Carringtons is no place for Lambrini girls and Fosters fans, but if you appreciate fancy beer, wine…read moreand spirits, you'll love it! An award-winning off licence, it prides itself on offering things that are a little out of the ordinary. So you can expect to see a great mix of beers from tiny local breweries, as well as hard-to-find world beers, like New York's Brooklyn Lager and San Francisco's Anchor Steam Beer. The staff are friendly, knowledgeable and are always willing to make recommendations. So if you take a trip to this boozy treasure trove, you could end up finding the beer of your dreams! I can't really comment on the range of wines and spirits available I'm all about the beer. But I'm confident that even the fussiest wine lover will be impressed! My only gripe with this place is that it closes far too early! Most days, they seem to shut about 7pm and they're closed all day Sunday. If they stayed open until 8 or 9pm, I'm sure they'd get loads more customers. I know I'd visit a lot more!

Healthy looking wine merchants on the approach to Didsbury Village…read more It wasn't that long ago that the place was to be purchased and transmogrified into yet another (and one can only presume) soulless bar. Thankfully, and for whatever reason (pressure group one imagines), this never happened and we still have this wonderful menagerie of booze. Not only do they stock a large range of wines (and I haven't yet managed to choose a dodgy wine, unlike what can happen at supermarkets with their constant 50% off deals) but they also sell a fascinating array of beers (majority of which are British Premium) and ciders and malt whiskeys. Always willing to make a suggestion on your behalf (try as I do, I still have an extremely limited knowledge of the vino) they'll work around your budget (which again is usually extremely limited!). Haven't been recommended a wine that's probably best off in the Balsamic vinegar section in Morrisons. From what I can gather, most of the wines are from within the 'old school EU'...which suits me fine. You just can't recreate the romance of a real corked French number can you? I must add that it's blinking cold in there (the interior resembles a Canadian lodge) and the guys who run are usually decked out in Arctic puffer jacketsbut I guess this is to keep the stock at a certain temperatureI should have asked, perhaps the boiler has never been fixed? There's a couple more Carringtons (one in Chorlton and one in North Manchester).

I have to say that I like the format of Majestic wine and how they do things. A warehouse full of…read moregood quality wines at discounted prices works for me every time! This was actually the first time I've ventured to this store but it's handily just off the A6 with a fair amount of customer parking so it's easy to access to go and stock up the car. Discounts are provided on buying more than one case and I believe they'll also deliver to your house across most of their stores. The staff are always pretty friendly and knowledgable (I've been to a few other Manchester stores) and seem to know what they're talking about. The real bonus for me is that they've started selling good quality craft beer at fairly decent discounts and on this visit they had the usual big names like Brooklyn, Anchor Steam, Sam Adams - as well as the excellent Einstok and Atlantic lager from Flying Dog brewery. This is definitely my go to place for craft beer if I'm stocking up the cellar with fairly general craft beers for a party!

Huge selection of wines, beers and lagers made this the ideal choice pre-weekend-garden-party…read more The offer on Sam Adams drew me in (£20 for 24 if I remember rightly) but the server's guidance meant all our guests were well catered for. His suggestion of Curious Brew went down fantastically, and the case of reasonably priced prosecco kept the ladies happy. To top it off, he even carried it all to the car for me. Will definitely be back when we need to stock up for special occasions. The only thing preventing a 5-star is the great price on the Sam Adams made the real price of other lagers seem a bit pricey.

We had zero expectations of this place so were blown away by how great it is…read more Bf's review of the beer section, bearing in mind Bottle's owner recently described this franchise's manager as a 'frustrated bottle shop owner': This has a balanced selection of dark and light ales, foreign and domestic, including bottle conditioned ales at reasonable prices with bulk discounts e.g. 8 for £12 or 8 for £15. They always have a selection of Oakham and Titanic ales, as well as White Shield and Fullers bottle conditioned. The staff are knowledgeable and helpful and the manager is always trying to improve the selection. There's a separate section from another supplier which seems to change, at the moment they have Japanese beers including a red rice beer (has a red owl on it). It also has a decent snack collection if you don't mind diabetes and chronic heart conditions. I can't provide such expertise on the wines but have had some good Cotes du Rhone. I don't get the impression it's quite as sophisticated as the ale section, but it's unlikely you won't find anything you like. Remember to check the Bargain Booze app for awesome deals e.g. delicious pork scratchings for free.

The guys who run this, Peter and Mark are very patient and helpfu, especially to nervous beginners…read more Not only do they listen to your needs but also give you handy hints, which are not stipulated on the kit instructions. I have only made one batch but it was darn good stuff :)

Burton Roadites had previously been able to buy a few select bottles of decent ale from the…read morewonderful Reserve Wines, but the Road had really been crying out for a craft beer shop. Enter Simon and Rob! These two beer lovers have gone with an elegant, minimalist aesthetic for their shop front, embracing the scene's move away from old-school design and towards something far more stylish. But don't worry, lovers of rustic chic - they've got comforting wooden shelves and crates of German beer stacked around the place, striking a nice balance between tradition and sleek modernity. This balance is reflected in the beers they stock - you can pick up all of your old favourites, while also choosing from a range which would get the hearts of hop-fiend beer nerds racing. Brilliant British beer, local ale, hop forward Americana, German lager, Belgian beer, Welsh cider, sweet fruit-flavoured beer, homemade pies, cordials... There's something here for every palate. The Epicurean has only been open for a couple of weeks, but already it feels like it's been on the Road forever. They've already hosted a couple of Meet the Brewers, so keep an eye on their Twitter and Facebook for upcoming events. Simon and Rob really do care about providing people with great beer, and, as the sign says, if you particularly want something that they don't have, they'll do their best to get their hands on it. You can't say fairer than that. (For a more detailed write up, you can pop over to my beer blog for a previously published full post about The Epicurean: http://rowanmolyneux.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/new-beer-shop-epicurean.html)

If I was to win the lottery, the Epicurean would be what my garage would look like! No joke - the…read morewalls are absolutely rammed with some of the finest beers on offer in the Greater Manchester area and it's somewhere that's obviously been set up by craft beer heads on a mission to make the place totally awesome! The nice thing about this place is that they have the 'amazing but standard' selections from breweries on this and that side of the pond but also stock all the different special varieties of the brand. For instance there must have been about 7 different types of Sierra Nevada on offer and closer to home the same amount from breweries such as Buxton, First Chop and Thornbridge - while still loads of room for smaller more boutique breweries! Ok so craft beer is never going to be cheap (with the news that hops are starting to run out and farmers can't keep up with demand, it's probably never going to go down) but I don't see the prices at the Epicurean being any more expensive than similar stores in Mancunia (you can buy cases in store of more generic craft beers like Longboard if you're having a bbq etc and want to save some cash) I went for the Buxton Imperial Black IPA - £2.75 - well worth the purchase, super rich and super hoppy and the FCB from First Chop which is another favourite at the mo - pretty good for £2.40! My wife was also pretty happy with her Timmermans Framboise - so it ticked all the boxes for our quality boozy weekend :-) Next time I'm in West Didsbury, I'll be popping in and picking up a few special bottles to enjoy!