Bennets Bar, Edinburgh

Bennets of Morningside is a single room bar with serving counter on the left wall, a beer shelf with stools in the front window and seating up the right wall. It was very busy in here on a recent midweek afternoon so I had to sit at the beer shelf which looks out onto picnic tables out the front. A television on the wall was switched off and there was some low background music playing from the likes of Queen. Some old brewery adverts and mirrors are found up on the walls and there’s a board displaying the current ale selection available from the six handpumps. During my visit Stewart Brewing’s Edinburgh Gold and Pentland IPA were available alongside TT Landlord, Fyne Ales Jarl and Bennets Ale. The sixth handpump was unused and a standard keg range was available. This place is worth a look.

Official site of Bennets Bar - bennetsofmorningside.co.uk

Official site of Bennets Bar - bennetsofmorningside.co.uk

We made the mistake of coming here after leaving Canny Mans just up the road, because this one suffers in the comparison. It doesn't help either that the place smelt strongly of cheap cooking oil, though food service appeared to have finished some time before as no one was eating. These two caveats aside, it's a pleasant enough place, with a long bar down the left hand side featuring seven hand pumps. The selection was mostly standard national brands such as Timothy Taylor Landlord, Marstons EPA, Caledonian Deuchars IPA and the house bitter whose provenance I didn't determine. The others were two from Allendale Brewery and one from Broughton, a seasonal beer called Winter Fire, which disappointingly tasted of nothing at all (or maybe it was overwhelmed by the cooking fat smell). A positive for me was that there was no music, just lively conversation. We were intrigued by one of the many and various pictures on the walls: this was an aerial drawing of the city of Edinburgh, dated 1868. We speculated as to whether this was imaginative or done from a balloon, as there are no hills or buildings high enough to give the view from the direction as depicted. Date of visit: 28th November 2014