The East Bristol Brewery Trail is a wonderful idea but what puts us off is the crowds. So we decided to do our own version on a quiet random weekend.
On the last EBBT weekend, at the start of May, we were in town and observed it from afar.
There were crowds piling up on the pavement around the railway arches near Temple Meads station and herds of tipsy people wandering through the residential streets of the Dings and the industrial estates of St Philips.
The Barley Mow isn’t an official part of the trail but is a handy extra stop and while we were having a pint there a group in their best going-out clothes piled in and ordered gin and multiple bottles of prosecco.
“We’re here for the Brewery Trail,” said one, loudly, “but we don’t even like beer! We just wanted to join in the festivities!”
Now, see, we don’t like festivities. Well, that’s not quite true. But we tend to believe that nothing is worth queuing for more than about three minutes, and that sitting down in a quiet corner is more fun than standing in a jostling mob.
So, last weekend, 1 June, when Bristol was half empty at the end of half term, we decided to trail the breweries of East Bristol, on our own schedule.
The official trail, as set out on the website, is:
- Arbor
- Good Chemistry
- Left Handed Giant
- Little Martha
- Moor
- Wiper & True
On Saturday, though, Arbor was hosting a ticketed event, and Good Chemistry’s taproom wasn’t open.
We considered subbing in Basement Beer but, because it happened to be nearby, went with New Bristol Brewery in St Pauls instead.
New Bristol is pushing hard at the moment with a citywide billboard campaign and its beer popping up all over the place – including in Poole when we were there the other day.
The taproom feels like a proper bar with permanent furniture and a little more atmosphere than is common in these venues.
Our fellow customers included a big party of beefy middle-aged blokes in quietly expensive casual clothes, and some couples who were clearly there for the street food (chicken wings) rather than the beer.
Ray drank the last of a cask of clear golden ale, Starlite, at 3.8%. It was served in a dimple mug and wouldn’t have turned heads at an old skool real ale pub in the late 1990s.
Jess had a 4.6% hazy pale ale with Belgian yeast which worked reasonably well, bringing an extra dimension to a style of beer that doesn’t otherwise float her boat.
Our next stop was Wiper & True at Old Market. We haven’t generally been huge fans of W&T’s beer although we do really quite like the taproom – and especially its wonderful garden.
There, we found ourselves surrounded by classic 00s hipsters who are now in their forties, with kids. These days, the quiffs and waxed moustaches have gone grey, and the vintage workwear has baby sick on it.
And then the beefy blokes from New Bristol turned up, too, battling for turf with a group of similar looking men apparently on a similar jolly lads outing.
On the table next to us a couple were enjoying Eatchu dumplings washed down with two big glasses of cola, with ice and lemon.
The beers impressed us somewhat on this occasion. Daybreak, a 7% IPA, reminded Ray of Thornbridge Halcyon, a beer we keep meaning to revisit.
And Jess found lots to ponder in Fruit Crumble, a 6% sour beer with a rather pleasing purple hue. In the end, the tasting note was “vanilla and sweat”.
From there we schlepped to Left Handed Giant’s out-of-town industrial estate taproom. LHG is another brewery that seems to be doing well for itself, with its beers often popping up in pubs and restaurants around the city.
There was a maker’s market on, meaning that the car park was ringed with stalls selling T-shirts, art, jewellery and knick-knacks.
Children and dogs were roaming everywhere, sometimes at speed, sometimes colliding with each other.
Everyone was eating Sri Lankan food.
The beer here was the biggest surprise of the day: Ray had cask golden mild at 3.7% and Jess had So Interesting, an old ale at 6.5%.
Both were utterly and resolutely trad and could easily have passed for the products of a Victorian brewery in the Midlands.
As we were leaving, the beefy blokes were just arriving, now looking quite rosy cheeked. As, no doubt, were we.
The next stop was Little Martha, which we know fairly well, as it’s on our way to the station, so we sometimes pop in before long train journeys.
It’s in a railway arch between a Deliveroo depot and an (excellent) pasty shop and is open throughout the week, being popular with office workers.
We found it fairly quiet inside except for a party of stags who kept bursting into song and breaking out in competitive banter.
At Little Martha, we usually end up drinking the guest beers which are often from tempting out-of-town breweries like Burning Sky.
This time, however, Jess had their lager, Chasing Pulsar, at 4.5%, and was rather impressed. We spent a while trying to work out who’d brewed it for them only to find that, nope, they really had done it themselves.
We’re really getting spoiled for decent lager in Bristol.
Finally, we wandered to Moor Beer. It’s refreshingly different, Moor, because of its focus on punk and metal music. Instead of craft beer dads it was all black T-shirted youths and the background throb of heavy guitar music.
Our first round came in plastic glasses which rather ruined the fun. On the second round, which included a third of imperial stout at £5.25, we asked if it might be possible to have it in a grown-up glass, if that wouldn’t break the terms of the licence.
They not only obliged but also gave Ray his lager in a foot-high handled mug that made it taste five times better.
We’d do this crawl again, if only because it nudged us to drink beers we might normally swerve, or miss. And because it helped us understand Bristol a little better.
For more notes on where to drink in Bristol check out our Bristol pub guide.
