The Rose Street Brewery, Edinburgh

Official site of The Rose Street Brewery - www.nicholsonspubs.co.uk

A pleasant Nicholson’s pub on the popular Rose Street strip, it’s a lot smaller than many of their outlets and felt all together a lot more comfortable and relaxed than is often the case with their larger establishments. It’s a single room pub internally split over a couple of different levels with two or three steps between each. There is also an upstairs restaurant area, although this was not open when we visited. Décor wise it’s quite traditional, with wooden boards on the majority of the floor along with some attractive flagstone style tiling down the right hand side, dark green wood panelling on much of the walls with white wood panelling above and a low, whitewashed ceiling, although it’s a bit of shame that the old beams had also been painted over. A few brewery mirrors were on the wall, as well as a couple of interesting historical notes, some old pictures from the locale and a number of old McVities adverts who were originally based in the street. A TV showing a news channel was up in one corner, but the volume was off so this was not too intrusive. The menu offered a decent choice of “pub grub” dishes such as fish & chips, sausage & mash, steak & chips, and so on as well as a number of pies and burgers. My Chicken, Ham Hock & Cheese Pie was very tasty and a generous portion and quite good value at £10.75 I thought, although do check your bill as I was initially over charged. Beers on tap were their own Pale Ale, Deuchar’s IPA and Siren Broken Dream along with Jack Back and 80/- from the Stewart Brewery. The solitary cider meanwhile was Mortimer’s Orchard.

Official site of The Rose Street Brewery - www.nicholsonspubs.co.uk