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Alpha: a craft beer bar without the hard edges

Alpha Bottle Shop & Tap opened in Bedminster, south Bristol, back in May and has been on our to-visit list ever since. Yesterday, we finally made it – and liked it quite a bit.

Bedminster is made up of multiple neighbourhoods, from the theatre and coffee shop gentrification of Southville to the betting shops and greasy spoon caffs of East Street. The pubs there tend to be either (a) busy and down-to-earth, with stern warnings to shoplifters in the windows; or (b) shut.

The borders, though, have fuzzy edges and are porous and, as you might expect, the gentrification is leaking. There are now vegan delicatessens and houseplant emporiums alongside branches of Gregg’s and Poundland.

Alpha occupies a retail unit in a 1980s red-brick shopping arcade, across from a kebab house and next door to a charity shop. It feels out of place, for now – but probably won’t in five years’ time.

It’s a small establishment, about the size of most micropubs, with two full-size tables, a couple of smaller ones, and a ledge in the window lined with stools.

The opposite wall is taken up with fridges presenting a wall of colourful canned craft beers, with a handful of German and Belgian classics studded among them.

Newbarns Stout.

Behind a small bar, there are five taps for draught beer.

The menu suggests measures of one-third, half or two-thirds of a pint, and beers come served in modern tumblers or delicate stemmed glasses.

The selection struck as well thought through:

  • Donzoko Northern Helles | 4.2% | £3.80 ⅔
  • Beak Brewery Feathers pale ale | 4.5% | £3.95
  • Newbarns Stout | 5.0% | £3.95 ⅔ (we think, fuzzy photo)
  • Kernel Mosaic IPA | 6.9% | £4 something (fuzzy) for ⅔
  • Pilton Murmuration cider | 5% | £3.50 ⅔

Newbarns Stout was the standout draught beer, being one of those straight-up better-than-Guinness stouts we’re always pleased to encounter.

Donzoko Northern Helles slightly confused us, resembling lager very little. As a lemony pale ale, however, it worked well enough.

As a special Christmas treat, we paid £17 for a 750ml bottle of Burning Sky and Beak Brewery Bière Piquette at 5.9%. They’re good, Burning Sky, aren’t they? You could relabel this pink, tastefully tart beer as Cantillon and nobody would bat an eyelid.

As with a lot of ‘contemporary spaces’, the acoustics were a problem: we could hear people on the other side of the room more clearly than we could hear each other. Those dangling mufflers they have at The Good Measure and The Drapers Arms would come in handy here.

It’s also the kind of place which attracts the owners of small dogs. If you like dogs, that’ll be a selling point. We only tripped over them once or twice. It was fine.

Nitpicking aside, the fact is, we felt warm towards Alpha. Bare brick and low light made it cosy and continental, rather than clinically austere.

Compared to, say, Small Bar in the city centre, it felt owned, not managed, and distinctly grown up.

It certainly deserves to be on the trail, despite being out of the city centre, and will be going into our Bristol pub guide when we revise it.

At the same time, Bedminster currently has something for everyone and we hope it stays that way.

One or two craft beer bars are a welcome addition but there has to be space for The Barley Mow and The White Hart, too.

2 replies on “Alpha: a craft beer bar without the hard edges”

Alpha occupies a retail unit in a 1980s red-brick shopping arcade, across from a kebab house and next door to a charity shop. It feels out of place, for now – but probably won’t in five years’ time.

Is that it, then? Good beer = craft beer = bring on gentrification, and the kind of people who get their lunch at Greggs can do what they like (although they probably won’t be doing it around here any more)?

One or two craft beer bars are a welcome addition but there has to be space for The Barley Mow and The White Hart, too.

Oh. OK then. Just touched a nerve or two. (See my blog, particularly the calm and reasoned posts headed That Bottle Of Beer Is Too Expensive (No I’m Sorry It Just Is) and Could I Find A Pint Of Harvey’s In Brighton (Could I Heck As Like).)

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