Parkside Tavern, Leeds

Not often I agree with Al Bundy but yes a promising exterior hiding a modern bland bar inside. One room downstairs with an area segregated by scaffolding poles at one end where four popular pool tables lurk. There’s a terrace bar advertised upstairs but being a cold wet day I thought better of that, ditto the beer garden with lovely views of the Merrion Street traffic jam. It has four pulls but only a poor Landlord available, multiple keg taps on the back wall but no more than two or three were that interesting; a blackboard on the bar back lists a few. Low seating at square modern tables with chairs and banquette seating. Basement bogs and it does pizza.

Oh dear. What looks promising is actually a bit of an underage looking nightmare. The exterior is welcoming but inside a monstrosity. There could well be other parts to this place but for me a 15 minute stay was enough. The bit I was in consisted of a single room with a couple of pool tables hiding behind some prisons-like bars. There were 4 handpumps on the bar, andwhile 2 Saltaire and a Theakstons beers were welcome, the pub itself is basically crap.

Brewer's Tudor establishment, recently redone in a slightly schizophrenic way, with the main bar mostly set up as a seating / dining area but the side part being a four-table pool hall. Mind you, when I got there, the music had been turned right up anyway throughout. Also has a fair number of wooden patio tables out front. Now offers 12 'craft' beers from a total of 16 taps (but some of these are normal keg offerings) and four real ales on handpump. There was a notional Theakston 'beer festival' on, with Best Bitter, Lightfoot (£3.70) and Old Peculier supplemented by Kirkstall Best Yorkshire Bitter as a guest.

Official site of Parkside Tavern - parksidetavern.co.uk

Official site of Parkside Tavern - parksidetavern.co.uk