daisy Jackson
There’s a tiny little Japanese restaurant space in Manchester tucked inside a coffee shop – and they’ve just started serving matcha afternoon teas.
Niwa Yakitori is a brilliant addition to the city centre – by day, it’s sharing the space at North Star Piccadilly and operating as a matcha cafe.
And by night, it transforms the space into a cosy Japanese restaurant, complete with paper lanterns, bamboo plants, and neon signs.
While the word-of-mouth restaurant space is a real rising star thanks to its menu of freshly barbecued chicken and seafood, as well as delicious flights of sake, it’s the new matcha afternoon tea that we popped in for this time around.
Each table is presented with a tiered tower of treats infused with the popular Japanese green tea, and this is some world-class baking that’s going on at Niwa Yakitori.
Let’s break it down, tier by tier, to give you an idea of what you can get.
Up first is a Japanese egg mayo sandwich, made with fluffy shokupan bread and Kewpie mayo, then sprinkled in Furikake for a little bit of salt and texture.
The Japanese egg mayo sandoStrawberry sando with matcha creamThe half-and-half cookieMatcha basque cheesecakeScones with matcha cream and yuzu jamJapanese afternoon tea in Manchester
Also joining the sandwich line-up are strawberry sandos (yes, the ones that M&S had a go at this summer), made with a matcha cream and more of that pillow-soft shokupan.
Moving on up, and what afternoon tea would be complete without some scones? These ones come with a matcha cream and a yuzu and chilli jam. Divine.
Then the very top tier has a gang of miniature treats, including an adorable teddy bear-shaped matcha chocolate truffle; a matcha muffin; and a matcha-infused madeleine.
A real star is the chunky cookie, a clever half-half yin-yang of matcha and white chocolate, vs vanilla and dark chocolate.
Niwa Yakitori is a tiny Japanese restaurant in ManchesterJapanese afternoon tea in ManchesterMatcha and hojita at Niwa Yakitori
And they show off their baking prowess with a slice of matcha basque cheesecake, with three layers and a scoop of strawberry ice cream on top.
All washed down with ceremonial-grade matcha or hojicha lattes, which can be made table-side in a traditional tea ceremony.
The team at Niwa Yakitori are hoping this afternoon tea will fill crucial tables in their tiny space at a time where hospitality is being crippled with rising costs.
So please, for the love of all that is matcha, get this lovely Manchester Japanese spot on your list to visit.
Georgina Pellant -
23rd June 2021 
