The Orchard Inn, Hotwells, Bristol

Situated in a quiet side street close to the harbour front on what is named Spike Island is The Orchard Inn, a smallish single bar street corner pub. An unremarkable and rather basic interior has a tiled floor and comfortable seating around the walls. Several framed posters advertise the long gone Georges Bristol Brewery ( acquired by Courage ) It’s quickly apparent to the first time visitor that this is a specialist cider house. A blackboard by the bar listed around 20 different ciders at varying gravities and prices. Interestingly, hot mulled cider was on offer at £ 1.50p per half pint. The pub was voted CAMRA’s National Cider Pub of the Year for 2009. Occasional live music is offered. The pub is apparently famed for its “Hangover Café” breakfasts which it offers between 9am and noon on Saturday and Sunday mornings. On the real ale front, 4 beers were offered on my recent early evening visit – Otter Aardman Bitter, London Pride, plus stronger beers from Bath Ales and Arbor. “Aardman” Bitter apparently reflects the fact that the creator of Wallace and Gromit – Aardman Animations – is based nearby.The pub is listed in CAMRA’s 2011 Good Beer Guide. This is a reasonable pub and is convenient if visiting S S Great Britain, moored nearby. It’s not top of my list for a revisit however as there’s pubs closer to the City Centre that offer a greater variety of real ales.

We were not going to bother with this place as we walked around the harbourside, as it’s a fairly plain corner box on the outside with a couple of wooden tables to street side level. But we decided to venture in for one and I’m bloody glad we did. Although there are a couple of real ale hand pumps on the bar that is not the reason to visit the Orchard. As mentioned below this pub was awarded the Camra cider pub of the year 2009, primarily because there are so many ciders on offer that you can’t count them all ( I lost count at 15 chalked on the boards.). There’s a couple on pump, others in polypins on the bar and then several which involved the bar man disappearing somewhere. Considerate service with a couple of samples being offered especially as we’re cider novices and the only direction we could give the bar keep was ‘we’d like to try a couple of dry ones’. Anyway lots of different regional Ciders and Perrys with strange names and abv’s all around the 5-6% mark. So definitely recommended for those who like their alcoholic beverages to be made from Apples or Pears.

Amazing range of cider and a few good choices of real ale too, not to mention the food that's on offer. CAMRA's Cider Pub of the Year!