West Country Pubs

The full moon is situated in southover which is around the back of wells.

This pub is quite a pleasent pub, has a pretty good atmosphere and does great food and has  a very good selection of real ales.

Has a Pool Table as well.

There used to be some urban myths about this pub, and rumours that it was on the program ‘britains hardest pubs’ and yes back in the 80’s and early 90’s it did attract a certain crowd.

All that has now changed and is a nice pub.

Smallest pub in Bristol? Quite possibly, it’s truly pokey-tastic.  Great fun just to be in, to be honest, never mind the excellent drinks and the witty landlord.

The Lion is the complete oppposite of The Drawbridge it faces through the series of odd structures in The Centre as it’s so cunningly named. Here you have good beer, good company and the sense that your money is being well spent.

Recommended.

Parking sort of possible but don’t waste your time trying, real ales and quality cider, outdoor seating.

This is apparently a Gastropub. If this gives you visions of some awful Gordon Ramsey affair in London, don’t worry. The Hope and Anchor not only looks like a pub, both outside and in, but *is* a pub. It just happens to serve good food.

There’s a good selection of real ales – if you can’t decide which one to try first you’ll probably be offered schooner-sized tasters of a number of them. Very nice, but you can end up well warmed-up before you even pay for a pint.

The food is well priced and there’s an excellent range of choices.  Great beer garden, too. All in all, you’d be hard pushed not to enjoy a visit here.

Recommended.

Parking possible, good food, beer garden, real ales.

What a wonderful pub! Just what you’d hope for, a place where time appears to have stood still because time just stops when you walk through the door. Barrels of beer nestle racked beneath the optics and – oh forgotten joy! – cheese (and other) rolls for sale on a tray on the bar.

Comfortable lived-in furniture, great friendly service and superb beer. Cheap, too. London Pride at £2.20 a pint and during the pub’s happy hour Guiness (and Stella and many real ales) are a mere £2 per pint.

Is this one of the best pubs in Bristol? This is one of the best pubs *anywhere*.

Recommended.

Parking possible but difficult, various rolls, real ales.

Another corporate affair, and part of the “posher” bit of Bristol nightlife. It’s big, with a balcony/mezzanine affair overhanging and overlooking the huge body of the place.  It’s all a bit oddly laid out, too. This pub – if you can call it that -  is aimed at those who dress/choose their drink to impress, not the beardy dart-player or his mate with his head stuck in the Racing Post.

But if you like this sort of thing, then the Greenhouse is a good example. You can even follow the uproarious goings on on Twitter. To be fair, sitting in the window overlooking the green on a sunny day is a wonderful and relaxing experience.  There’s quite an extensive menu of corporate-pub-type food, including some rather tempting-looking burgers.

All in all the Greenhouse is a fair deal: what it does, it does well. Well located, too.

Parking possible but unlikely, so don’t bother trying, food, Twitter.

The Bay Horse is pretty much what you’d expect to find in its edge-of-centre location: staff in “casual” uniforms, fairly expensive beer and cheap food. But the place is clean, the staff are friendly and the beer’s fine.

The food is cheap. Very cheap. This lends the pub almost a bistro air, with people of all ages coming for lunch or a bite to eat later in the day. The portions aren’t huge but they offer remarkable value for money – it’s certainly far better in that regard that the nearby McDonalds or Burger King, and neither of them sell beer.  Convenient for the shops and the bus station.

Don’t even think about parking, food, outdoor seating.

Next door to/part of the Bristol Hippodrome,  The Drawbridge is the sort of corporate nothing you’d expect to find in the middle of a corporate-designed city centre.  But, hey, you can sit outside!

Actually, you will proabably either need to sit outside or remember to take hearing protection as the piped “songs from the shows” muzak is played at jet-turbine volume levels.

If you’re deaf and enjoy paying way over the odds to drink indifferent beer whilst trying to figure out what that big wooden thing over the road is then this may be the place for you. Otherwise it’s best avoided.

Don’t even think about parking, food, outdoor seating.

The quaintly lovely Christmas Steps is one of the few areas of Old Bristol to survive the Luftwaffe’s redevelopment programme and are worth a visit just to take a look at the fabulous old buildings.  At the bottom of the steps you’ll find the Three Sugar Loaves pub.

You’ll not be having a beer there, though, at the moment as it’s closed down. It would *appear* that it will be re-opening, watch this space for details.

The White Hart is a lovely surprise to find slap-bang in the middle of a city, especially next door to a bus station. The only concession the pub makes to its improbable location is its smell – unpleasantly like that of a public convenience.

But don’t let that put you off (particularly in summer when you can sit outside), this pub is very well worth a visit and even manages to be cheap by city-centre standards.

Lovely old-world decor and friendly staff rightly earn the White Hart a recommendation.

Don’t even think about trying to park,  food available, outdoor seating, live music (solo performer stuff).

Situated on the crossroads by Fishponds Library is the rather fine Farriers Arms, a “proper” town pub. The interior of the place is fine, but come rain or shine you’ll always find people sitting at the tables out front watching the world go by.

No gimmics here, just a good honest pub and one that, in the tradition of all good Fishponds Road pubs, supports live music. And some. Regular Saturday day evening bands indoors, frequent (in the summer) bands outdoors in the large beer garden.

You’ll often get to see bands here who aren’t part of the local “circuit” either, so it’s very well worth just dropping in on the off-chance.

Bar food, plenty of parking available, live music.