The Nutshell, Bury St. Edmunds

This was my third visit to this place, the first being forty years ago and the second a few years later after a visit to the local brewery. This is a tied house of that brewery (Greene King) so isn't a micropub but just a very small pub. Marking it as a micropub jeopardises the validity of the List Of British Micropubs that can be viewed under stats and features on this site. Micropubs vary in size a lot but the size of the location is not really relevant. Having seen it again I'm sure this place is smaller than what I believe to be the smallest micropub I've been to (The Farmers Yard in Maldon, Essex). The place is loaded with bric-a-brac including what appears to be a mummified cat (it could be fake) which I remembered from earlier visits. Doctor Who fans will be delighted to see an ice bucket disguised as a Police Phone Box. There were about half a dozen in on my visit so it was around half full. The bar has four mainstream keg options and just two hand pumps with Abbot and IPA. I went for the Abbot (£4.00) and at that price I wasn't going to stay for a second. There are limited wines and spirits on sale. It's a novelty this place but at the end of the day it's just a GK pub with only Abbot & IPA. A real micropub would be laughed out of town with that choice.

This pub is remarkably small, and is in fact well known as the smallest pub in the country and I spotted two separate tour guides pointing this out to their group of visitors whilst I was there. I have ticked the micro-pub listing for this pub, which although it might not strictly meet all the criteria (there was background music for example) it surely must qualify just by virtue of being the smallest. Internally, it (obviously) consists of just one room, if you can even call it that, with seating for about ten people. There is a small table to the left in front of the door, and then a small curved bench seating around the window. With space being at such a premium, I’m slightly surprised that they didn’t squeeze a small table on the upstairs landing leading to the loos which would have accommodated a couple more. There are bare wooden boards on the floor and wood panelling on the walls, some of which have been stained dark brown and others painted cream. The ceiling was completely covered in a collection of bank notes, whilst a large number of foreign coins had been affixed to the wall. Various other random odds and ends were fixed to the walls and on shelves including a stag’s head, a propeller, caps, old bottles, and so on. Beers on tap were Greene King IPA and Abbott Ale, and interestingly the pump clips looked to be of a very old design, perhaps made of porcelain, rather than the more usual plastic ones that you see. The solitary cider meanwhile was Thatcher’s Gold. Overall I really liked this pub, and not just for it’s novelty value.

Obviously, The Nutshell's a bit of a tourist attraction, as the smallest pub in Britain but I thought there'd be no harm popping in (space notwithstanding). A good choice, as it turned out. The Greene King IPA was fairly good (I skipped the Abbot, due to commitments elsewhere). While small, this one does not market itself as a 'micropub'; perhaps because of the brewery link; maybe that it (and nervous types, look away now) sells lager! 3 keg taps, in fact, as Guinness and Strongbow (if memory serves) are also available. Given the tiny dimensions, striking up conversations with the other customers is pretty much a given. Some even seem to be regulars. I personally couldn't see myself hanging around for an extended period, but I have no hesitation in recommending it for a swift one or two.