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
The Marble Arch is increasingly becoming much more than a pub – it’s now a brilliant Manc bistro
Danny Jones
If you’ve been to The Marble Inn in Manchester before, you’ll know it’s always nailed cosy Northern pub vibes; to tell the truth, the food has always been pretty good, too, but their new menu is really something to write home about.
So we did.
The historic old boozer located on Rochdale Road has sat there in some shape or form since way back in 1888, and naturally, things have evolved significantly over the years – decades, certainly.
But the latest iteration of food and drink at the increasingly forward-thinking Marble Arch Inn is a cut above, bringing together a fusion of current culinary trends and contemporary takes on pub classics.
No. 73 enters a new chapterOne of the best pies we’ve probably ever hadCredit: The Manc Eats
Now just over a month into its run at the home of Marble Brewers just beyond Ancoats, it feels rather fitting that this place has always sat on the cusp of surrounding districts in somewhat of a Manc no-man’s land, as there’s something about this place that feels like it’s dancing on the line of a scene.
Recently installed head chef Adam Shatarsky is still self-admittedly pretty green in comparison to lots of other local chefs, as he’s only been cooking for around five years, but his spells at Mackie Mayor’s Taiko and Cardinal Rule in NQ have already proved he’s got to grips with how the city eats.
His food just keeps getting better and more confident in experimentation, it would seem – as proven with this approach to Marble Arch classics like fish and chips, their pies, burgers, the treasured Sunday roast and so on.
The difference is now that some of these mainstays and undeniable British favourites have been levelled up quite significantly. Now there’s bone marrow in the mince used for those oh-so-juicy patties; toast is fried in beef fat to dovetail with a tartare dish, and the chips are some of the best you’ll find in a pub.
Seriously, they even use the Brewery‘s new cult favourite Earl Grey keg flavour to make their rarebit recipe. In fact, when one local punter saw that the staff were enjoying a posh chip butty with wild garlic and mushrooms for the staff, they couldn’t help but ask for one, and now it’s a special menu item.
A familiar faceThree small plates for £25Credit: The Manc
This is the kind of ethos they’re trying to keep across the board: attempting new things and trying to be more modern when it’s appropriate, but still holding onto their traditions and looking after their regulars.
Adam’s only ever trained in British kitchens, so he admitted doesn’t know any different really, but he does know the global variety offlavours and textures he likes and is not afraid of trying to find ways to make even the most contrasting ones come together.
Case in point: freezing and shaving feta over lemon ricotta and fresh beetroots. Stunning.
He’s even brought over a variation of his popular fried chicken sando from Taiko, though this one has nowhere near as much of that Eastern heat, and instead focuses on the theme of making hearty and filling comfort food.
For instance, there’s an undercurrent of just that extra little bit of richness running throughout the menu, from the bone marrow that makes already satisfying dishes even more indulgent, to the tallow, truffle and drippings that are used to great effect.
The same goes for the use of cheese, as well: even in the simply incredible mixed mature cheddar and red Leicester curd that surrounds that singular 72-hour caramelised onions (wow doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of our for this one.
All of them are big top-note flavours, sure, but none of them overpowers the overall taste, whether it be brining and curing chicken in dark brown sugar and soy, or a 16-hour low and slow braised beef that literally melts in the mouth from the bread and the butter to the eventual meaty bite.
We can’t speak highly enough of what is now being served out of The Marble Arch Inn’s kitchen, and truly believe what Adam and the existing pub team are now doing is brilliant and very much worth shouting about.
Can’t beat a burger and beerSuch a cosy spotMmmmadeleinesCredit: The Manc Group
‘We were so lucky to have it’ – Has Manchester’s hospo scene reached a dangerous tipping point?
Danny Jones
Greater Manchester’s hospitality sector is calling for change and better support, both for the local community and the UK government, following the latest raft of closures.
Various well-known independent businesses have closed in the first quarter of 2026 across the city centre, let alone the numerous others across the ten boroughs over the past year or so.
In truth, this worrying trend has been going on for much longer than the last 12 months, and it seems that it’s not just new openings that are most at risk of closing before they can even get going, but now well-established regional institutions are struggling to stay afloat.
Case in point, our oldest Turkish restaurant – which had been serving central Manchester for nearly half a century – Topkapi Palace, has now closed seemingly for good.
A recent addition to the city centre itself, French-Vietnamese cafe and restaurant Doux Chaton wrote on social media: “This is genuinely so sad to see. Topkapi Palace is part of Manchester’s fabric. Running an independent spot is no joke — it takes everything.
“If we keep letting places like this go, we lose more than food; we lose culture, history, identity. Please support your local independents where you can. It matters more than ever – our representatives need to support our community not only regionally but nationally.”
They went on to tag the likes of Mayor Andy Burnham, Chancellor Rachel Reeves and others to call for crucial intervention sooner rather than later.
For some, it’s unfortunately already too late.
Currently, their Stockport in Hazel Grove looks to be remaining open, but we’ve seen this story before; Almost Famous, Seven Brothers, Greens, and SO many others have sadly had to shut up most, if not all, of their locations.
As of this May, we’ve already had to say goodbye to the likes of Topkapi, KAJI, Climat and House of Fu; Project Halcyon, Örme, the long-standing TNQ, the first-ever Northern Simmons site, a branch of Banyan, just to name an unlucky few.
This is just heartbreaking. We can’t carry on with either this PM or Chancellor. Both need stepping to one side and allowing others mop up their disaster of a tenure.
And that’s just the ones that shut down in the first few months of this calendar year; 2025 was a gut-wrenching year for the food and drink industry, with indies all over the region and beyond having to fight tooth and nail to stay open for even just a few days of weekly trade.
Almost just as concerning has been some of the behaviour by some patrons, even here in our own city.
From more than one or two reports of people walking out on their bills, people even nicking the most petty stuff, such as decorations and bar’s cushions, to a troubling number of no-shows that don’t just mean one less reservation – it can mean the next person missing out on a seat and people losing money.
Another nearby native commented: “I honestly think Manchester is on a tipping point for many people – what was ‘old’ Manchester, which many of us loved, is being slowly erased by the new. People here are saying basically ‘use it or lose it’.
“Fair enough, but there’s very little spare money about, and I hear lots of people saying they don’t go into town for the day to spend that money shopping and for a meal or treat-day because they don’t ‘recognise the place’.”
They go on to add: “Most importantly, they often say they don’t like Manchester now. The towers that are shoved in places where you could see daylight and there was space to walk and breathe are overwhelming.
“I’m not being reactionary – I love New Islington and Cutting Room Square, etc., but NQ has lost its grit, and I find Deansgate really soulless and depressing when once I used to go out every night after work for drinks, and go in every month with the family on a Saturday for culture, shop and a meal.
“No more. Love Manchester, but I’m not in love with it anymore. Topkapi was great once, and it’s sad it’s gone.” A passionate appeal, indeed.
It goes without saying that rising energy bills, untenable business rates, rent, and a general cost of living crisis mean that people simply don’t have enough money to go out for tea, treat themselves to a drink in a nice bar, or even just go to the pub as often as they once did.
We’re by no means experts, but it’s easy for all to see that something needs to be done and fast, as we’d like to avoid seeing any more of our hard-working Manc favourites falling by the wayside and joining the list of those that we’re still mourning to this day.
Georgina Pellant -
7th July 2023 
