The Sidings, Bristol

A faceless exterior but being this close to Temple Meads the pub will always bring in transient custom,and I had half an hour to kill.It's open plan with two raised sections guarded by scaffolding poles.Nothing interesting to note (even the darts board has been removed),and although there are 6 handpumps only two were clipped with Otter Bitter and Salopian Hop Twister.However on ordering the Hop Twister the bar man poured from a barrel on stillage,and to be fair the ale quality was good.I noticed that the Otter Bitter was also racked up and two unmarked barrels were settling,so despite the depressing interior you may get lucky on the real ale front.

A fairly unappealing looking place at the bottom of a nasty 60’s/70’s tower block outside the rather more attractive Temple Meads station. The name is in acknowledgement of Isambard Kingdom Brunel (who was responsible for Temple Meads amongst a number of other Bristol landmarks) and his perceived recklessness. The interior is a very dated, spartan and tatty affair that concentrates on live music and biker-types. A raised area with industrial scaffolding-style railings for the bands. It was packed on my visit as it looked like a gig was about to take place. Beer-wise, six pumps but the two actually available were on from stillage - Otter and Butcombe. The Otter was, in fairness, pretty good and quite cheap. Not sure why anyone would want to come here outside of the live music evenings really, but if there’s a gig on then it looks a fair bet.