CASC, Aberdeen

Opened in December 2013 on the site of what, by previous accounts, sounded like a pretty rough-and-ready place, this incarnation is attempting to out-hipster BrewDog. This is a craft beer and - wait for it - cigar bar (along with scotch and coffee)…and to be fair they seem to be doing well at it. Hidden away on Stirling St, it's down some steps past the cigar smoking area leading to a cellar bar. There's a jumbo screen at the rear listing the beers, a faintly ludicrous 28 in total. There are bare stone walls, quarry tile flooring all that kind of thing. There's a weird third height partition running down the middle, presumably there to ‘queue’ punters to the bar but it fails at that and just gets in the way. Seeing no cask beer (or indicator that any of the kegs might count as real ale) I went for a Black Isle Migrator which at 7.9% was fair enough for £3.55 a half. Clientele were of the more ‘challenging’ craft type and I was happy enough to mooch on after one.

A pure gem of a pub, its kind of hidden off the street and Cheers (C4) steps down into the pub, lovely pints, staff very friendly, Sky Tv, free juxebox, bandit and music at the weekend, its not massive inside but plenty of seats, only thing wrong here is the toilets or lack of them but love this pub anyway, give it a try.