Settle Inn, Stirling

Good Beer Guide 2020 Entry. Small bar with fierce coal burner. larger back room, with Bingo on a Monday night :-) Two hand pulls - surprisingly Hobgoblin and Tribute. What happened to national pride? Tribute nicely kept.

This quaint rural-style pub claims to be Stirling’s oldest public house, supposedly dating back to 1733, and it certainly looks and feels like a nice old historic pub. You enter into a tidy little front bar with the servery immediately along the right-hand wall. The bar has a nice dark wood counter and bar back under rustic criss-crossing beams. The front of the room boasts some pleasant wood panelling whilst the rest of the walls are exposed stone which includes an impressive arch on the left-hand wall beneath which there was a lit stove which was doing a fine job of keeping us all warm and cosy. Fairy lights have been strung around the place, helping to create a nice ambiance through muted lighting, whilst mirrors, old photographs and a well-stocked bookcase rounded out the décor. Two L-shaped banquettes provide the majority of the seating although most of the punters were sat on stools along the bar. A door leads through into a rear room which has plenty more seating and appears to have been hewn out of the rock in the hillside behind the pub, making it a very atmospheric spot. A decent ‘70’s rock soundtrack was playing in the background and probably reflected the tastes of the pub’s main customer base, which seemed to be middle-aged blokes, although a couple of confused looking students wandered in just as I was on my way out. They had three ales on at the bar – Hanlon’s Yellowhammer, Caledonian Piston Broke and Lee’s Phantom. The latter was a reasonable £3.20 for a pint and was a well-kept drop of ale served to me by a friendly, welcoming barmaid. I managed to walk right past this place earlier in the day without even spotting it, as it is a little out of the way and perhaps not where you expect to find a good pub, but I’d say it is well worth seeking out for some good beer in a very warm and welcoming environment. Probably the pick of the pubs I visited on my short tour around Stirling.