Birthday in Bristol

I was tired of celebrating my birthday in pubs in Birmingham so I decided to go somewhere different, to the only large city in England I’d never visited, Bristol.

After leaving the splendour of Temple Meads railway station designed by the city’s most famous son, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, we first of all visited the Portwall Tavern, which could be described as a back street boozer if it wasn’t on a main road. The pub was basically furnished and intimate and the beer of choice was the seasonal Gale’s Trafalgar, so impressed was I with it that I took the unusual step on big pub crawls of having two pints of the same beer.

Suitably refreshed and after indulging in some hill climbing via the quaintly named Christmas Steps we arrived at Zerodegrees, Bristol’s newest brewpub and the second in this chain. The pub is spacious, light, and comfortable and fitted out with chrome furniture, leather settees and several very large Sky TV screens showing Sky Sports. Not only is it an acceptable place to entertain business colleagues or your partner, the beers are pretty good too. There is a range of four regulars, a wheat ale, black lager, pilsner and a pale ale (actually the same colour as a standard bitter) plus a rotating special, mango wheat on my visit. We went through the complete range and I found the wheat ale and the black lager outstanding and the mango wheat a bit tasteless. The pub is to be congratulated for etching a diagram of the brewing process on the wall.

We continued gaining altitude and adjourned to Smiles Brewery Tap, which is in the same street, so no chance to sober up after all that beer and no food. This is an intimate pub situated very close to the brewery of the same name and is the only pub in Bristol to serve the full range of Smiles’ beers. The pub is friendly, if slightly crowded.

We then had a brief break to check into our hotel and got a taxi back to the Hotwells area to savour the Bag o’ Nails (Bristol’s equivalent of the Anchor, only smaller), a free house serving a large range of beers mainly from the South West microbreweries. This pub isn’t in the current Good Beer Guide due to change of licensee but no doubt will be next year. We then went up yet another hill to the Hope & Anchor, this is a slightly different pub to the Bag o’ Nails, much more studenty and New Age but still with an impressive array of real ale and by the looks of it, quite a decent and reasonably priced food menu.

There were only two more pubs top be visited on the Saturday night, both of which were near the hotel in the eclectic suburb of Montpellier, which reminded me of my old stamping ground when I lived in Brighton. We visited the Olde England, which promised much to me as a cricket fan because allegedly W G Grace used to drink there. For me it was the most disappointing pub of the weekend, it’s a standard Wadworth’s tied house serving rather poor quality beer which I don’t believe any of us actually finished.

And so to the final pub of the evening, the extremely alternative Cadbury House, which isn’t in the Good Beer Guide, but as it was near our hotel we thought we’d give it a try. This isn’t a pub to enter after you’ve had a few as one of our party found out as, rather the worse for wear he promptly nearly fell down the slight slope leading from the door to the bar. This pub has three hand pumps, Pedigree, Old Speckled Hen and a guest ale, which my mate Dave unfortunately snaffled the last pint of. This wins the prize for the pub that smells most like the top deck of a no. 61 Birmingham bus. Seriously the pub was ok and the staff were quite friendly.

By then the author was fairly well sizzled so took a very long walk up the Gloucester Road to clear his head, the walk passed The Wellington at Horfield which would have been our base had the accommodation part actually been open, but by the time I got there the pub wasn’t either!!

I emerged the next morning very tired and slightly hung over but was fortified by a very agreeable cooked breakfast and was then ready for the leisurely walk back into town, along the way getting seduced by the goodies in the Italian deli in Picton Street and resisting the temptation of both the local massage parlours especially the one that actually gave directions to the discreet entrance! We went for a walk along the wharf and visited the Bristol Industrial Museum until the pubs opened.

Most of Sunday was spent revisiting pubs we went to the previous day, the only new pub was a little gem, the fairly small Wickwar owned pub near the Hippodrome, The White Lion. This is a very small pub which had four Wickwar beers on sale, of which my favourite was the Cotswold Way. The pub will only accommodate about 20 drinkers (don’t get too light headed because the Gents is down a very tight spiral staircase), it does, however have a few tables outside for alfresco drinking (not to be recommended in mid-October although we did have one pint outside), this did somewhat inhibit my tendency for repeat trips to the bar to partake of the gorgeous cheese chunks provided for their Sunday lunchtime drinkers.

Bristol has lot to recommend it, large enough to be lively but not too large to be impersonal, nice architecture and a well appointed city centre; it felt safe to be on the streets, and it has a commendably high density of real ale pubs. The only downside being I never found a fridge magnet worth buying to add to my collection. For that reason and because I never looked around the Industrial Museum completely I’ll need to make a return visit!!!

Cheers

Clive Walder © 2005

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Last modified: 03/11/07