The Commercial Rooms (JD Wetherspoon), Bristol

Just being done up, its a smallish Spoons with a roof window dominating the room

Well described below, I was particularly impressed with the magnificent cupola dominating the main bar area, part of its former glory, and I couldn’t help feeling a little sad both by the presence of a forgotten celebration balloon still bobbing up there out of reach, and the unfortunate juxtaposition of tacky mute gaming machines partially obscuring a large oil painting, which while it may have little historic significance, is still a work of art from the pub’s days of beign a gentlemen’s club (a proper one, not the Spearmint Rhino variety). Twelve ales on including Abbott, Doombar, Ruddles and guests from Steam Box Bitter, Oakham’s Citra, Twisted, Moles, Quantock, Exmoor, Arbor and Beero plus one whose clip I couldn’t read. One of the better ‘Spoons I think. Staff were excellent, good humoured and friendly, again a cut above many other ‘Spoons. I’d definitely include this one in a town crawl.

The Commercial Rooms is a Wetherspoons pub that is housed in a grand old building. Once inside there is a large square shaped room which has a very high ceiling,there is a U shaped bar facing which serves on three sides of the room,the seating is the normal Spoons type with a few tall tables and chairs and more normal ones. There is an L shaped room which is behind the bar. There was a decent choice of guest beers on the bar,i had a drink of Plain Ales Arty Farty which went down well on my pre 10am visit,the other beers noted were Mumbles Life Saver,Hobgoblin,RCH Double Header,Jennings Snecklifter,Butcombe Chinook,Exmoor Beast,plus Spoons regulars GK IPA and Doom bar. I quite liked this Wetherspoons,a good start to my pub crawl. Pub visited 25/6/2016

This is a Spoons with little of the usual external JDW signage set in part of a grand old listed building. As described below it's a high ceilinged room with a U shaped bar at the rear and a separate dining room at the rear left. The bar has two sets of six hand pumps which had the IPA variation on the JDW Trio of Doom, Marston's One Is 90, Butcombe Bitter, Great Western Derek, Exmoor XPA, Mumbles Oystermouth Stout, RCH East Street Cream, Twisted Oak Old Barn & Sheriff Fatman and Exmoor XPA. I went for the Sheriff Fatman (£2.95) which was a good beer in excellent condition. Apart from the city centre prices this was easily the best JDW of the three central Bristol ones and my only real criticism is the reverberating acoustics.