Robinsons Bakery Steak and Guinness, Steak and Kidney and Pork and Apple Pie Reviews

We recently had the pie-leasure of visiting Robinsons Bakery in Failsworth, north Manchester, as part of their 150 year celebrations. Yes, that’s right – one hundred and fifty years of pie making in Manchester’s oldest craft bakery. It’s still family run and – having rated their mince pies very highly in their 149th year – I was delighted to get a tour round the bakery and try a few more of their pies.

Robinsons Bakery Pies - 150 years old!

Having already tried their mince pies, I wanted to give their meat pies a rating. You won’t be surprised to see I went for their steak pies, given how strongly they feature at the top of our pie rankings. The pies in question were the Steak and Guinness Pie and the Steak and Kidney Pie, while I was also kindly given an apple-topped pork pie to rate as well.

You can find out more about Robinsons Bakery and their 150 year anniversary in our “150 Years of Pie Making: Celebrating with Robinsons Bakery” article, so I’m going to get cracking with the pie reviews here:

Overall opinion

The pies were all decent value at just £1.50 each – could have been slightly bigger though with a bit more content to make them a meal. We ended up eating 2 meat pies each for dinner, indicating they are more snack size than meal size. Mind you, we are piefessionals. Both the Steak and Guinness and Steak and Kidney pies were reasonably well filled, though they could have had a slightly stronger capacity. The pies did vary slightly in capacity between the pies we got – as we had bought 5 of each flavour – which indicates a slight inconsistency in the filling levels but is not surprising when they are all handmade, rather than industrially filled.

The colour was quite golden on them all and they held together well, despite quite a bit of travelling being done by the pies! The bases of the pies were a little softer than the crisp lid and sides but this did not detract from the taste of the pie too much, with the pastry lid on the steak pies being particularly nice.

Robinsons Bakery Steak and Guinness Pie Review

Steak and Guinness Pie Review

The Steak and Guinness pie was the first to be eaten and was quite well filled with tender chunks of steak. There could have ideally been a bit more steak in the pie and the pie was overly peppery, but in general the Guinness gravy complimented the steak well and at just £1.50, this was a good value pie. The pastry was quite crisp and the pie held together well, so with a bit more steak and bit less pepper inside it would be a very well rated pie.

Robinson’s Steak and Guinness Pie
Score: 5.21/7
[Colour 5, Capacity 5, Consistency 5, Condition 5.5, Chewiness 5.5, Cheapness 5.5, Content 5, Total: 5.21/7]

Robinsons Bakery Steak and Kidney Pie Review

Steak and Kidney Pie Review

The Steak and Kidney pie was reasonably well balanced between the steak and kidney, with a nice gravy. The pie I rated was nicely seasoned – not overly peppery like the Steak and Guinness – so was a lot more enjoyable in flavour. I would have preferred a bit more of a weighting towards the steak but the flavour was good. £1.50 was a decent price for this pie and it was a bit better filled than the Steak and Guinness, but a bit more filling to maximise the capacity would have been ideal and bumped up the score by improving the pastry:filling ratio.

Robinson’s Steak and Kidney Pie
Score: 5.36/7
[Colour 5, Capacity 5, Consistency 5.5, Condition 5.5, Chewiness 5.5, Cheapness 5.5, Content 5.5, Total: 5.36/7]

Robinsons Bakery Apple Topped Pork Pie Review

Apple Topped Pork Pie

Unfortunately as this pork pie was topped with apple, not pastry, it was not a fully encased pie. The apple layer was reasonably thick, giving a strong tang to the pie and in my opinion was a little too strong. The pork was reasonable quality, though for a top rated pork pie I would expect a bit better. The condition wasn’t perfect on this pie – most notably because it wasn’t fully encased - but the pastry was quite nice, crisp and held the filling in well. In summary I could see why this was a strong seller from the bakery but it loses marks with us as it’s not fully encased. I would say it was a bit too sweet for my pallet and the meat could have been a bit more flavoursome.

Robinson’s Apple Topped Pork Pie
Score: 4.21/7
[Colour 4, Capacity 4, Consistency 4.5, Condition 3.5, Chewiness 5, Cheapness 4.5, Content 4, Total: 4.21/7]


With such a strong score for their mince pies (who even featured in our Christmas pie music video!), it was always going to be a hard act to follow for their meat pies. But at just £1.50 each for a hot pie, this is excellent value and I would happily eat again. Both steak pies are Pierate Recommended. While their apple-topped pork pie wasn’t quite for me, I’d look to try a traditional pork pie from them on my next visit. All in all, the hard craft of pie making is in safe hands 150 years on from the first Robinsons Bakery pies!

RAS

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A celebratory visit to pie makers Robinsons Bakery in their 150th year

Robinsons Bakery in Failsworth, Manchester

One of the pie-lights of being a Pierateer is sailing the Pierate Ship up and down the country to meet pie producers who really do care about their pies. A fine example of this is Robinson’s Bakery in Failsworth, north Manchester. They run the oldest craft bakery in Manchester, which has this year celebrated a milestone 150 years producing pies and baked goods. It’s an excePIEtional achievement for anyone, producing pies through highs and lows, recessions and booms - even 2 world wars!

So what’s the key to the sustained success of Robinson’s Bakery?

Well it’s clear from the moment you arrive that you get a friendly, local feel to the whole place. Providing baked goods to the local community and an increasing number of businesses and customers across the city via their city centre market stall, people are clearly wanting a good quality of product and service, from a bakery that buys and sells local. In the past they have sold baked products off a horse and cart (see photo below) and now they sell from two shops and a weekend market stall – with all the products baked in the Failsworth shop.
















A tour of the bakery includes a giant pie press, casing hundreds of pies a day, and ovens which can cook hundreds of pies at once if necessary!

I asked Grace, who looks after the Robinsons Bakery twitter and facebook account among other duties, what they have been doing to celebrate their 150th anniversary. Were there any more comPIEtitions in the PIEpeline? Again her answer highlighted the strong links they have with the local community in which they sell their baked goods, with many food promotions and giveaways – including their celebratory 150th anniversary bags – aimed at their regular customers. But there were promotions continuing to happen at various points online across their 150th year.

Regarding the pies, it’s hard to argue with a pie maker who’s been in the trade for well over 50 years, let alone 150 years. That’s plenty of time to PIEfect their reciPIES! So how often do they change their pies? Not often, it turns out! The manager David explained the current recipes they use are from his mother. They do have some more seasonal pies on sale, but in general most of their pies are sold all year round.

Robinsons Bakery Historic Photo

Their best-selling pies are the potato and meat pies, with their various meat and gravy pie sales totalling about 2,000 a week and around 500 pork pies sold a week on top of that. We bought and rated three Robinsons meat pies - the Steak and Guinness, Steak and Kidney and Apple Topped Pork Pie. Two of them received Pierate Recommended status and you can read about that in their full pie review.

Interestingly their mince pies sales continue all year round, with a minimum 60 sold a week all year round, peaking at around 2,000 mince pies sold a week around Christmas! Of course we’ve already been to Robinson’s Bakery before, picking up these delightful mince pies which were one of the highest scoring pies in our '12 Pies of Christmas' music video!

Robinson’s Bakery can be found at 69/71 Ashton Rd East, Failsworth, Manchester, M35 9PW, with a second store at 164 Nuthurst Rd, New Moston, Manchester, M40 3WG plus a weekend stall at Piccadilly Market in the city centre. They sell a range of pies, bread and other baked goods.

Robinsons Bakery Market Stall

RAS

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Robinsons Bakery Hand Crafted Mince Pie Review

It’s not often you find a craft bakery – let alone one as old as 1864! But that’s exactly what you get with Robinsons – the Master Bakers in Manchester. For almost 150 years – yes, that’s almost one hundred and fifty years – the Robinsons bakery has been producing the goods and so we thought it well worth a little detour out of Manchester city centre to Failsworth (in the north of the city) for a taste of their mince pies. And boy, were we in for a treat!!!



On the sixth day of Christmas the Pierateers ate for tea...

The bakery contains a huge selection of bread, cakes and most importantly pies! They have a whole range to choose from – pork pies, steak pies etc – but for my visit, I had my eyes on the mince pies! So with a couple of boxes of pies, a few short video clips taken for the ’12 Pies of Christmas’ video and a nice little chat with the staff there (with my big suitcase getting rather in the way I had to mention I’d just eaten some Italian pies When in Rome...), I set back home and eagerly awaited the right opportunity to eat them!

So here’s what I thought:

The mince pie was firm to the bite but the pastry crumbled delightfully and wasn’t crunchy, revealing a dark, fruit filled centre to the pie. The capacity was strong and you could see the pieces of fruit bursting out. The content was rich and full of flavour, without being overpowering. It was a little chewy due to the strong fruity concentration in the centre, but not in a bad way. I certainly came away with a nice fruity taste still in my mouth, unlike some mince pies I’ve had which had an after taste of quite dry, overly thick pastry.



Robinsons Mince Pies

Speaking of the pastry, it was quite light pastry and a lovely short crust flavour. It was a bit softer and more buttery than I have often tasted with mince pies and blended with the filling delightfully. My main issue with this pie, which I can’t let go without saying, is that in my mind it was a slightly shallow pie and also a bit pricey (at nearly 50p a pie, £2.99 for 6). I would have liked a bit more depth to the pie really. That said, it was a bit wider than your average supermarket mince pie. And there was no air in this pie! Oh no! Some pies we’ve reviewed have certainly been guilty of airing the gaps, but not Robinsons!

In summary, I would definitely recommend getting some of these hand crafted mince pies – they are a real treat in comparison to the far more standard supermarket bought pies. A tad expensive but well worth the effort of visiting a local craft bakers for! Thanks Robinsons!

Oh and I have an admission to make... when I bought the pies, I thought they were boxes of 3! You can only see three through the plastic window and nowhere on the box does it actually say how many pies you get... so while I thought I was buying 2 boxes of 3 (for the sixth day of Christmas...) I actually ended up buying 12 pies! Oh well... more pies for me!!!

Robinsons Bakery Hand Crafted Mince Pie
Score: 6.18/7
[Colour 6.25, Capacity 6, Consistency 6.75, Condition 6.5, Chewiness 6, Cheapness 5, Content 6.75, Total: 6.18/7]
RAS

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