The Granite City, Aberdeen

Granite City Pub and Kitchen is the landside pub option at Aberdeen International Airport. The L shaped interior has seating down in front of the bar and down the right-hand side towards the rear exit which leads to a long beer garden. The weather wasn’t clement enough for me to utilise this area during my recent Monday and Tuesday afternoon visits. At the entrance are a couple of gaming machines and above is a plasma screen which was showing daytime TV. This was muted in favour of some low background music. The bar supports two duplicate banks of seven standard and premium keg fonts and the two hand pumps were drawing Caledonian Brewery’s Deuchars and Wooha Blonde. Food is served all day. On my first visit I paid £8.25 for a dry cheese and ham toastie with cold chips. On my second visit I decided to eat airside. This is a pleasant enough spot to sit with a pint whilst waiting for check-in to open, but there are better food options airside.

I visited this pub in Aberdeen Airport’s main terminal building a couple of weeks before Wetherspoons old it to another pub operator, so this review relates to its time as a Wetherspoons pub, rather than its present incarnation. The pub is easily found, just to the right of the entrance into the main terminal. It’s set up much like any airport ‘Spoons, with an open front which gives way to a more conventional pub-space beyond. Carpeted seating areas straddle a central tiled gangway which provides plenty of space to navigate your way through with all your baggage in tow. There is also a nice granite slab in the doorway with the pub’s name chiselled into it. I couldn’t quite get to grips with the room’s layout, but it seems to be a slightly curved room with an arcing bar counter along the rear wall, broken in places by a couple of polished granite and wood pillars. Standard tables and chairs are pretty much the order of the day throughout, although there are a few high tables and stools along the windows which sadly appear to look out to the drop-off area outside the terminal, rather than giving any view of the runway. To the left there is a set of rather boxy shelving units full of seemingly randomly selected bits of tat including lots of promotional stuff for the Windswept Brewery. The front wall has some floral wallpaper and several info boards which explain the history of Aberdeen’s granite industry. The room seems to run on behind the bar, but I didn’t get around to exploring here and it also appears that there is some sort of outdoor drinking area, but it was a cold, dark evening when I arrived, so again I didn’t bother to investigate fully. TV screens were showing subtitled news coverage and there were some useful departures boards as well. The ale range was a little underwhelming with two guest ales and two ‘Spoons regulars to choose from, plus one ‘Coming Soon’ clip. I guess this isn’t that big an airport and the ale range reflects the level of passing trade. I tried a pint of Phoenix Hopsack, which was in decent shape and served to me by a totally disinterested barman. I believe there are now just two ales available in the post-Wetherspoons version of the pub and at much higher prices than before. I thought this was pretty good by the admittedly low standards of airport bars and would hope that the new operators are able to keep this running much as it was, as alternative options are pretty thin on the ground.

For an airport 'spoons, this one must be one of the best. It can be found landside at one end of the terminal building, with fairly smart semi-modern furniture and decor. Also features an outside patio area if the weather is favourable. Well-staffed too. Just Doom Bar and Oakham Scarlet Macaw from the five handpumps, but the latter was just £2.75 which was much cheaper than I was expecting (given the fairly captive market at this location).