Chester: where to drink and what to see

We’re welcoming in 2026 with the launch of a series revisiting the destinations in our book, Beer Breaks in Britain, to offer handy day-trip guides to our favourite venues and sights, including some updates along the way. First stop, Chester.

By Phil Mellows and Kate Simon

Step straight off the train into a bit of Victorian splendour. Opened in spring 2025, Chester Station Tap occupies a previously neglected Grade II-listed station building, and the restoration work has revealed some hidden architectural features, notably the ornate ceiling.

And once you’ve drunk in that, your eyes naturally fall on the generous range of beers on draught. Local brewer Spitting Feathers (which also has the Brewery Tap across the city) is behind this brilliant addition to the Chester scene, so you’ll obviously find their ales on the pumps, from the Best Bitter and Oatmeal Stout to modern pale ales. But the keg lines also feature a variety of guests including lagers from Hacker-Pschorr and craft from the likes of Thornbridge, Arbor, Two by Two and Electric Bear.

The Tap serves breakfast, featuring sausages donated by pigs fed with the brewery’s spent grains, from 7am with the bar opening at 9am for thirsty travellers, if you fancy an early start.

This is also the spot to contemplate the contribution of local boy Thomas Brassey. Once only remembered on an easily missed plaque on the wall in the station, Brassey is now celebrated with a life-size statue outside the main entrance, which was unveiled last spring by the Society in his name. Cast in bronze, holding a map of the Chester to Holyhead line that he constructed, Brassey was responsible for one in 20 miles of the world’s railways at that time.

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Onwards towards the city centre and The Cellar, a long-established home of good beer in Chester. In this traditional ale-house setting, alongside up to six cask ales from across Britain, there’s a truly international selection on the keg taps – Belgium, Germany, Norway, Estonia, Scotland and the United States are all currently represented. Look out for regular tap takeovers and meet the brewer events.

Across the roundabout, That Beer Place started as little more than a market stall but has expanded into a smart and bright two-storey home on the edge of the city centre, where it plays a big part in developing Chester’s reputation as a craft-beer destination.

Just about every imaginable style is on tap – and if it isn’t you’ll find it in the eight double fridges full of canned and bottled brews from around the world. At the moment, draught lines include a wine gum sour, a grapefruit radler and an imperial chocolate porter, plus three Belgian lambics and cask ales from Verdant and Neptune (the brewery, not the planet).

Across Foregate Street, hidden at the end of a narrow winding lane, you’ll find the brewery and taproom of Spookton Brew Co, a newcomer to the Chester scene that moved in here in 2024.

Spookton is not afraid to experiment with styles and has just launched a ‘dip hopped IPA’, a new one on me, in collaboration with Manchester’s Courier Brew Co. You can try them all at the taproom in close proximity to the brewing kit, and bring your own grub, if you like.

A short walk south from any of these three venues will take you through ornate gates into Grosvenor Park. A gift to the people of Chester in the late 1800s by the paternalistic second Marquess of Westminster for the purposes of ‘health and recreation’ but not, heaven forfend, ‘dancing’, it is still a favourite haunt – visit in summer to catch a performance at the estimable Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre.

Cross the lawns to The Groves for a pleasant promenade along the River Dee to the Roman Gardens. This gallery of oddments from the time found around the city, original and reproduced, is also the location of a dint in the city wall where it was breached by the Parliamentarians. At the top gate, turn right to find the (largely reinterpreted) Roman Amphitheatre, thought to be their biggest in Britain.

On, then, to the Cavern of the Curious Gnome, which you reach by walking through a wine bar called Paysan and up the stairs at the back. You’ll emerge into a kind of gothic hall where some interesting cask ales rub shoulders with classic Belgian brews and German lagers. It’s quirky. If you order the Kwak you’ll have to leave a shoe as a deposit on the glass.

The Cavern recently opened an adjacent shop, called Gnome and Away, specialising in beer, wine and artisan teas and coffees.

This venue puts you in the heart of the Rows (pictured), a unique network of open walkways that run along the first-floor level of the four main streets at the city’s historic heart. Built in medieval times and embellished by every subsequent era, there are plenty of architectural layers to unpick as well as treasure to discover, such as, in The Antiques Shop on Watergate Street, a Tudor plasterwork trail that suggests a visit by Catherine of Aragon. (Follow Visit Chester’s free audio tour, written and voiced by Kate, to find out more as you go.)

The Cavern is also close to the Grosvenor Museum, which has an extraordinary gallery of Roman tombstones, which were discovered by the Victorians to have been used as ballast in the city walls.

Head to nearby Watergate Street for Beer Heroes, a shop and taproom in one of the Rows’ age-old undercrofts, which is focused on bringing the best in UK independent brewing to the streets of Chester. The draught list has now expanded to 12 taps, and on top of that, there are literally hundreds of cans in the fridges to drink here – or take away on the train home. The knowledgeable team also offers guided tastings.

Turn the corner into Northgate Street to find the Cathedral, a medieval abbey with a makeover by Sir George Gilbert Scott and a freestanding bell tower from the 1970s. It is due to display Luke Jerram’s massive Museum of the Moon in the South Transept from 12 February to 15 March.

Storyhouse is also close by, a serious hub for the arts with its own theatre and resident troupe, and the new indoor market, where several of the street-food stalls champion local produce. Now climb the walls that wrap around the old city, a ring of stone that offers a literal overview of most sights and has its own tales to tell.

For more ideas about where to drink and what to see in Chester – and 29other destinations – pick up a copy of our book, Beer Breaks in Britain.

Photo courtesy Chester BID