The Alchemist at Media City is taking things up a notch this Bank Holiday weekend and throwing a huge party on its waterside terrace.
Bringing the party vibes to its stunning quayside setting, the inimitable smoke-and-mirrors cocktail bar is welcoming some of the city’s finest selectors to bring the Ibiza party spirit to Costa Del Salford.
The usually chilled-out waterside bar will amp things up in honour of the long weekend, with a mix of disco, house, and techno favourites played out across the outside space all through the afternoon into the early hours.
Starting from Saturday 1 May, those heading down to The Alchemist at Media City this summer can expect a series of DJ weekends, drinks tables and bar service running late into the night.
Image: The Alchemist
The 360-degree wrap-around bar will be stacked and ready to serve, both inside and out, with a host of wines, beers and spirits on offer alongside The Alchemist’s inimitable new cocktail menu.
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Think a fully edible cocktail where you can even eat the cup, a drink that – when flamed – looks like a stick of dynamite, and classic refreshed favourites, such as the Nextpresso Martini – served with an indulgent dark chocolate spoon and caramel caviar.
The bar’s new fully edible cocktail, aptly named The Edible One, consists of Manzana Verde, Avallen Calvados, lime sherbet, salted caramel, apple juice, white chocolate foam.
Elsewhere, you’ll find theatrical concoctions such as the T&T, a fragrant tequila, pink grapefruit, lime, tonic, ‘fire mix’ and flash sting cocktail that, when flamed, resembles a stick of dynamite.
And if you fancy a bite to eat, there’s a brand new food menu on offer too.
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Celebrating the sustainable efforts of the brand, its also suited to a variety of different dietary requirements – with a composition of dishes that means 58% are vegetarian, 38% are gluten-free and 44% are vegan.
Walk-ins are welcome but if you want to secure your seat in advance for the party, head over to The Alchemist’s website here.
Feature image – The Alchemist
Food & Drink
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…
Georgina Pellant -
29th April 2022 
