Theatre Royal Bar, Edinburgh

Very handy for the Playhouse theatre with a floral exterior. Interior as described below with the central island bar serving 5 real ales. Feels a bit "nicholson's lite" but nothing wrong with that.

As mentioned below The Theatre royal is next door to the Edinburgh Playhouse Theatre but nothing to do with it and a completely separate pub in its own right. But you could be excused for thinking it is the official theatre bar as it is made out to look just like one. Festooned with tons of flower baskets and troughs this time of year there is lots of external woodwork with some interesting heralding pipers on the stonework outside the pub and then internally the look and feel of an old theatre with a dark red and brown colour scheme, draped curtains and large chandeliers, a massive collection of framed bill posters from previous shows adorning all the walls, and then comfortable dark leather seating arranged as booths around the outside walls of the spacious interior. I’m not sure how original the large central island bar that’s sits in the middle of the pub is, but it certainly looks the part in these surroundings. There are four ale pumps on the bar and Caledonian Deuchars IPA and Flying Scotsman were on two of them but fortunately the other two had smaller Scottish brewery options in the form of Stewarts IPA and Orkney Brewery Raven Ale. Like all Theatre bars you have to pick your moment as it can be rammed to being uncomfortable one moment and then empty with no atmosphere the next. But if you catch it right, this is not a bad place for a pint in comfortable surroundings

Confusingly, this is adjacent to the Playhouse Theatre, not the Theatre Royal, and is completely separate and open to the general public, rather than actually being part of the Theatre itself. It's a sizeable place, with a long, central, island bar containing an impressive array of beer taps. There were more real ales than I managed to count, including a regular rotation of guest beers. Not cheap, at £3.30 for a pint of very palatable Stewart's 80 Shilling, but well worth a visit if you're a real ale enthusiast or taking in a play at the Theatre.