Whiskey Blue, Southampton

This is a large, modern looking bar and BBQ restaurant from Black Country brewers Sadlers. You enter into a large open plan room to find yourself in a spacious seating area with bare boards and plain walls stencilled with various promotional images and slogans. Standard tables and chairs fill much of this expansive area, with a raised stone tile floored space to the right where high tables and stools seem to predominate. Pillars and low walls break the room up a little and some of the low walls have been draped with plants to give the place a bit of colour and freshen up what might otherwise feel like quite a bland, plain room. The servery is in the mid section of the pub and has a long, curved dark wood counter split midway along by a big structural pillar. The bar has a modern bar back with unattractive wooden planks and some simple mirrors. The space opposite the bar is a little restricted, with just enough room for a drinking ledge along the opposing wall, but the room opens out once your pass the bar, into a smart carpeted lounge with long rows of tables and chairs which perhaps lend themselves more to those wanting to eat. The walls here have various books and magazine stuck to the walls, each opened out to specific pages before being stuck down, which creates an interesting, rather singular look. Obscured windows run around two sides of the building, so it’s tricky to gauge whether the pub is busy or not as you approach. There were five Sadlers ales on handpull when I visited during a busy pre-match Saturday afternoon. Options on this occasion comprised Sorcerer, Peaky Blinder, Hoppers Hut, American Rye and Hop Bomb, with four more pumps out of action. My pint of Hop Bomb was pretty good and served to me by a slightly distracted but friendly enough barman. This is an interesting choice of location for Sadlers’ first foray outside their local patch, but the place seemed to be quite popular and certainly doing a fine trade with football fans in the run up to the afternoon’s fixture. I found the place to be a little devoid of character – something that will perhaps improve over time – but delivering on good quality beer and a lively atmosphere.