Warrington Pub Crawl

The Hop Emporium in the Market

While in Warrington, I visited three pubs in the latest Good Beer Guide; the Albion, the Hop Emporium and the Lower Angel. The Albion was ok, but I doubt if I’ll ever return. I’ll definitely return to the other two; both are close to Central Station and the Warrington Interchange. Easy to get to.

The Albion

The Albion

The Albion is a pub for the community. It’s in a large Victorian grade two listed building, a short walk out of the town centre. With a couple of real fires.

When I arrived, walking into the lounge I didn’t like what I saw, large TV’s everywhere, you couldn’t escape them. I nearly turned round and left. But through a doorway I spied the bar and as I was hot and very thirsty, I decided to risk it. I’d also come someway to visit the pub.

The bar was pleasant enough, apart from the large TV showing Tony Blackburn’s sounds of the seventies. There were several elderly pensioners supping beer and putting the world to rights. At one point, the song American Pie played on the TV and a large discussion about it started.

They sell four real ales, mainly from independent breweries. My first pint was Nottingham IPA (4.2%) at £3.20, yep £3.20. My second cheapest pint so far this year. (The cheapest was a pint of Holt’s mild in the Lamb Hotel Eccles for £2.90). At that price I had two, they were excellent.

It’s a half an hour walk out of town. I caught the number 17 bus there, during the day they run every half hour.

The Hop Emporium

The Hop Emporium

The Hop Emporium is an interesting award winning micropub in the Market, run by CAMRA members. It’s in the market’s cookhouse hospitality area. Because of this the opening times are limited. But there’s lots of food available from the various stalls selling hot and cold food, to go with your beer.

As the photo at the top of the page shows, there is lots and lots of seating. There’s plenty of seating outside too, which was crowded due to the lovely weather.

It was very noisy due to all the people talking, but it was a Friday afternoon.

They sell three rotating cask ales plus a house beer, a bitter at £3.90 a pint, excellent value and very tasty.

The market has some interesting stalls selling food. A fish stall selling crabs! A butcher’s selling meat that looked like proper meat. Next time I visit I’ll have a proper look around the market.

The Lower Angel

The Lower Angel

The Lower Angel is the third pub I visited, very close to the Hop Emporium. Back in 2025 it was awarded a fifty years of excellence certificate by CAMRA.

The pub has a lounge and a vault; I drank in the vault. Both rooms had been recently painted, white, which went well with all the dark woodwork. At the front, it still has stained glass windows.

They server nine real ales at affordable prices. I had two pints of an excellent mild at £4.30 a pint. I enjoyed them while standing at the bar people watching and listing to the conversations going on around me.

They have a juke box which was playing music that appealed to me. Mostly blues and rock.

A lovely place to while away a few hours on a hot afternoon, it was cool inside.

50 Years excellence to Real Ale certificate