#slackerbars

Slacker Bars

Name: Electrik

Address: Wilbraham Street, Chorlton Manchester

Location notes: Chorlton main drag innit. Similar size road to Manchester Road, different to the more village-like Beech Road. Wilbraham Road remembers a different Chorlton of the seventies, it has no choice and this can be a good thing for this area.

Decor: pretty spacious, you won’t easily get hit by a yummy-mummy pushchair. Booths and benches give it the much sought after Brooklyn dive bar vibe but this is definitely Manchester.

What we had: full on craft beers in bottles selection, no problem there. Quite a bit of choice of craft on draft including their own LFO beer which my girlfriend had and I tasted and was jealous of and had to have a pint of thereafter.

Vibe: relaxed, youngish mid-twenties-thirties crowd, music low level so I can’t tell you what it was, people actually speaking to each other. I love booths. Jim Jarmusch’s existential musician hipster vampire could come at this time of day (6pm on a Saturday) and be content with his surroundings.

Slacker bars.

Name: Common Bar

Address: Edge Street, Manchester

Location notes: deep in the Northern Quarter. Nuff said. 

Decor: long benches and booths, chipboard DIY feel bar and photos above the bar of John Peel, Leslie Neilson, John Candy, Patrick Swayze and others: a seemingly mismatched bunch of famous dead people. Common’s not very common decor-wise. 

What we had: Twin Peaks IPA, Bloody Mary (Fucking excellent BM actually, second only to Happiness Forgets in Hoxton). 

Vibe: tucked down a side street so you feel like you’ve discovered a really good secret place.