The quirky Manchester brewery with some of the funniest beer names in the city
Having co-founded Cloudwater Brew Co and spent thirteen years at Marble before that, Sureshot's head brewer is as knowledgeable about beer as his wit is dry.
Independent breweries and taprooms have been having a real moment in Manchester.
Over the past decade, there’s been a real gold rush with the advent of Piccadilly’s beer mile heralding a whole new era for local brewers and drinkers alike.
In fact, the choice nowadays is overwhelming – with some feeling a bit out of their depth given the never-ending element of choice. For others, though, that is the fun of the whole thing.
As a keen beer drinker and taproom fan, it has been a treat to have so many exciting indie breweries springing up in recent years.
Even if a few sadly had to close their doors because of rising energy costs, we’ve still got plenty left – not least relative newcomer Sureshot, a quirky Manchester brewery with some of the funniest beer names in the city.
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Brewed ‘from the belly of Manchester’, this fairly young brewery is all about not taking itself too seriously. If you were in any doubt, all you need to do is scan its beer list which is chock full of silly names like Have Thee Nowt Moist, Jabroni, Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew,Underwhelming Kazoo Party, and (my personal favourite) Eighteen Free Personalised Fridge Magnets.
Some reference TV shows, like the Arrested Development-inspired IPA They’re Not Tricks They’re Illusions, or the Mr. Blobby-inspired Dunblobbin, promoted by the team at last year’s Indy Man Beer Con by one of their team strolling around in a life-size pink, white and yellow costume.
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Image: Supplied
Image: Supplied
The Sureshot Brewery beer list. / Image: The Manc Eats
Others are reflective of in-jokes shared by the small brewing team, who manage to churn out tens of thousands of pints a week according to head brewer James Campbell.
With decades of experience under his belt, James is as knowledgeable about beer as his wit is dry. The result is that in just three years Sureshot has cemented itself firmly in the ranks with some of the city’s most exciting breweries.
Having co-founded Cloudwater Brew Co in 2014 after thirteen years spent heading up the brewing operation at Marble Beers, James has spent decades living and breathing all things beer, not to mention shaping the direction of some of Manchester’s most popular breweries on the way.
But whilst the beer inside Sureshot’s cans is made of serious stuff, everything else about this young, fun brewery is decidedly unserious – and that’s the whole joy of it.
Sitting down with James, he outlines his background a little and it soon becomes clear that this is a man who knows his stuff. As he puts it, he’s been brewing “since God knows when, I think 96, a long time, yeah.”
A serial head brewer at some of the city’s most respected breweries, today he runs Sureshot with his business partner Michael.
Image: The Manc Eats
Image: The Manc Eats
“I was at Marble for thirteen years as the head brewer there, and then I did a year of consultancy, I was involved in Brewsmith and Runaway and Barcelona Beer Cat.
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“Whilst I was doing that, I was involved in setting up Cloudwater,” he adds, revealing he wrote the first five hundred recipes for Cloudwater before moving on in 2018 with a plan to start his own brewery.
“This is it,” he deadpans, as if I didn’t know we were sitting in it.
In the time it took to set Sureshot up, he also worked as a project lead on the DEYA and Verdant brewery plant builds – but maintains that, whilst they were great jobs, there is no better feeling than having his own place.
“So myself and Mike had a lot of chat about it and a lot of thought about it. Our original beer was with Vocation, that was during the middle of lockdown, they offered us the opportunity to do a beer with them.
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“Matt at Vocation I’ve known since Marble days, he’s a good lad and he’s a really good brewer so we said yeah, why the hell not, did a double IPA with them and it ended up in Tesco.”
“It was quite weird [for our first beer to go onto the supermarket shelves], but it was a very weird time. You know, it was the middle of lockdown, there were no pubs open and, it was like, well, ‘how are we going to do this'” he laughs.
Image: Supplied
Image: The Manc Eats
“That all came together nicely. So, er, we were looking at ways of doing this and how to, how to skin a cat basically, which is unfortunate if you’re a cat.”
“Track had bought a new brewery, I mean we wanted to go for something a bit bigger than this originally but nobody knew what shape the world was going to be the other side of lockdown so, er it makes people risk averse and borrowing expensive so we spoke to Sam at Track and said ‘what are you doing with that brewery you no longer need?'”
After arriving at a figure and buying the brewery, Sureshot officially moved in on 25 January 2022 and stuck the first brew, called How Much Does Water Weigh, through that same day. Within a month, beer number one was out for sale in the world – and the rest, as they say, is history.
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Three years on from its inception, Sureshot’s name is up there with some of the most established brewers in the city.
At its taproom, the team hosts regular events – welcoming in pop-up supper clubs such as Our Place and The Little Sri Lankan, as well as working alongside its neighbouring breweries to host big block parties where beer fans can go from bar to bar, sampling different drinks as they go.
As well as brewing up a storm from its Sheffield Street location, you can also just pop in for a quiet pint with the taproom open from Wednesday to Sunday every week.
The next Block Party takes place this month, with Sureshot, Cloudwater, Track, and Balance Brewing all joining forces on 15 July for a big. boisterous summer edition celebrating the Piccadilly area’s established and growing craft beer scene.
Featured image – The Manc Eats
Feature
Five Manchester artists we’ve been listening to this month | May 2025
Danny Jones
Oh, hey, didn’t see you there. Come looking for more top Manc tunage, have we? You’re in luck, because Greater Manchester just keeps pumping out top bands and artists all the time, hence why we do this.
If you’re new around these parts, first of all, welcome and secondly, the whole thing is very simple: every month, we round up some of the best talents coming out of 0161 and talk about why we like them. I know, groundbreaking stuff, right?
They don’t have to be born and bred in Manchester, but they do need to have made this their music home – the first the correct career decision they made, the second being working their way into our ears.
So, now all the housekeeping is done and dusted, let’s dive into some delightful new Manchester music, shall we?
Five Manc bands and artists we’ve been listening to recently
1. IST IST
This month we’re starting off with one of those Manchester bands that may not be new but still crop up for us at regular intervals to remind us of two things: first of all, that they’re brilliant and secondly, that they should have featured on our regular round-up of artists a long time ago.
We’re talking about IST IST, who returned with another live, multiple LP-spanning compilation (plus some extras) this past March, which we’ve had on plenty over the past month. It goes without saying that they sound brilliant live, and we feel bad for only just remembering how good and prolific they’ve been.
You always get plenty of New Order, but also White Lies and Editors; Future Islands, The National and lots of other baritone-driven bands that bring that element of melodrama to layer over the instruments themselves. ‘You’re Mine’ might be their biggest track, but ‘The Kiss’ and ‘Exist’ are also favourites.
2. Robbie Cavanagh
Now, we all know that country music is having a real moment right now and we, for one, couldn’t be happier about it, to be completely frank. Though arguably simplistic at times, it’s soulful, often impressively pared-back, and when something does impress you lyrically or technically, it sticks.
With that in mind, we recently realised that award-winning songwriter Robbie Cavanagh has been on somewhat of a comeback since 2023, and we hadn’t noticed until painfully recently. Returning after a six-year hiatus – bar some little ditties during lockdown – his latest project has some of his best work yet.
Fully tilting from folk into country and folk, the stunning vocalist belatedly blew us away with the bluesy single ‘Helpless’ and a gorgeous new collaboration with solo artist, Abby Gundersen (equally talented sister of Noah), but please still start with his 2016 Mahogany Session, where it arguably all began.
Named after Manchester city centre’s famously eclectic indie emporium, Afflecks Palace have never quite blown up in the way they way we thought they would when we first came across them years ago, but there’s still plenty of time and we’ll be damn it if they don’t deserve more regular listeners.
You’ll also be glad to know that, despite the name, they aren’t one of those trite, overly performative bands who wear a stereotypical Manc-ness on their sleeve that we sometimes come across; they’re just good and deserve a lot more recognition for their contribution to the neo-pysch genre.
As for where to start, we’ll admit we prefer their first album; ‘Forever Young’ is noodley and catchy, ‘Everything Is an Attempt to Be Human’ has those shoegazey guitars, but it just doesn’t get better than the incomparable ‘Pink Skies’, which still makes us feel some type of way – we just can’t quite describe.
We just love it. ‘Nu-Madchester’, or whatever you want to call it, its distinct sunniness never fails to tickle a part of our brains.
4. Findlay
Next up is Stockport singer-songwriter Findlay, who released more new music this past February, and has been making indie pop that ropes in plenty of other influences for more than a decade now.
That being said, she’s always experimenting with her sound, as her collabs with Blossoms, Miles Kane, Bill Ryder-Jones, Joris Delacroix have shown, and this latest iteration seems to have her tapping into everything from almost 50s and 60s female soul singers to slow electronic and more.
We love the smooth sexiness and sheer ambition of her latest single, ‘Stay Kinky’ and ‘Waste My Time’ always feels like a late-night chiller fit for music video set in a dingey bar, however, we still have a soft spot for her debut, ‘Your Sister’, with the riff that’s almost reminiscent of ‘Blockbuster’ by Sweet.
Last but not least, it’s the second time we’re featuring a returning artist and it comes in the form of young Alex Spencer, whose journey from busking around the streets of Greater Manchester to sold-out headlines shows and featuring on the likes EA Sports FC 25 (yes, FIFA) is a truly remarkable one.
The charming and still fresh-faced local lad from Droylsden is nothing short of proof that hard work and determination can pay off, and those ‘Bucket List’ dreams really are within reach. Obvious talent aside, this teenager has grafted his arse off and we couldn’t be more proudof how far he’s come already.
He last featured in this round-up back in April 2024 but even in the time between then, he’s released plenty and developed even further as musician, so much so that we’re not going to suggest which songs to try; instead, you can watch our most recent interview with him and relive his last year or so with us.
I’m Alex Spencer and This is my journey so far!
8 years of my music journey summed up in 1 minute 55😅 Thankyou to everyone who’s followed my journey so far, to anyone new or to anyone who doesn’t know my story, I made this video to show where it all started and how I got here❤️ pic.twitter.com/Hi3W7MHMxX
So, the next time you hear someone foolishly complaining that the Greater Manchester music scene ‘isn’t what it once was’, you can go right ahead of show them these bands and artists.
In fact, you could just point them in the direction of this very page and Audio North, in general, as we do this round-up every month and plenty more every week, meaning you’re headphones never dry up.
For instance, you can check out which Manchester bands and artists we were listening to back in April, both new, current and old, down below. We’ll see you again very soon.
Bruce Springsteen’s unforgettable final night at Co-op Live in Manchester – just wow…
Danny Jones
It’s rare you get to see legends in real life, especially this up close and personal, but there’s still just one key word that keeps coming to mind when we think of seeing Bruce Springsteen in Manchester at the Co-op Live last night: surreal.
We still can’t quite believe that he was here in Manchester, in the flesh, for three separate nights, but we do intend to replay it in our heads over and over again until it fully sinks in.
Springsteen, ‘The Boss’, Brucey, whatever you want to call him, there really is something to be said for someone who’s been going this long and still exerts so much energy at 75.
That goes for his desperately loyal and dedicated crowds, too. The legions that marched down ‘Thunder Road’ and back down the CityLink walking route and the Ashton canal in supreme spirits after all was said and done gave as good as they got.
We can only assume Springsteen was as incredible on the first night at Co-op Live as he was on the last. (Credit: Audio North)
From singing back every chorus to the chants of “Bruuuuuuuce!” between every single song, it was more apparent than ever that being a Springsteen fan is quite literally a way of life for these people; they know every line, every call and response, every micro-dance move and regular on-stage ritual.
Each show is roughly three hours long, by the way – he does have an absolute treasure trove of discography to work through, in fairness.
Put simply, there’s no messing about, just non-stop rock and roll of the highest order. Well, there are some brief pauses, but for good reason…
As a passionate political and philanthropic person throughout a career which spans more than six decades, he took the time to talk about America and the turbulent times they are once again facing.
He spoke about the craven billionaire class, poverty, uniting through art and, just as he did on night one in Manchester, Springsteen railed against a particular tyrant who happens to have found himself in the seat of power yet again back over in the States. He made sure to do this every single night.
‘Born in the U.S.A.’ (which he did decide to play, along with a plethora of the other biggest hits) now feels more like a protest song than ever. The war may no longer be in Vietnam, but there is one raging back home, and he’s even more wary of it than before.
He thanked those in the pit and the stands for indulging him, as well as the “wonderful space” of the Co-op and its “beautiful sound” for hosting him, but we have a feeling the New Jersey poet could have said just about anything and he’d still have 23,500+ in the palm of his hands.
All that being said, it wasn’t like this was a pseudo-rally or anything like that, nor was anything of this being foisted upon the audience, but there was a real sense of a congregation gathering in the church of Bruce to take in his sermon.
His followers have often been referred to in this way, and despite only previously considering ourselves a very casual Springsteen enthusiast, having now been to a sell-out arena gig with one of the biggest Boss fans we know, we can understand why millions of people around the world idolise this absolute icon.
It goes without saying that a huge amount of applause must go to The E Street Band themselves, who are just as much a part of what makes Springsteen sets so special as he is.
From the ever-charismatic Steven Van Zandt (still hard not to see him as ‘Sil’ from The Sopranos) to Jake Clemons on sax – who has been part of the group since 2012 and shared a touching embrace with Bruce as tributes to his predecessor and uncle, Clarence, played behind them – these lot are a family.
Our only minor gripe is that we sorely missed hearing ‘Atlantic City’, but what the concert did confirm is that much like the effect the recent Bob Dylan biopic had on us, we’re now more committed than ever to working through the Springsteen back catalogue from start to finish and seeing how obsessed we get.
To end on one final thought and echo the words of the man himself: “peace, love and freedom.”