Bittles Bar, Belfast

Bittles is a small no nonsense wedge shaped bar with raised seating in the wedge end. The small serving counter is found to the left of the entrance and I ended up sitting at a tiny table against the front of the bar as all the other tables were being used. It felt a bit weird, but heigh-ho when in Rome, or Belfast. Standard and premium keg was available as well as Beavertown. A sign on the bar said the due to Brexit and the Northern Ireland protocol half pints of Guinness wouldn’t be served. This is of course utter bollox, but made the governor an extra couple quid from muggins here! Up on the walls are lots of Irish whisky bottles and also a couple of large paintings and other bits and bobs that make the walls look very busy. I didn’t see a television, but some background music was playing. I thought the governor was polite enough in a ‘don’t feck with me’ kind of way and the locals were all in jubilant mood. This was the second bar I visited during my stay in Belfast, and it was certainly one of the best.

An extreme version of the ‘anvil shape’ both outside and in. It’s a wee bar, not a huge amount of seating to be had so time your visit. Matey who runs the place has been there years and is known as a bit of a character – indeed he was about to close-up 40 mins before time and only let us in as long as we were ‘quick’, though brilliantly we were then slipstreamed by another half a dozen people who he also had to let in, though didn’t seem over-happy about it! To compensate, he left the door propped open on what was a chilly and breezy night. Internally it’s a split level place in red and white, with a lot of contemporary (and often caustic) artwork depicting the Troubles, Peace Process and their central characters involved – these in themselves make it well-worth the price of a beer. Other stuff included a lot of positive messages about mental health, a gorgeous Art Deco ‘sunburst’ backlit coloured inset behind the bar and lots of whisky behind lattice fronted cupboards. Beer-wise, look beyond the fairly dull draft (no cask here) and into the fridge where beers from Ards, Whitewater, Macivors, McGrath and Hilden lurk. I had a bottle of Ards Brewing Blackwood, which was fine. Quirky place that’s worthy of a place on your crawl list.