Three Fishes, Shrewsbury

In my opinion, one of the better pubs in Shrewsbury. Good selection of well kept ales, plenty of seating and no funny smells. We were in here quite late on a Saturday night and expected it to be rammed but once inside the place opened out into a large bar where we could all sit and chat over a well kept pint.

Housed in an attractive 16th century half-timbered building, down a charming cobbled street opposite the Church of St Mary the Virgin, the Three Fishes is one of leading lights in the town’s ale scene. The single room layout sees you enter into a fairly open space with standard seating along the front and right hand wall and a good deal of room for vertical drinking at busier times, such as on my Saturday evening visit. Moving past the bar, which is on the left hand side, you reach a quarry stone floored area where more seating options can be found. Dark beams and whitewashed walls throughout the pub give it a traditional feel although it doesn’t really have as attractive an interior as you might suspect on approach. A few old pictures dot the walls in amongst a selection of brewerania and above the bar there is a row of old hand tools which prompted a couple of blokes to have a classic pub argument about what each of them are used for. On the bar there was an excellent selection of local and national ales comprising Salopian Golden Thread, Taylor Landlord, Sharp’s Doom Bar, Hobson’s Up n Down, Stonehouse Station Bitter, Oakham Bishop’s Farewell and Three Tuns Stout, with the latter displaying an award for it being voted ‘Beer of the Festival’ at the Shrewsbury Beer Festival. That seemed like a good endorsement to me, so I tried a pint of the Stout (£3.10), which I found to be excellent and very moreish. A whiteboard opposite the bar listed six real ciders which attracted a lot of attention from the customers and the bar staff seemed very knowledgeable about them, helping people to make their selection. Although this place does food, it still felt very much like a drinker’s pub and the fine range of ale and cider attests to this. The Three Tuns Stout turned out to be the best pint I found in Shrewsbury and I would suggest that this place gets included on any serious tour of the town’s hostelries.

I came in here following a recommendation from the landlord of Loggerheads. I sampled a good amount of Three Tuns Stout, brewed by Bishop's Castle and it was gorgeous! Sadly the exterior was far better than the interior, but these are only minor gripes. Again I ended up chatting to the regulars and great craic was had! Definitely worth a visit.

In a cobbled side street in the heart of medieval Shrewsbury is The Three Fishes, yet another of Shrewsbury’s attractive looking black and white timber framed pubs. Fish Street, where the pub may be found, takes its name from the open fish market once held there and once had a total of 4 inns, of which, sadly, only The Three Fishes remains to this day. Outside we see that the pub lays claim to being “the original smoke free public house”. We also see that it’s a former Whitbread pub. Inside a smallish L shaped bar serves a largish single room with fixed seating round most of the perimeter of the room with ceiling beams and leaded frosted windows contributing to a traditional, if somewhat unremarkable interior. A Southam Ales mirror is a survivor of days long gone. A number of nooks and crannies give us the feel of a pub that was once multi roomed although nothing remains to directly confirm this. Food has a good reputation here and, on my recent Monday evening visit, a good trade in meals was evident, although it’s definitely a pub first and foremost. 6 real ales were on – Landlord, Doombar, Stonehouse Station Bitter, Abbeydale Absolution, Oakham Citra and Three Tuns Stout.The Oakham Citra went off and was replaced by Fyne Ales Rune. I though the Three Tuns Stout - £ 3.00p – was a fine tasty moreish pint. The pub is a CAMRA Good Beer Guide regular. Not a must visit pub by any stretch of the imagination, but one worthy of inclusion in any crawl of Shrewsbury’s hostelries. Finally, note that it closes in the afternoons, even on Sundays in summer.